John Thune to steamroll Chuck Schumer’s blockade of Trump nominees through ‘nuclear option’

Senate Republicans are on the verge of breaking Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s stranglehold over the confirmation process, ending seven months of unprecedented obstruction that has sought to prevent President Donald Trump from staffing his administration.

Thune is expected to invoke the rarely-used “nuclear option” to reform Senate rules allowing for the simultaneous confirmation of lower-level executive branch nominees as early as Monday, a senior Republican aide told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The historic rules change could grant the more than 100 civilian nominees who have been blocked from their postings due to Democrats’ persistent delay tactics a swift confirmation vote before the Senate is scheduled to go on recess on Sept. 19.

Thune has warned since July that Republicans would move to reform the upper chamber’s rules to circumvent Democrats’ nomination blockade if Schumer did not agree to speed up the confirmation process. The majority leader has worked to find consensus among his conference over the past several weeks to move forward with changing Senate rules.

Thune organized a working group in August after negotiations with Democrats to clear the backlog of executive branch nominees collapsed. The cohort included Republican Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, and Ted Budd of North Carolina.

The working group has coalesced around a plan to change Senate rules allowing for en bloc confirmations, meaning in groups, according to a senior Republican aide. The reform is based on a 2023 proposal from Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar that would have permitted up to ten nominees who have cleared the same committee to be confirmed at once.

Senate Republicans’ proposed reform, however, is likely to be more expansive by not capping the number of nominees that could be confirmed at one time.

The proposed rules change is also expected to exempt judges and Cabinet nominees. It is unclear whether Senate Republicans will allow executive branch nominees from multiple committees to be confirmed in one grouping.

Schumer has sought to grind the confirmation process to a halt since the opening days of Trump’s presidency. The lead Democrat told The Wall Street Journal in February that he would urge his caucus to vote “no” on every Trump nominee. Democrats have largely followed through by holding up every executive branch nominee since then.

In August, Schumer bragged about his caucus dragging out the confirmation process for Trump’s nominees as long as possible. Secretary of State Marco Rubio — the first appointee to secure confirmation — was the sole Trump nominee not subjected to a filibuster.

Senate Democrats’ historic blockade has also made Trump, in his second term, the first president since former President Herbert Hoover sat in the Oval Office roughly a century ago to not have a single civilian nominee confirmed via voice vote or unanimous consent at this point in his presidency.

In stark contrast, Trump had 65% of his civilian nominees confirmed via voice vote or unanimous consent in his first term. That percentage dropped slightly to 57% for former President Joe Biden.

Trump posted a graphic on the social media platform Truth Social on Friday to illustrate the disparity — and Senate Democrats’ sharp break from decades of Senate precedent.

“The Democrats have gone CRAZY,” the president observed.

Senate Republicans’ imminent rules change comes after former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used the “nuclear option” during former President Barack Obama’s second term to lower the threshold required to confirm executive branch and judicial nominees. Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also invoked the “nuclear option” to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees and cut debate time on most presidential nominees.

Though the proposed rules change is likely to benefit Democrats the next time they control the Senate and the White House, Senate Republicans have argued that Democrats’ nomination blockade is not sustainable. Despite Thune holding more votes in the Senate than any other has in 35 years, the Trump administration is on track to confirm the fewest nominees in recent memory.

“By the end of the 119th Congress (1/2/2027), the Senate is on track to confirm just 426 nominees, the fewest in history, and less than half of what other Presidents have averaged since 2000,” Britt, a member of the working group, wrote on X on Wednesday.

Fast forward to 2028. If the Senate keeps up this record pace of voting, President Trump will have just 872 nominees confirmed—the first time in history any President will have less than 1,000.

In the same time period:

Biden – 1,175 confirmed
Trump I – 1,233 confirmed
Obama –…

— Senator Katie Boyd Britt (@SenKatieBritt) September 3, 2025

Under Democrats’ current procedural roadblocks, the upper chamber would need to hold 600 additional roll call votes to clear the current backlog, a senior Republican aide told the DCNF. That number does not account for the hundreds of additional executive branch nominees also requiring Senate confirmation that have yet to clear their respective Senate committees.

“We have never seen a time where the opposition party has literally blocked and forced the president and his team and us here as the majority in the Senate to go through all the machinations of trying to get a nominee across the finish line,” Thune said during a Senate GOP leadership press conference on Wednesday.

“So this is of the Democrats’ making,” Thune continued. “There isn’t anything right now that they want to vote for that he has his fingerprints on, and getting his team in place is absolutely essential. It’s part of governing this country, and we’re going to move forward.”

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