by Emmitt Barry, with reporting from Washington D.C. Bureau Staff
WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – Senate Republicans on Thursday confirmed 48 of President Donald Trump’s executive branch nominees in a single vote, advancing his agenda to fill key government positions after invoking a new rules change last week.
The 51-47 vote clears more than a quarter of the 173 pending nominees who had already advanced out of committee but were held up by Democratic opposition. Under the revised Senate procedures, Republicans can now group sub-Cabinet executive nominees into batches for confirmation, bypassing the need for time-consuming individual votes that Democrats had been demanding.
Among those confirmed were former Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY) as Energy undersecretary for nuclear security, and eight nominees to ambassadorial posts. Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former television host and ex-fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., was approved as U.S. ambassador to Greece, while Callista Gingrich, wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, will serve as ambassador to Switzerland after previously holding the post at the Vatican.
Other key confirmations include Theodore J. Garrish as assistant secretary of Energy, Jessica Kramer as assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Sean McMaster as administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, Justin Overbaugh as deputy under secretary of Defense, Scott Pappano as principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Peter Thomson as inspector general of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Andrea Travnicek as assistant secretary of the Interior.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) defended the new approach, saying Democrats had “fully broken the confirmation process” by filibustering all civilian nominees except Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Republicans have fixed a broken process and restored the Senate precedent that applied to previous presidents,” Thune said, stressing that most of the nominees had bipartisan support in committee and would traditionally have been approved by unanimous consent or voice vote.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blasted the move as a dangerous precedent. “What Republicans have done is chip away at the Senate even more to give Donald Trump more power and to rubber-stamp whomever he wants, whenever he wants them, no questions asked,” Schumer warned.
The so-called “nuclear option” does not apply to Cabinet-level, Supreme Court, or other high-ranking judicial nominees, but Republicans say they plan to use it again in coming weeks to reduce the backlog further, aiming to clear all pending names by mid-October.
Two Republicans, Sens. Jim Banks (IN) and Mike Lee (UT), missed Thursday’s vote.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
Jerusalem will host a high-level trilateral summit on Monday as Israel, Greece, and Cyprus move to deepen security, energy, and strategic cooperation amid growing concern over Turkey’s expanding military posture in the eastern Mediterranean.
In an emotionally charged appeal, Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid urged Jews worldwide not to surrender to hatred after at least 15 people were killed and dozens injured in what officials and Jewish leaders described as one of the deadliest antisemitic attacks against Jews abroad in years.
The U.S. military carried out massive air and drone strikes against more than 70 Islamic State (ISIS) targets across central and eastern Syria, U.S. officials said, following a deadly December 13 attack on American personnel.
The president of war-torn Ukraine says the United States has proposed a format for peace talks that would place Ukraine and Russia at the same table — but he doubts such a meeting would bring real progress.
Budget watchdogs are sounding the alarm as the U.S. hit an unfortunate fiscal milestone in fiscal year 2025: government spending on debt interest payments alone topped $1 trillion this year.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ action to bar “sex-rejecting” transgender procedures for minors has met with approval from groups that aim to protect children from harmful ideology, with some calling the move “long overdue,” stating that taxpayers should not be forced to pay for procedures that lack proven benefits.
After hours of tense negotiations, European Union leaders agreed to provide Ukraine with a 90 billion euro loan (about $100 billion) to meet the wartorn nation’s urgent financial needs. However, they failed to reach a consensus on whether the loan should be secured using Russia’s frozen assets held in Europe.