Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., talks to reporters after a July policy luncheon meeting on Capitol Hill. Photo by Ken Cedeno/Reuters
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THE RULES CHANGE FLYING UNDER THE RADAR
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent
The news continues to be rapid-fire and high-stakes.
But as we watch developments on the economy, on National Guard deployments, on the phrase “Department of War” and on the files related to Jeffrey Epstein, we also want to point out that the Senate is embarking (again) on a historic change.
Last night, Senate Majority Leader John Thune started the process to change a core Senate function — the way the chamber approves a president’s nominees.
This is complicated. But we’ll explain it simply.
How do confirmations work now?
More than 1,300 positions in government require Senate confirmation. Each nomination is approved one-by-one on the Senate floor. In past years, the Senate has approved many of these in minutes by quick voice vote, or they have agreed to confirm groups of nominees together.
But this year, in protest of actions by President Donald Trump, Senate Democrats have forced each nomination to go through full Senate procedure, which can take days.
What are Republicans doing here?
Senate Republicans plan to change the nomination process so that large groups of nominees can be confirmed in a group. This will apply only to non-judicial nominees (lower-level for executive branches and agencies as well as ambassadorships). This wouldn’t include nominations for Cabinet positions, for example, which have a much longer confirmation process.
This rule change loosely echoes a proposed resolution from Democrats in 2023, introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., that would have allowed the Senate to confirm up to 10 nominations at a time.
At the time, Republicans blocked many of then-President Joe Biden’s picks. And now, during Trump’s first year back in office, Democrats have forced a full, and slow process for nearly every single one of the president’s executive branch nominees. There’s a backlog of about 150 nominees.
Calling it “historic obstruction,” Thune wrote in a column for Breitbart that the Senate cannot get through all of Trump’s needed nominations before the end of his term.
How does this process work?
Thune’s proposal will take a few days. And it is, of course, complicated.
But the gist of it is this: Thune filed a list of more than 40 nominees for confirmation on Monday. Republicans’ hope is to force a ruling by the parliamentarian declaring that it is against Senate rules to confirm nominees en masse. Afterward, Republicans will vote to overrule the parliamentarian, thereby establishing a precedent without needing to earn the two-thirds majority normally required for a rules change.
The big question, does this matter?
I will put it plainly — this is not as significant as some past uses of the so-called “nuclear option.” (Democrats’ 2013 rule change to get most judges through with just 50 votes and Republicans’ change in 2017 to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees created the courts of today.)
But it does still matter. Here are a few reasons why.
The most important currency in the U.S. Senate is time. This move gives Republicans back weeks and weeks of time, and increases the chances for a second reconciliation package in the next year.
This helps Thune fend off a more aggressive threat from Trump, who has toyed with the idea of asking Congress to recess so he could appoint officials without confirmation.
It is one of few steps toward a more functioning civil servant government.
What happens next?
Thursday, we expect votes and debate — they could be relatively lengthy — to change the rules.
Then next week, likely Wednesday, the first large group of nominees is poised for en masse confirmation.
Here is a nice post with the list, from our friends at Punchbowl. It’s worth knowing who is in this first nominee squadron.
All have some bipartisan support. Included are a large number of assistant and deputy secretaries, and a new inspector general for the CIA.
There are a few big names with some plum assignments. Kimberly Guilfoyle, former adviser to the Trump campaign and ex-girlfriend to Donald Trump Jr., who is poised to become ambassador to Greece; and Callista Gingrich, wife to former speaker Newt Gingrich, who is nominated to serve simultaneously as ambassador to Switzerland and Lichtenstein.
One Big Question: What are Trump’s promises to religious voters? NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter discuss.
Perspectives: RFK Jr. wants all new vaccines tested against a placebo. Doctors say that isn’t good science.
WHAT’S IN RFK JR.’S NEW ‘MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN’ REPORT
Watch the clip in the player above.
By Joshua Barajas
Senior Editor, Digital
There’s a new 20-page report from the Make America Healthy Again Commission.
The document is Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s big pitch to President Donald Trump on how to address what the agency deems to be the root causes of rising childhood chronic disease.
In his opening remarks at Tuesday’s news conference, Kennedy rattled off a list of reforms the administration is pursuing through the end of the year. They included:
Defining ultra-processed foods on front of packaging labels
Requiring nutrition and metabolic health courses in medical schools
Updating national water quality standards
Working with states to prevent SNAP benefits from covering items like soda and candy
These are the kinds of reforms, Kennedy said, that “would be unthinkable two years ago.”
“We are focusing narrowly on nutrition and metabolic health, food quality, cumulative exposures, microbiome, precision agriculture and mental health, and we're doing all these things with each other cooperatively and we're doing them very, very quickly,” he said.
This second report builds on the commission’s initial assessment in May that targeted poor diet, exposure to synthetic chemicals, a lack of physical activity and “overmedicalization,” including what Kennedy says is an overuse of vaccines.
Kennedy’s targeting of vaccines has drawn widespreadcriticismfrom doctors, health experts and medical associations who all point to the lifesaving value of vaccinations. Some of the actions detailed in the report are those the administration has already taken. There are few details about how these ideas will translate to regulatory actions.
The release of this report comes days after Kennedy faced pointed questions from lawmakers over his tenure, including the personnel turmoil at the nation’s health agencies and his approach to U.S. vaccine policy.
Two questions raised by Tuesday’s event:
Will this ‘MAHA’ report include an investigation into mental health and firearms? Kennedy told our Lisa Desjardins that the National Institutes of Health is studying the possible causes of gun violence in the country.
What will change, if anything, about the way the government investigates vaccine injuries? Fielding a question from another reporter, who pointed out that such a framework already exists, Kennedy said the current process makes it difficult for people to report a vaccine injury and doctors are de-incentivized from reporting.
A POSSIBLE NEW TRUMP TARGET: EMPLOYERS WHO HIRE UNAUTHORIZED WORKERS
Nearly 500 people were arrested in the Sept. 4 raid at a Hyundai battery factory outside of Savannah, about 300 of them from South Korea.
As President Donald Trump presses forward on his agenda, including promises of mass deportation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement called the operation its largest single-site raid ever. The raid shocked South Korean companies that have sought Georgia as a foothold for future investments.
Large-scale workplace raids are not new for Trump. But businesses have found conflicting messages around ramped-up immigration enforcement, as the administration targets major manufacturing, agriculture and hospitality operations but also praises these essential workers.
The Georgia raid could be a sign of a new target for the administration, NPR’s Jasmine Garsd told PBS News co-anchor Amna Nawaz.
“The Trump administration has said that they want to go after employers who employ undocumented or unauthorized labor, but this is really the first time we see that under the Trump administration,” she said. “We will have to see if it's a pattern.”
According to the Treasury Department’s phase-out plan, officials will stop putting the 1-cent coin into circulation in early 2026.
President Abraham Lincoln’s face has graced the penny for more than a century. After the U.S. Mint was established in 1792, one of the first coins it produced was the penny— but it featured a different face.
Our question: Who appeared on most pennies for more than 150 years before Lincoln? (Hint: It wasn’t a U.S. president.)
Send your answers to [email protected] or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.
Last week, we asked: What is the zippy nickname for Huntsville, Alabama, the new home for U.S. Space Command headquarters?
The answer: Rocket City. A city known for its close association with U.S. space missions and central role in developing NASA’s rockets is, yes, known as Rocket City. Huntsville is also home to Army’s Redstone Arsenal and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, further cementing its spot in space history.
Congratulations to our winners: Dan Browning and Benton Elliott!
Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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