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 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
While organizers claimed millions protested against him, Reverend Franklin Graham and Republicans at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) rallied behind U.S. President Donald J. Trump and his strikes on Iran.
Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali is reeling from a series of gang-style killings involving foreign nationals, including the fatal stabbing of a Dutch convicted drug offender.
Hungary’s government says it has launched a criminal investigation into a prominent journalist over allegations he spied for Ukraine, while Budapest also began halting natural gas deliveries to the war-torn nation.
Israel’s army faces a readiness crisis as the Jewish nation fights for its existence across multiple fronts, stretching troops, reserves and resources, according to Israeli sources.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case to determine to whom the United States can extend birthright citizenship.
The Department of Homeland Security shutdown will continue into the weekend after House Republicans snubbed the Senate’s funding deal and passed their own funding stopgap instead.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that he has instructed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to expand its security buffer inside southern Lebanon, signaling a significant escalation in Israel’s northern campaign against the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah.