President Donald Trump is having a heck of a time getting his judiciary picks through the Senate.
Democrats have relied on the blue slip custom to block Trump's picks, and he is clearly getting frustrated by it.
After having already attacked Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on the topic, Trump is hitting him again, demanding that the tradition be abandoned.
The first time Trump went after Grassley on this, he claimed a few things that were not true, but his remarks were more about simply trying to pressure Grassley to discontinue the blue slip tradition.
Basically, senators are given a “blue slip” to either support or decline a judicial nomination that will impact their state, and if both senators reject that nomination, it is killed. This is clearly a problem when you have two senators from an opposing party of the sitting president, especially in the current, heated political environment.
In attacking Grassley, Trump claimed that the senator was way behind in polling before his endorsement in the last election, which is 100% not true. He also hurled some insults at Grassley, which was rather surprising considering Grassley has had Trump’s back throughout his time in the political spotlight.
Grassley replied to Trump’s posts, “Last night, I was surprised to see President Trump on Truth Social go after me and Senate Republicans over what we call the blue slip.” As soon as I saw Grassley’s reply, I knew this was going to be a problem for Trump. Rather than cave, Grassley just dug in deeper.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That is what Trump appears to be doing, but I am not sure it is such a good idea, at least not publicly.
Trump is Trump, though, so he once again posted to Truth Social, “I have a Constitutional Right to appoint Judges and U.S. Attorneys, but that RIGHT has been completely taken away from me in States that have just one Democrat United States Senator."
The post continued, “This is because of an old and outdated ‘custom’ known as a BLUE SLIP, that Senator Chuck Grassley, of the Great State of Iowa, refuses to overturn, even though the Democrats, including Crooked Joe Biden (Twice!), have done so on numerous occasions.”
Trump concluded, “Chuck Grassley should allow strong Republican candidates to ascend to these very vital and powerful roles, and tell the Democrats, as they often tell us, to go to HELL!”
As noted above, Grassley is not going to be intimidated by Trump, so he is once again digging in, declaring that he runs the Senate committee, not Trump.
Grassley responded, "A U.S. Atty/district judge nominee without a blue slip does not [have] the votes to get confirmed on the Senate floor & they don’t [have] the votes to get out of [committee]. As chairman I set [President] Trump noms up for SUCCESS NOT FAILURE."
This, to me, is a conversation that should have taken place behind closed doors, not escalated into a public beef.
I think Trump could get so much more accomplished if he invited Republicans who do not agree with him in for a quick chat rather than jousting on social media. If I could change only one thing about Trump, this would surely be it.
