After Senate 'Nuclear Option,' an Explosion of Confirmations

The Senate has confirmed 48 of President Trump's nominees at once, voting for the first time under new rules to begin clearing a backlog of executive branch positions that had been delayed by Democrats. Frustrated by the stalling tactics, Senate Republicans moved last week to make it easier to confirm large groups of lower-level, nonjudicial nominations. Democrats had forced multiple votes on almost every one of Trump's picks, infuriating the president and tying up the Senate floor.

• The new rules, which senators call the "nuclear option," allow Senate Republicans to move multiple nominees with a simple majority vote—a process that would have previously been blocked with just one objection, the AP reports. The rules don't apply to judicial nominations or high-level Cabinet posts. "Republicans have fixed a broken process," Thune said ahead of the vote.

• The Senate voted 51-47 to confirm the four dozen nominees. Thune said that those confirmed on Thursday had all received bipartisan votes in committee, including deputy secretaries for the Departments of Defense, Interior, and Energy.
• Among the confirmed are Jonathan Morrison, the new administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and Kimberly Guilfoyle as US ambassador to Greece. Guilfoyle is a former California prosecutor and television news personality who led the fundraising for Trump's 2020 campaign and was once engaged to Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr.
• Thune's move is the latest salvo after a dozen years of gradual changes by both parties to weaken the filibuster and make the nominations process more partisan. Republicans first proposed changing the rules in early August, when the Senate left for a monthlong recess after a breakdown in bipartisan negotiations over the confirmation process and Trump told Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to "GO TO HELL!" on social media.

• Democrats have blocked more nominees than ever before as they have struggled to find ways to oppose Trump and the GOP-dominated Congress, and as their voters have pushed them to fight Republicans at every turn. It's the first time in recent history that the minority party hasn't allowed at least some quick confirmations.
• Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has said Democrats are delaying the nominations because Trump's nominees are "historically bad." And he told Republicans that they will "come to regret" their action—echoing a similar warning from then-GOP Leader Mitch McConnell to then-Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2013, when Democrats changed Senate rules for executive branch and lower court judicial nominees to remove the 60-vote threshold for confirmations in respone to the GOP blocking Barack Obama's picks.
• Republicans will move to confirm a second tranche of nominees in the coming weeks, gradually clearing the list of more than 100 nominations that have been pending for months. "We'll ensure that President Trump's administration is filled at a pace that looks more like those of his predecessors," Thune said