GOP goes nuclear in Senate, changing rules to speed confirmation of Trump nominees after negotiations with Democrats collapse

By Ted Barrett, Morgan Rimmer, CNN

(CNN) — Republicans jammed through a change to Senate rules on Thursday that will allow them to more quickly confirm many of President Donald Trump’s nominees.

The move came over the objections of Democrats after bipartisan negotiations collapsed. The rules change will allow nominees to be considered en bloc, or as a group, as tensions have grown over several months between the two parties over the backlog of President Donald Trump’s nominees awaiting Senate confirmation. The vote was 45-53.

Bipartisan negotiators worked furiously Thursday to reach an agreement that would head off Republicans from using the so-called nuclear option to allow the GOP to more quickly confirm Trump nominees. The deal ultimately fell apart when they were unable to get all senators to agree to move on to a new, negotiated rules change on Thursday.

Democrats argued that negotiations collapsed because Republicans were rushing, rather than wait for the negotiated proposal to be ready early next week.

“This would buy us the time we need and not cost the leader anything,” said Senate Democratic Deputy Whip Brian Schatz.

“I am legitimately shocked that we are 94% of the way there” and not moving forward, he added, noting he was “deeply disappointed.”

Republican Sen. James Lankford acknowledged there wasn’t enough trust between the two sides to wait any longer, and a fired-up Senate Majority Leader John Thune demanded of Democrats, “How much time is enough?”

“Time to quit stalling,” said Thune, arguing that the Senate has had to devote more of their floor time this year to nominees, with Democrats not giving consent to speed up the confirmation process.

“Do you guys like the fact that we’re a personnel department?” he asked. “This is a broken process folks. That’s an embarrassment.”

GOP senators have complained for months that Democrats, who are angry over many of Trump’s actions, are slow walking virtually all of his nominees and making it hard on the new administration to get up and running. They argue Democrats have abandoned what they call Senate “precedent” to confirm many lower-level jobs by voice vote or unanimous consent and in groups of nominees, not just individually.

Republicans’ rule change will apply only to executive branch civilian nominees, not Cabinet members nor the judiciary.

Leaving the Senate, Thune acknowledged he was “coming in a little hot” in his remarks on the floor, saying he “felt like we were sort of being strung along. And, you know, it’s just like, more time, more time, more time.”

“There were some discussions that had happened that looked a little bit promising. But then everything started, ‘Well, we got to have the weekend, talk about it and think about it,’ and, you know – and so anyway, it was just, you know, there’s a time when you have to act. And that time was now,” the Republican leader said.

Negotiations centered around a plan originally proposed when Democrats were in the majority by Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the Senate rules committee. It would allow 10 nominees to be confirmed at the same time. Republicans signaled their willingness to accept it if the number was raised to 15 from each Senate committee, but Democrats were ultimately not able to get all of their members to consent to making the change on Thursday.

The nuclear option allows Republicans to change Senate rules on a majority vote, not the 67 typically required for such a change.

Democrats, who years ago used the nuclear option to weaken the filibuster for nominees in the face of GOP intransigence, complain the Republican plan would mean unqualified nominees will escape scrutiny, something Republicans deny.

Confirmations under the new rules won’t take place until next week.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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