Exclusive — Thune on Confirming Trump Nominees: Dems ‘Can Scream and Light Their Hair on Fire, but It’s Not Going to Change Anything’
WASHINGTON — It’s a new era in the U.S. Senate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is celebrating the new GOP majority’s breakneck pace, telling Breitbart News he is proud of the chamber’s increased frequency of votes and how Republicans this year are scrambling to get President Donald Trump’s appointees in place. Republicans took a 53-seat majority in the Senate in November, retaking control of the chamber for the first time in four years where Democrats led by now-Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had controlled the Senate. Republicans under Thune are not wasting any time racing Trump’s nominees and the president’s agenda through.
In fact, Senate Republicans have voted more in their first 100 days of their majority — from January 3 when the new Congress took over until early April — than any U.S. Senate since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. And they have confirmed Trump’s Cabinet faster than any U.S. Senate majority did for any new president in the past 20 or so years, dating back to the early days of the George W. Bush administration. That means they actually outpaced former President Barack Obama, whose Democratic Party had a 60-seat supermajority in the early days of his administration in 2009, and certainly have gone faster than in Trump’s first term or former President Joe Biden’s administration too.
“Well, we’re working,” Thune said. “That’s a departure from where we were the past four years under Schumer. Obviously, the goal is to confirm the president’s team as quickly as possible. We did that with his cabinet — the fastest rate in more than 20 years — we’ve had the Senate in session for more than ten consecutive weeks for the first time in 15 years. As you point out, we had more than 200 votes and that by far dwarfs anything we’ve seen going back to Reagan. So, and I always tell people that, in Washington, you can’t always equate being busy and activity with productivity. There’s sometimes a difference. But, we’re — as you point out — the Democrats are trying to block and obstruct and delay anything we do, but we want the president’s team in place and we want to move on his agenda.”
He added, “I think we’ve made good headway on that and we’ve gotten several bills passed already, and we’ll pass more. But the big beautiful bill that he talks about and that we’re working closely with his team and with Speaker Johnson in the House on, is still ahead of us and that’s going to be some work, but if we can deliver on that — we have to deliver on that — there’s just a lot of good stuff in there to get done for the country.”
Thune told Breitbart News later in this interview that he is targeting July 4 for getting the reconciliation bill to the president’s desk — that clip was the first-published from this sit-down. Trump administration officials are ecstatic that Thune has agreed with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the target date for getting the bill to the president is Independence Day, the beginning of the 250th year for the United States, something that comes after House Speaker Mike Johnson has agreed to a similar timeline — albeit for that to happen, the House has to move faster, by about Memorial Day which the Speaker has said is his chamber’s target.
Thune is also pleased with the pace at which Trump administration officials have been confirmed — faster than most recent previous administrations — by the Senate. Asked how he made it happen despite Democrat obstruction, he said he told the Democrats they would keep them in on nights and weekends if needed to run the procedural clock down on nominees whenever they obstruct. The Senate has regularly done that.
“Well and basically what we told the Democrats is you can do this the hard way or the easy way,” Thune said. “In many cases, they have insisted we do it the hard way. But there are ways the minority can put obstacles in the way and slow things down which they have done at every turn. But in spite of that, we’ve kept people here — we’ve been here nights, we’ve been here some weekends, and we’ve just kind of kept grinding away and keep filling the pipeline with more noms.”
With the president’s cabinet in place, and many of the under-cabinet level administration officials confirmed now, Thune and the Senate Republicans are turning to ambassadors and judges next. On that front, too, Thune said this Senate GOP majority is ahead of recent history.
“So we’re ahead on ambassadors too for example,” Thune said. “We have confirmed ten of the president’s ambassadors and that’s if you look at going back to Bush 41, he had the most maybe at four, Obama had a couple, and Biden had one. So we’re staying ahead of the pace but bear in mind, there is a lot to do. There are a number of not only — you look at the number of executive branch positions that come through the Senate for confirmation, and on top of that all the judges. The president now is just starting to submit some of the judiciary vacancies we need to fill. The Senate spends about two thirds of its time on personnel. That is part of our function and job so we take it very seriously and we’ve got to figure out how to wedge legislation in there in between.”
With several ambassadors already confirmed, many more are on the way to their confirmation. A group of Trump’s ambassadors are this week going through what is called, “ambassador school,” in Washington, where they prepare for their posts. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will then hold hearings with many of them, some of them in groups, and then report their nominations out of committee to be considered by the full U.S. Senate.
Specifically, Thune commented on Kimberly Guilfoyle — Trump’s pick to be ambassador to Greece — because Breitbart News noted to him that the Prime Minister of Greece and other major officials in interviews with Breitbart News said they are eagerly awaiting her confirmation. Thune said that as soon as her hearing happens and she is reported out of committee, the full Senate looks forward to confirming her. The same goes for many of the other remaining ambassadors. And Democrats, he said, can whine about it all they want, but Thune said these nominees are going to make it through the confirmation process.
“As you know, obviously, they’re all important, but there are certain posts in the world,” Thune said. “You mentioned having just been in Greece and Kimberly Guilfoyle has been nominated for that position, and as soon as she comes out of the Foreign Relations Committee we want to obviously get her teed up for confirmation on the Senate floor too, but yeah, this week we did Turkey, we did the U.K., we did China, and we did Italy — all important posts and now especially with everything going on with China getting David Perdue installed there. Warren Stephens is going to the U.K. The president has nominated some terrific people for these positions.”
“We need to make sure we get them there as quickly as we can,” Thune added. “Again, it’s a process of just grinding it out. The Democrats are making every part of this much harder than it should be. Even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who ultimately got confirmed by a big lopsided vote in the U.S. Senate, came out of the Senate Armed Services Committee by a vote of 23-4, but Elizabeth Warren decided she was going to filibuster the nomination on the floor and so she drug it out, and we ended up having to have those votes in the middle of the night, but eventually we’re going to get them. The Democrats, they can scream and light their hair on fire, but it’s not going to change anything. We’re just going to keep wearing it down.”
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