Trump Calls on GOP Senators to Halt Biden’s Judicial Nominees

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‘Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line,’ the president-elect wrote.

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday called on Senate Republicans to halt President Joe Biden’s final judicial nominees before Inauguration Day next year.

“The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line—no more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!”

On Jan. 3, Democrats will lose their slim Senate majority, while Trump is slated to take office on Jan. 20. Republicans were able to flip three Senate seats during the November election and are forecast to have a 3-seat advantage.

Trump’s comment followed the Senate’s confirmation of Judge Embry Kidd to be part of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

“We’re not done. There are more judges to consider and confirm. We’re going to spend the rest of this week and the rest of this year focused on confirming them,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor Tuesday.

In a post on social media platform X, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) wrote Tuesday that she “was on the Senate floor until almost midnight last night voting to confirm President Biden’s judicial nominees” and that Democrats will continue to do so “until the clock runs out.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called on Schumer in an opinion article, published by Time magazine, to use the remaining time to “confirm federal judges and key regulators,” who cannot “be removed by” Trump when he takes office.

The White House said in a Nov. 8 statement that Biden nominated 261 total judges to the judiciary during his nearly four years in office while announcing his 56th round of judicial picks. The Senate has so far confirmed 216. During Trump’s first term in office, 234 of his nominees were confirmed to federal courts.

Kidd was one of five nominees to the 13 intermediate appeals courts who were awaiting Senate consideration at the time of the Nov. 5 election. Biden has 28 announced nominees to the trial and appellate courts pending.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) told Fox News that he plans to initiate a slowing down of the nomination process for judges.

“If Sen. Schumer thought Senate Republicans would just roll over and allow him to quickly confirm multiple Biden-appointed judges to lifetime jobs in the final weeks of the Democrat majority, he thought wrong,” the senator said.

Days after the election, Trump similarly demanded that “no judges should be approved” during the lame-duck congressional session.

“The Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Nov. 10, before Senate Republicans voted to have Thune become their next leader.

Around the same time, the president-elect called on the Senate Republican leader to allow for recess appointments of his Cabinet picks. Thune has not ruled it out, telling Fox News on Nov. 14 that “all options are on the table, including recess appointments.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) also signaled in a recent interview with Fox News that he also isn’t ruling out recess appointments.

The U.S. Constitution says the president can make recess appointments to fill vacant positions when the Senate is not in session. Past presidents have taken advantage of this clause. Former President Barack Obama made 32 recess appointments, while former President George W. Bush made 171, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Reuters contributed to this report.