President Donald Trump is having a week.
The White House is dealing with a crisis tied to mega-billionaire Elon Musk’s plan to radically overhaul the federal government. Trump announced and then canceled tariffs on Mexico and Canada, the United States’ top two export markets — while claiming victory, of course. And then Trump bizarrely floated a plan to send U.S. troops to occupy and rebuild war-torn Gaza while resettling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Democrats were outraged and Republicans were eager to get away from questions about it.
But Trump is winning on the Senate floor. It’s only Wednesday and the Senate has already confirmed three Cabinet officials: Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins and Attorney General Pam Bondi. These were all bipartisan votes, Republicans can crow, although only Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) backed Bondi.
The Senate is on track to confirm two more top-level nominees before leaving for the week: Scott Turner to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Russ Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
If Turner and Vought get across the finish line — and there’s no reason to doubt they will — then the Senate will have approved 13 of Trump’s nominees during the first three weeks of Trump’s new term. This outpaces the first three weeks of Trump’s first term and former President Joe Biden.
Senate Democrats, however, plan to take the full 30 hours of post-cloture debate time on Vought’s nomination. This means a confirmation vote wouldn’t take place until roughly 7 p.m. Thursday.
Tuesday also saw Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advance out of the Senate Finance Committee and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) clear the Senate Intelligence Committee. Nominations that once appeared in real doubt now appear on a path toward confirmation thanks to aggressive MAGA world lobbying of center-right swing votes.
And despite Democratic calls for a second hearing, FBI nominee Kash Patel is likely to be voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee next week.
In the end, it’s quite likely that Trump gets his way on every Cabinet nominee. The only real stumble for Trump — and it was just a stumble — was being forced to withdraw former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as attorney general. But Republicans didn’t like Gaetz nearly as much as Democrats did, which is why the nomination failed.
Trump also faces Democrats’ blanket holds on nominees following the DOGE controversy. Not something the Senate GOP can’t overcome, but time consuming.