President Donald Trump detonated a high-stakes Senate negotiation with an outburst on social media on Saturday night telling Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to ‘GO TO HELL’ and abruptly ending talks over dozens of pending nominee confirmations.
The president’s Truth Social tirade came just hours before lawmakers were expected to strike a deal and depart for their month-long recess.
Instead, the Senate adjourned in chaos after voting on only seven of the more than 60 nominees in limbo.
‘Tell Schumer, who is under tremendous political pressure from within his own party, the Radical Left Lunatics, to GO TO HELL!’ Trump wrote.
‘Do not accept the offer, go home and explain to your constituents what bad people the Democrats are, and what a great job the Republicans are doing, and have done, for our Country. Have a great RECESS and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!’
The outburst from the president came just as Senate leaders thought they were closing in on a long-sought agreement to confirm the nominees before the August break.
Instead, the Senate rapidly voted through just seven names before adjourning until September.
One nominee did break through the gridlock however, Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News personality and New York judge, was confirmed 50-45 as the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.
President Donald Trump detonated a high-stakes Senate negotiation with an outburst on social media on Saturday night telling Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to ‘GO TO HELL’ (File photo from December 2018 during Trump’s first term)
The president’s Truth Social tirade came just hours before lawmakers were expected to strike a deal and depart for their monthlong recess
The Senate held a rare weekend session as the two parties tried to work out the final details of a deal
The high-profile appointment that drew fierce opposition from Democrats.
Pirro has been serving in the role in an acting capacity since May but her appointment drew sharp criticism from House Democrats, who warned she would be a ‘partisan tool’ for the White House.
‘Over the past decade, Ms. Pirro has consistently demonstrated that her loyalty lies with Donald Trump the person, not with the Constitution or the rule of law,’ Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) wrote in a letter to Senate leadership.
Trump accused Schumer of demanding ‘over One Billion Dollars’ in return for advancing a limited slate of bipartisan nominees – a claim Schumer did not directly address but which derailed the fragile progress.
The now-collapsed deal had been the product of marathon talks between Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Schumer, and the White House.
Both parties hoped to finalize a package that would greenlight Trump’s nominees in exchange for Democrats’ demands on National Institutes of Health (NIH) and foreign aid funding.
The Senate held a rare weekend session as the two parties tried to work out the final details of a deal.
But it was clear that there would be no agreement when Trump launched his attack on Schumer and told Republicans to pack it up and go home.
One nominee did break through the gridlock was former Fox News personality and New York judge Jeanine Pirro who was confirmed 50-45 as the US Attorney for the District of Columbia
Lawmakers had been expected to strike a deal before departing for their monthlong recess but the negotiations fell apart after Trump’s online outburst
Trump’s Truth Social post blindsided negotiators and threw the entire Senate into disarray.
‘This demand is egregious and unprecedented,’ Trump wrote. ‘It is political extortion, by any other name.’
Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor hours later while flanked by a poster-sized copy of Trump’s post, declared the negotiations dead and blamed the president directly.
‘He took his ball, he went home, leaving Democrats and Republicans alike wondering what the hell happened,’ Schumer said. ‘Trump’s all-caps tweet said it all. In a fit of rage, Trump threw in the towel.’
Although Republicans and Democrats traded blame all weekend, there had been broad consensus that a deal was within reach.
‘There were several different times where I think either or both sides maybe thought there was a deal,’ said Thune. ‘But in the end, we never got to a place where we had both sides agree to lock it in.’
Democrats insisted their offer never changed, while Republicans claimed Schumer kept escalating his demands, especially by tying nominee confirmations to reversals of Trump’s proposed spending claw backs.
The now-collapsed deal had been the product of marathon talks between Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Schumer, and the White House
‘We’ve had three different deals since last night,’ said Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK). ‘And every time it’s been, every time it’s ‘I want more.’
According to Mullin, Trump’s dramatic post didn’t catch the GOP off guard – the White House had been heavily involved in the negotiations from the start.
‘They want to go out and say the President’s being unrealistic,’ Mullin said. ‘But this was never about making a deal.’
With the Senate now gone until September, Republican leaders are already threatening to change Senate rules to break the logjam when they return.
‘I think they’re desperately in need of change,’ Thune said of Senate rules following the breakdown of negotiations.
‘I think that the last six months have demonstrated that this process, nominations is broken. And so I expect there will be some good robust conversations about that.’
Schumer responded sharply, warning that Republicans will need Democratic votes to fund the government this fall and that any unilateral rule changes would be a ‘huge mistake’.
‘Donald Trump tried to bully us, go around us, threaten us, call us names, but he got nothing,’ Schumer said.
It’s the first time in recent history that the minority party hasn’t allowed at least some quick confirmations.
‘We have never seen nominees as flawed, as compromised, as unqualified as we have right now,’ Schumer said (file photo from December 2018)
Republican Senator Tom Cotton stands next to a sign showing how few of the civilian nominees were confirmed during Donald Trump’s first term in office
Thune has already kept the Senate in session for more days, and with longer hours, this year to try and confirm as many of Trump’s nominees as possible.
This latest standoff is only the most recent escalation in the decades-long battle over judicial and executive branch confirmations.
But Democrats had little desire to give in without the spending cut reversals or some other incentive, even though they too were eager to skip town after several long months of work and bitter partisan fights over legislation.
Since 2013, both parties have changed Senate rules to erode the 60-vote threshold for nominees.
In 2013, Democrats changed Senate rules for lower court judicial nominees to remove the 60-vote threshold for confirmations as Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s judicial picks.
In 2017, Republicans did the same for Supreme Court nominees as Democrats tried to block Trump’s nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch.
With Republicans unable to secure unanimous consent for Trump’s nominees, each confirmation vote has required full roll calls, a grueling process that can take hours or days for each nominee.
‘We have never seen nominees as flawed, as compromised, as unqualified as we have right now,’ Schumer said.
Trump has been demanding for weeks that Republicans cancel recess and grind through the nominations, but his fury seems to have undone whatever deal was on the table.
Democrats say they remain open to resuming talks in September.
