Senate Republicans are poised to cement a historic confirmation tally for President Donald Trump, far surpassing the pace set under Joe Biden and Trump’s first term.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans are closing out the year with a confirmation record that sharply outpaces both the Biden administration and Trump’s first term, underscoring an aggressive push to staff the federal government despite sustained Democratic resistance.
Senate Republicans are preparing to approve a bloc of 97 Trump nominees, a move that will bring the total number of confirmations in Trump’s second term to at least 417 once the package clears later this week. The figure places Trump well ahead of prior administrations at the same point in their presidencies.
“We will, by the end of this year, have a record number of [Trump’s] nominees approved to the executive branch,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Fox News on Thursday.
By comparison, former President Joe Biden had secured 365 confirmations by the end of December 2021, while Trump had reached 323 confirmations by the close of 2017 during his first term.
The latest slate of nominees includes former Republican New York Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, who is slated to take on a senior role at the Department of Labor, along with two nominees for the National Labor Relations Board—James Murphy and Scott Mayer—among 94 other appointees spanning the federal government.
The anticipated confirmations for the NLRB follow Trump’s decision earlier this year to remove Gwynne Wilcox, a Biden appointee, from the board. That action was later upheld as lawful by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Senate Republicans are also expected to individually confirm Jared Isaacman, a noted ally of Elon Musk, to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, as well as Douglas Weaver to serve on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The rapid pace follows a procedural shift spearheaded by Thune in September, when Republicans moved to change Senate precedent to allow an unlimited number of non-Cabinet, non-judicial nominees to be confirmed simultaneously. The change came after months of what Republicans described as unprecedented Democratic obstruction of Trump’s nominees.
In Trump’s current term, he has become the first president in roughly a century not to have a single civilian nominee confirmed by the Senate through unanimous consent or voice vote, a circumstance Republicans attribute to Democratic delay tactics.
After Republicans invoked the so-called nuclear option to accelerate confirmations, the Senate approved a 48-member nominations package in September and cleared 108 Trump nominees in a single group vote in October.
Beyond executive branch appointments, Senate Republicans have confirmed 26 federal judges to district and circuit courts this year, with more than 30 U.S. attorney nominees also expected to be confirmed before the Christmas recess.
Trump has repeatedly pressed Senate Republicans to end the blue slip courtesy, a practice more than a century old that allows home-state senators to effectively block U.S. attorney nominees. Democrats have declined to return blue slips for prosecutor nominees in states including New York, New Jersey, and Virginia.
Supporters of the blue slip tradition, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, have argued it serves as a safeguard for Republicans when a Democrat occupies the White House. Grassley has also said his focus remains on ensuring Trump’s judicial nominees have sufficient support to advance out of the Judiciary Committee, where Republicans hold a 12–10 majority.
Some Republicans on the panel have indicated they would oppose U.S. attorney nominees who lack backing from a home-state senator, even if the blue slip tradition were abandoned.
As the year comes to a close, the confirmation numbers reflect an intensified Republican strategy to entrench Trump’s personnel across the federal government, setting a modern-era benchmark for Senate approvals amid deep partisan division.
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