Senate Republicans are determined to restore long-standing practices to accelerate the confirmation of President Donald Trump's nominees amid unprecedented Democrat obstruction, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Newsmax on Tuesday.
"What [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer did was declare the nuclear option," the Tennessee Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "What Republicans are saying is, let's return to the way the Senate has worked for years. We want to get President Trump's nominees confirmed and get them to work, putting in place the agenda the American people overwhelmingly voted for."
The solution, she said, is to return to the practice of handling lower-level nominees by unanimous consent or voice vote.
"Going back to the process that worked for years, where many of these lower-level nominees were confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote, is exactly what we should do so that we get them through the process," Blackburn said.
The senator added that she believes Senate Majority Leader John Thune was right in warning that the backlog cannot be cleared under current procedures.
Opening the Senate on Monday, Thune called ongoing Democrat obstruction "unsustainable," adding that "if the delays continue, there is no practical way that we could come close to filling all the vacancies in the four years of the administration, no matter how many hours the Senate works."
Blackburn also stressed that filling vacancies is central to delivering on Trump's platform. "Remember, he won the Electoral College and the popular vote, and the American people want to see action taken so that we get inflation down, so that we continue to secure this border, so that we are rebuilding our military, so that we are fighting crime in communities, areas where President Trump has done tremendous work," she said.
Blackburn also previewed a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing featuring two whistleblowers on Facebook parent company Meta's handling of child safety concerns.
"I am so looking forward, and we've worked really hard through the month of August to prepare for this hearing today," she said. "With this virtual reality, children are not able to distinguish between what is happening to their avatar and what is happening to them, and the physiological and psychological effects are the same. Meta knows this. [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg knows this. The legal team at Meta is aware of this… parents are so tired of these social media platforms using children as a product so that they can gather their data. And then the social media platforms profit off that data."
Turning to last month's stabbing death of a Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte, North Carolina, Blackburn tied the crime to what she described as soft policies that allow repeat offenders back on the streets.
"Well, I will point to two bills that I filed last week that deal with this issue of cashless bail," she said. "And it is these prosecutors and these judges who are soft on crime, local elected officials, and, of course, the governor of North Carolina in this instance, that have, along with the mayor, promoted these soft-on-crime policies."
She also outlined legislation targeting jurisdictions that decline to enforce bail requirements.
"What one bill does is to end cashless bail in D.C.," said Blackburn. "We know that the president's crackdown on crime in D.C. has made a tremendous difference. The other bill would restrict federal funding to these cities and states that are sanctuary cities or that do not enforce cash bail, letting these people, these repeat violent offenders out of jail to go back on the street and to commit crime. Many times, they are back on the street before the paperwork is finished by the arresting officer."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.