15 hours ago
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Knives are out for the vice president-elect as JD Vance’s fellow Republican senators trash him for skipping out on confirmation votes for President Joe Biden's judicial nominees.
Even though Republicans are currently in the Senate minority, the party is trying to block Biden's nominees by slowing down the confirmation process in order to run out the clock and keep Biden from filling vacancies on the federal bench.
As of Tuesday, the Senate has confirmed 217 of Biden’s picks, with 44 vacancies, according to CBS News. If Biden fills them all, he’ll have gotten more judges onto the federal bench than Donald Trump did in his first term in office.
But Vance, along with a handful of other Senate Republicans, have been absent from the chamber, leaving the GOP without a sufficient number of votes to achieve their goal of slow-rolling the process and blocking confirmations.
“If we don’t show up, we lose,” Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told The Hill. “I don’t care what the reasons were. We have fewer than 15 scheduled legislative days. You have to show up. Period. End of story. There’s nothing more important.”
"This leftist judge would have been voted down and the seat on the important 11th circuit would have been filled by Donald Trump next year had Republicans showed up,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote in a post on X, referring to Monday’s confirmation of Embry J. Kidd. “Now, the leftist judge will have a lifetime appointment and the people of FL, AL and GA will suffer the consequences.”
On Tuesday, even Trump seemingly lashed out at Vance and other Republicans who didn't show. (Of course, at least two Republican senators were with Trump at a rocket launch for pal Elon Musk's company.)
“The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door. Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line — No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
