Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, January 1, 2025 Real World News

With Republicans holding a 53-47 majority in the Senate, Democrats will not be able to block President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees and picks for other key positions.

Democrats still have the ability to slow the confirmation process down and are likely to do just that with some of Trump’s Cabinet selections, including Department of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. FBI director nominee Kash Patel, and defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth.

During his first term in the White House, the Senate’s confirmation of Trump’s Cabinet was reportedly “the slowest in modern history,” with only four of his nominees being confirmed by Feb. 5, 2017.

Senate Democrats stalled the process nearly eight years ago by engaging in parliamentary theater, including boycotting several confirmation hearings. The Senate didn’t confirm Trump’s last Cabinet position, that of Alexander Acosta as the labor secretary, until April 27, 2017.

Trump has a much stronger ally leading the Senate this time around, however. South Dakota Sen. John Thune is taking over as GOP Senate leader from Mitch McConnell.

In a New Year’s Eve post to Truth Social, Trump warned that Republicans must “be smart and tough” when it comes to confirming his nominees:

Meanwhile, former CIA Director John Brennan (is he worried about something?) offered some praise for the second Trump presidential transition, calling it “more serious and professional fashion than in 2016.”

“I know that there is engagement between the Biden Department of State and the incoming Trump team,” Brennan said. “You want to make sure that the incoming team has as much intelligence and analysis as possible that’s available so that when they take over on day one that they are fully informed about what the situation is.”

“I do think that there are some people in the Trump administration who are coming in and really are trying to do everything they can to be as prepared as possible on January 20th,” Brennan told MSNBC on Saturday. “You have people like Marco Rubio who has been named to be the next secretary of state, who is well steeped in these issues and also takes them very seriously.”

Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin told Politicon’s “Highly Conflicted” podcast that Democrats will oppose any effort by Trump to politicize the Department of Justice (apparently Raskin believes only Democrats are allowed to do that):

“The Department of Justice traditionally has enjoyed institutional independence from the office of the president. The president has not ordered investigations into specific individuals or terminated investigations into others. That principle was, of course, tested during Donald Trump’s first presidential administration. He seemed to want to treat the Department of Justice as a mere adjunct of his own presidency, under the unitary executive theory.

“We are going to try to defend the principle of the independent integrity of the law enforcement function under the Department of Justice. We will resist and oppose any efforts to politicize the department so that it goes after the president’s enemies, in the current parlance, or goes easy on his friends. That is simply not how the rule of law works, and it directly undercuts more than two centuries of understanding about how the United States government operates.”

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  Trump ends the year with warning to GOP: ‘Be smart and tough’, WorldTribune.com