On Friday, President Donald Trump told Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to “go to hell,” when the Senate Minority leader delayed the confirmation process of Trump’s nominees — before the Senators were scheduled to return home for their August recess. Schumer, representing the Democrats at the negotiation table, demanded that Trump unfreeze $1 billion of the funding his administration cut off for foreign aid and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) reported from Washington, D.C. on Saturday night about what he called “the filibuster Chuck Schumer has insisted” on.
Mullin said in the video below: “What it’s all about is President Trump’s nominees, getting them in place,” asserting that “every president has the right to put their cabinet together and to put their people in place.”
The Senator added: “The problem we have here is that President Trump is the first president in history that has not had any of his civilian nominees go through by voice vote or unanimous consent.”
I’ve spoken with President Trump a lot in the past 24 hours. Senate Democrats wanted a BILLION dollars to fast track his nominees. Trump told them to pound sand. NO DEAL.
We’re going to regroup, and prepare to CHANGE the Senate rules. Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/FVXKDysdG5
— Markwayne Mullin (@SenMullin) August 3, 2025
Mullin blamed the Democrats’ “hatred of President Trump” rather than the qualifications of the nominees for the hold up, and claimed it is the Democrats who have “completely polarized our ability to put these people in place.”
[NOTE: The required Senate consent derives from Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, which says a president “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States.”]
Some of the nominees currently pending include Donald Trump, Jr.’s ex-fiancee and TV personality Kimberly Guilfoyle (US Ambassador to Greece), and Mike Waltz (US Ambassador to the United Nations), who in May left his position as National Security Advisor following the exposure of group chat leaks on the messaging platform Signal.
Schumer wrote on social media: “Let me clear what happened: Donald Trump attempted to steamroll the Senate to put in place his historically unqualified nominees. But Senate Democrats wouldn’t let him.”
Mullin reported with his video: “I’ve spoken with President Trump a lot in the past 24 hours. Senate Democrats wanted a BILLION dollars to fast track his nominees. Trump told them to pound sand. NO DEAL. We’re going to regroup, and prepare to CHANGE the Senate rules. Stay tuned.”
The conservative influential social media account “Amuse” responded to Mullin on X with another tactic involving Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson: “Either Thune or Johnson simply need to call for a ten day recess. If they agree Trump gets his nominees through recess appointments. If they disagree he can adjourn Congress and get them through that way. All we need is either Johnson or Thune to step up.”
Yet while the Constitution “empowers the president to make this sort of limited-term appointment to fill a vacancy without Senate confirmation when that chamber in recess,” as the conservative Heritage Foundation writes, “recess appointments expire at the end of the Senate’s next session.”