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Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I know that August is approaching, but we still have some serious work to do here in Washington. We need to make further progress on appropriations, and we have a number of President Trump's nominations to get through.

Despite a historic level of obstruction from Democrats, Senate Republicans have been maintaining a brisk pace on confirming President Trump's nominees. We have confirmed 107 civilian nominees, nearly doubling the pace in President Trump's first administration at this point. And we have done it with good, old-fashioned hard work.

Thanks in substantial part to our commitment to getting President Trump's team in place, the Senate has taken 437 votes so far this year, which is more than in any Congress at this point in the last 35-plus years.

In fact, we have taken more votes in 2025 already, in less than 7 months, than the Senate has taken in a full 12 months for 32 of the past 36 years.

So we have kept up a very intense pace. But there are a number of nominees still waiting for confirmation, and we are going to get through a lot more of them soon.

And so we can do this the easy way or the hard way, and that is really up to Senate Democrats.

As I said, we have confirmed President Trump's civilian nominees at nearly double the pace of his first administration so far through a lot of hours spent here in the Senate, but we would have a lot more nominees confirmed at this point if Democrats hadn't decided to drag out every nomination.

Democrats have not allowed a single civilian Trump nominee to pass by unanimous consent or voice vote, even when Democrats have ultimately ended up supporting the nomination in significant numbers. I refer to this as a historic level of obstruction, and I mean it.

President Trump is the only President on record--the only President on record--to not have a single one of his civilian nominees confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote at this point in his Presidency--the only President on record.

Now, just to offer a point of comparison here, by this point in his Presidency, President Biden had 44 civilian nominees confirmed by voice vote. President Trump hasn't had 1--44 for Biden, 0 for President Trump. So when I say this is a historic level of obstruction from Democrats, I mean it. That is not a Republican talking point; it is just a fact.

Democrats haven't offered a shred of courtesy to President Trump, to the voters who elected him, or to the people who have stepped up to serve our country in his administration.

So the ball is in Democrats' court. They can continue to drag out the process on even the most uncontroversial nominees and we can spend a lot more hours with each other in the Senate Chamber or they can rein in their reflexive, anti-Trump sentiment and allow some of his rank- and-file nominees to proceed by unanimous consent or voice vote, just as Republicans did when the roles were reversed.

I would remind my colleagues about the dangerous and ugly precedent they are setting here, but the choice is theirs. But whether it is the slow way or the fast way, we are getting President Trump's nominees confirmed.

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