Dem attempt to thwart Trump noms backfires, Republicans tee up nearly 100 for confirmation

Senate Democrats attempted to derail a batch of dozens of President Donald Trump's nominees but ended up giving Senate Republicans a surprise victory in the process.

Republicans were on the way to starting the long procedural process of confirming 88 of Trump’s picks but were blocked by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., over an issue with one of the nominees in the group.

When Senate Republicans went nuclear and changed the rules surrounding the confirmation process earlier this year to break through Senate Democrats’ blockade, they limited the scope to only sub-cabinet level positions that would be advanced through a simple, 50-vote majority.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said ahead of the vote that Democrats’ failed blockade of Trump’s picks could be chalked up to "Trump Derangement Syndrome."

"Democrats and their base still can't deal with the fact that President Trump won last November," Thune said. "And so they have held up every single one, every single one of his nominations in revenge. But Republicans have not been daunted. We've just continued plowing ahead on nominations, helping us rack up a historic number of votes this year in the process."

But one of the nominees in the group, Sara Bailey, was considered a "level 1" nominee, meaning she would hold a cabinet-level position. Trump tapped Bailey in March to be his drug czar as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

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Her inclusion in the package meant that in order for the 87 other nominees to be confirmed, Republicans would have to break the 60-vote filibuster threshold, which was unlikely given Senate Democrats' wholesale disapproval of many of Trump’s picks.

Senate Republicans took advantage of the opportunity and have decided to tack on even more of the president’s picks in a new, beefed-up package that will include 97 of Trump's nominees. 

"I think we'll add some more and do it next week," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., told Fox News Digital. "You know what happened was, you can't have cabinet-level, and I think drug czar is a cabinet-level now, and so the name was on the list, we just sort of invalidated the list."

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Bennet’s objection still pushes back Senate Republicans’ timeline to confirm the batch of nominees. Lawmakers had planned to move through the procedural steps and finish the process by the end of next week, but now the timeline is expected to stretch into the third week of December.

Once the process is finished, Republicans will have confirmed over 400 of Trump’s picks, putting him well ahead of former President Joe Biden, who at the same point last year had roughly 350 of his nominees confirmed.

And even though Senate Democrats believed they scored a win against the administration, Republicans are relishing the unexpected victory.

"Senate Republicans will now have the opportunity to confirm even more qualified nominees! Thank you to the Democrats for making this possible," a spokesperson for Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said.