Senate Majority Leader John Thune joined me on the program today to discuss the rules changes the Senate GOP Conference have agreed to impose on the Senate’s confirmation processes via the precedent set by then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in 2013:

Audio:

09-04hhs-thune

Transcript:

HH: Welcome to the Thursday edition of the program which I begin with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senator from South Dakota. Senator Thune, welcome back. It’s great to have you, Leader. I understand you were in Columbus this past weekend at the Shoe. How low was it, Senator?

JT: It was deafening, as you would expect, Hugh. Your fans came out in full force, and they got a big win, a great way to start off the season. And it was very exciting for me, and I had some of my family members there, because it’s just a, it’s an atmosphere that’s really second to none, as you know.

HH: Well, you didn’t get to see QB1B, Lincoln Kienholz, who’s from Pierre, South Dakota.

JT: Yeah.

HH: But he will play this year, I think a lot. I don’t know how often you’re going to go back to the Shoe, but he will play.

JT: I hope so. He’s incredibly athletic. I got a chance to watch him, of course, in high school. And he’s a special athlete. So yeah, I hope they find a way to integrate him into some of their schemes, offensive schemes or whatever, because I think he’d bring a lot to that offense. But they’re talented…

HH: I’m waiting to see special packages for him, and I expect Coach Day to do that. Now Leader Thune, I want to get to the important stuff. I watched your press conference after the conference meeting yesterday. The Dems have been absolutely standing in the way of everything when it comes to nominees. You have pledged to invoke the nuclear option and change the nominee rules. When will that happen?

JT: Well, if everything goes according to plan, hopefully next week. I think we’re, as you would expect, Hugh, we have kind of shopped these ideas around about how to do this in a way that actually helps us clear the backlog and creates a way for us to confirm the rest of Trump’s administration, President Trump’s administration. We’ve got to figure out how to make sure we’ve got the votes to move it. And so we’ve been having those conversations here, and I hope that we get to a spot where we’re ready to move. And if things go according to plan, I think we get on that next week.

HH: Now is that a Tuesday, a Wednesday, or a Thursday next week, Senator?

JT: I think it starts early in the week. My hope would be that we’re on it Monday or Tuesday. It’s going to take a little while, because these things all have, any time you’re talking about some of the changes that we’re contemplating here, it does, it takes some time to work it through the process. But we’re intent. We know this has got to be fixed. The Democrats have created this problem. Chuck Schumer, but prior to Chuck Schumer, this was always done in a way where if you had some of those, you know, lower level nominees in the administration, those were all handled by, voted in bloc. I mean, they were packaged, they were grouped, they were stacked, and that just doesn’t happen. This is the first president in history, in the annals as we went as far back as Herbert Hoover’s administration. There hasn’t been one president which the exception of Trump who at this point in his presidency hasn’t had at least one nominee clear by unanimous consent or voice vote. It’s unprecedented what they’re doing. It’s got to be stopped. The President deserves his team, and that’s what the American people voted for, and we intend to deliver it.

HH: I did my research. And I want to know the audience to know what I’m working off of. In the 101st Congress, which was H.W. Bush’s Congress, 817 civilian nominees received confirmation by unanimous consent/voice vote. Under President Clinton, it was 1,100. In the 107th Congress for W., it was 911. In the 111th Congress for President Obama, it was 856. In the 115th Congress for President Trump’s first term, it was 533. In the 117th Congress for President Biden, it was 530. This Congress, zero. Zero. Not one unanimous consent/voice vote for a civilian nominee. The inverse of that, total Senate votes by year – 2017, there were 187 Senate votes. 2018 – 200. 2019 – 262. 2020 – 157. 2021 – 358. 2022 – 325. 2023 – 212. 2024 – 230. Thus far in 2025, there have been 500 votes. What’s that tell us, those two sets of data that I just gave us, Senator?

JT: That the Democrats are engaging in record obstruction. I mean, we’ve been in more hours, more days, cast more votes than any Congress in certainly modern history, Hugh. And I think it’s indicative of just the political environment. I mean, Chuck Schumer and the far left, this is Elizabeth Warren, this is Bernie Sanders, it’s Chris Murphy, it’s Cory Booker, they have decided to just virtually shut down anything that this president wants to accomplish, and try and use the floor, the Senate floor to delay and block and obstruct. And it is, as I said, Trump Derangement Syndrome on steroids here in the United States Senate. It can’t be, this just can’t continue. We can’t function as a government in this country unless the president’s able to get his people in place. So it starts there. I mean, they’re doing it on everything, but these nominees, you just pointed it out. I mean, it’s just, you can’t argue with the data. It’s just absolutely crystal clear what they’re up to, and that is to try and completely put road blocks up and stop this Trump agenda. The American people voted for the President. They voted for him to have his team in place. And it also prevents us from doing other work. I mean, their, all the other things we need to do around here, we’re spending two-thirds of our time on personnel. I mean, think about that. The United States Senate is spending two-thirds of its time on human resources.

HH: Well, there are between 1,200 and 1,400 positions that require the advice and consent of the Senate. And I believe you’ve been able to act on 135 of those, thus far. I want to get to the particulars, but first, a little history. You’re going to have to use the nuclear option. The Senate is a continuing body. So to change the rules is a big deal, and that means a continuing body, only a third of it comes in every two years. Two-thirds of it are not new, and they have a rules package. Normally, it’s never amended, but Harry Reid, the late majority leader from Nevada, a Democrat, invoked the so-called nuclear option to change Senate rules by a simple majority on November 21st, 2013 for all nominees except Supreme Court nominees. Your predecessor in the Republican job, Leader McConnell, used the Reid rule, the Reid precedent on April 6th, 2017 to extend the Reid rule and the Reid precedent to Supreme Court nominees. Now, you’re going to invoke the nuclear option to change the Senate rules to do what, Senator Thune?

JT: Well, I mean, we have to reform a broken system, Hugh. You used the analysis that you provided, the data that you provided earlier in terms of votes and time spent, time wasted doing nominations. This is historic. This has never happened before. In the past, both Republican and Democrat Senates, in the way that they treated both Republican and Democrat presidencies, as you point out, is that a lot of these lower level nominees in various agencies and departments of our government were handled by unanimous consent. People just agreed. These are people that, you know, the president needs his team in place. So the level of obstruction is historic. We’ve got to reform a broken system, and so what we intend to do is to allow to happen what has happened up until now just the old-fashioned by unanimous consent, where we take a bloc of these noms and approve them in bloc as opposed to having to vote on them. First, you’ve got, the way the Democrats are doing it right now, they force you to file cloture, which I’ve had to do endlessly. Then, you have to have an intervening day. Then, you have to invoke cloture. That’s a motion to proceed vote. And then, you have another intervening time period, and then you have a final vote. So we’ve exercised that, as you pointed out, 135 times already. But we have 300 nominees in the pipeline, either out of committee or coming through the process right now. Between now and the end of the year, to get them confirmed, and by the way, if they aren’t confirmed by the end of the year, they go back, and the administration has to resubmit them all over again. That would be 600 votes. And you said, we’ve already had 500 votes, and we’ve been here more than any other Senate in history. So this can’t continue. There is no way. The American people deserve better than this, and the Democrats here in Washington have moved so far to the left in terms of who’s, you know, the tail wagging the dog, and I don’t think Chuck Schumer has any control of his conference anymore. It’s the far left that’s driving this, and they aren’t going to let this president have any wins on anything. And they’re going to do everything they can to drag it out. So we’ve got to reform a broken process, and the way that we intend to do it is to get back to the way this was done prior to Chuck Schumer’s Senate.

HH: Now Leader Thune, I’ve been doing this long enough I was around when then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was going to use the nuclear option in 2005 because of an unprecedented Democratic blockade of George W. Bush’s judges. And we got right up to the line to pulling the trigger, and seven Republicans defected, and the Gang of 14 upended it. They sacrificed Miguel Estrada and other fine nominees like Carolyn Kuhl on the alter of Democratic appeasement. Are you certain of your conference? Are they going to support you in the nuclear option?

JT: Well, we are trying, doing everything we can right now, Hugh, to shore up, to make sure we’ve got the votes to execute on this, because, and that’s obviously, that’s a fair question. And we’re trying to confirm that. We’ve laid out the reasons why. I don’t think there’s any question people acknowledge that this is a problem that has to be fixed. We can’t continue like this. This is not, the Senate cannot do its work. It’s not going to be able to function as an institution unless we make some changes. But it’s always a function of trying to, you know, round up the votes and ensure that you’ve got the requisite number to actually execute on getting this done. So we’re working on that at the moment. I’m hopeful that we’re going to land there, and we’re doing everything we can. I’m sitting down with individual senators as I have been now for, and having these conversations on an individual basis, and then bringing smaller groups together. And then, of course, we spent two hours yesterday with all of our Republican senators kind of walking through the reasons why we need to do this. And I think everybody realizes that this is just, this pattern can’t continue.

HH: Now Leader Thune, the Republicans lost the Senate in the 2006 Elections after the Gang of 14 intervened, because I think, in part, a lot of that was the Iraq War. A lot of it, though, why have a majority if nobody uses it. There are two members of the Gang of 14 still left. I doubt very much Senator Graham or Senator Collins will vote against the nuclear option this time, because they understand you can’t run a government with 135 people. They’re very serious people. But you’ve got some folks who aren’t running for reelection who might just want to stick their thumb in Donald Trump’s eye. Are you going to hold a vote regardless, because I would like to know who, if someone won’t support this, I’d like to know who.

JT: Yeah, well, and you’ll get that opportunity, because we don’t, I don’t think we have any choice. We have to, we’ve got to move forward. I mean, the other alternative, Hugh, as you know, and this is also a, I put this out there as a viable alternative. If in the event we don’t have the votes to do it this way, there’s always recess appointment. That also takes 51 votes, because you have to adjourn the Senate. And there are some people who would, I’m sure some who would object to that option. But I think if you look at the alternatives that are in front of us right now, the best way to do this is to change the Senate, reform the Senate rules in a way that enables the United States Senate and the President to get their people in place. I mean, I think that’s, again, the American people when they cast their votes last November had an expectation that the President was going to be able to assemble a team to execute on the agenda that they voted for. And he is a duly elected president. He deserves to have his team in place. This obstructionist Senate is using the delaying/blocking tactics in ways that have never been done before. And in the time I’ve been here and watched this, and like all the history that we compiled going back decades, never been done before. And so we’ve got to deliver. And I just, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got the votes to do that, but I think our folks realize that we don’t have many options here.

HH: Now Senator Thune, I would approve of carving out judicial nominees for the same standard that is currently in place. Those are lifetime appointments. I understand going on a lifetime appointment, going as long as it takes and getting 30 hours of debate or whatever it is, two hours of debate. It depends on what job they’re up for. But these are 3 ½-year appointments. I just don’t understand why it’s even a question if they get out of committee that it gets a vote a week later. So are you going to divide the judicial nominees from all the other civilian nominees?

JT: We are. I mean, we’ve left the judiciary as is, as we did with cabinet-level appointees. Those are treated in a different fashion. But so many of these, the 1,110 or so that you mentioned on the executive calendar are positions that frankly, 1) I would argue, I don’t know that they need a Senate confirmation in the first place. I think the President ought to be able to put his team together. But to the degree that they do need Senate confirmation, there needs to be a process that enables these people to get into their jobs in a reasonable time period. I mean, think about this. We are now eight months into this president’s term, and he has, I believe, 11 or 12% of his folks in place, because we’ve had to grind it out. The Democrats have forced us to go through all the hoops. We haven’t had a single one confirmed by unanimous consent, a practice that has been employed by Senates, like I said, Republican and Democrat, with Republican and Democrat presidents going back decades. This is a new level of obstruction, and it’s got to be dealt with in a way that enables the President and us to do the jobs the American people elected us to do.

HH: Now I want to close this part of the conversation, Senator, by underscoring I’m prepared to live with this for Democrats as well. If you can get someone out of committee, they ought to get a vote. The Constitution all but says that. It says the Senate shall provide advice and consent. It doesn’t mean you have to vote yes, but you have to provide a vote. That’s implied there. Are your colleagues prepared to live with it under a Democratic president and a Democratic majority, because they will have to?

JT: Not surprisingly, that’s been one of the big conversations. As you might expect, Hugh, we have folks as we think through the long-term impacts of everything that we do, if you have a future Democrat president and a future Democrat Senate, what does this look like? And I think that on that point, I mean, I would argue that a Republican or Democrat president, you’re, you know, people who run for that office are elected by the American people, deserve to be able to put their team together.

HH: Yes.

JT: There are prerogatives that the Senate has, as you point out, Constitutionally – advice and consent. And we want to preserve and retain that. We believe this does that, but we have to, we’ve got to, we can’t do what we’re doing today. The Democrats have broken the system, and this is Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats, a problem of their making. Unfortunately, the Republicans are going to have to clean up their mess.

HH: Now I understand you can’t say one way or the other. I’m just putting it in your ear. Please force a vote on these changes, because I want to know who among the Republicans is not really understanding their Constitutional duty or their debt to the party. And that’s fine. Let the chips lie where they may, but I want to know. You know, the Gang of 14, we had the names and the argument. We lost the Senate thereafter having done that. Last question, Senator. The Schumer shutdown is in the offing. I can’t believe he’s going to do this. Are there any moves by the Democrats to prevent a government shutdown, or do they want one?

JT: I think that they see it politically advantageous to have the government shut down, because I think historically, they always perceive, at least, that the president party in power is often blamed for that. But I honestly think if we have done our jobs right, and I think I’ve talked to and met with the Speaker yesterday, and I’m meeting later today with the President in the White House to, there are a number of things we’re going to cover, including nominations. But I think, too, this question of funding the government and whether or not the Democrats, they think it’s a political gainer for them to shut the government down, I expect they’re going to try and look for ways to do that, which means we’ve got to be doing everything we can to take away any excuses they have. And we’ve got to fund the government. We realize that. But we also want to fund it in a way that makes the government more efficient, smaller, and a better return for the taxpayer. So those are all objectives that we have, and you know, clearly not shared by the Democrats. And so we’re going to have, I’m sure, rather testy conversations here in the weeks ahead. But if we end up in that posture, I just want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can, and the American people understand that it’s the Republicans who are trying to keep the government open and running in a responsible, fiscally responsible and efficient way, and the Democrats who are trying to shut it down. I think that’ll be clear.

HH: If serious people could be heard, it would be louder than the Ohio State stadium last Saturday. Senator Thune, they would be saying go for the nuclear option, break the logjam, get the government staffed. And if Senator Schumer wants to shut down the government, leave it on him. Thank you for joining me, Majority Leader Thune. Come back after Monday or Tuesday, whenever the vote is. I appreciate it.

JT: Will do. Sounds good. Thanks, Hugh.

HH: Thank you.

JT: Go Buckeyes.

HH: Go Buckeyes.

End of interview.