Trump Puts Chuck Grassley on Blast Over Judicial Nominees: 'DO IT!'
Source: MEDIAite
Jul 29th, 2025, 8:02 pm
President Donald Trump put Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on notice, urging the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee to eliminate a Senate custom regarding judicial nominations.
When considering nominees to the federal bench, the Senate uses “blue slips,” in which senators representing a state where a judicial nominee is to be seated express approval or disapproval. If a home state senator objects, or especially if both senators object, the Senate typically does not take up the nomination, even if the nominee would otherwise be confirmed by a majority of senators.
On Tuesday, the president took aim at blue slips and Grassley by demanding that the senator abandon the custom. “Chuck Grassley, who I got re-elected to the U.S. Senate when he was down, by a lot, in the Great State of Iowa, could solve the “Blue Slip” problem we are having with respect to the appointment of Highly Qualified Judges and U.S. Attorneys, with a mere flick of the pen,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Democrats like Schumer, Warner, Kaine, Booker, Schiff, and others, SLEAZEBAGS ALL, have an ironclad stoppage of Great Republican Candidates.”
Trump went on to note that the Senate’s adherence to blue slips means he will likely be unable to get his judicial nominees in states with two Democratic senators confirmed. The president concluded his lengthy screed by writing, “Chuck, I know you have the Courage to do this, DO IT!”
Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump-puts-chuck-grassley-on-blast-over-judicial-nominees-do-it/
The lapdogs will probably do it as ASSley did it before during 45's first term (which is how Turtle packed the courts).
BLUE SLIP (sample)
By Seung Min Kim
11/16/2017 03:30 PM EST
Updated: 11/16/2017 06:16 PM EST
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is burning the blue slip for some judicial nominees. The Iowa Republican announced Thursday that he is going ahead with a confirmation hearing for a nominee to the powerful appellate courts despite the objections of a Democrat who had been blocking the nomination for months.
The move will likely escalate the judicial wars in the Senate.
Grassley says he has scheduled hearings for David Stras, a nominee to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Stras’ home-state senator, said earlier this year that he would not return the so-called blue slip for Stras because of his conservative ideology.
“The Democrats seriously regret that they abolished the filibuster, as I warned them they would,” Grassley said in his floor speech. “But they can’t expect to use the blue slip courtesy in its place. That’s not what the blue slip is meant for.” The blue slip asks whether a senator approves or disapproves of a nominee.
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By Joseph P. Williams | Jan. 30, 2018, at 4:46 p.m.
An important, centuries-old norm came to an end Tuesday when lawmakers in the Republican-majority Senate voted to confirm one of President Donald Trump's judicial nominees, even though the candidate didn't get a "blue slip" – a traditional consent form handed in or withheld by the home state senator. In a largely party-line vote, the Senate elevated David Stras of Minnesota to a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, making him the first nominee to be confirmed despite the missing paper.
Stras' confirmation continues the Senate's fast-tracking of Trump's highly conservative judicial nominees, part of a long-term plan to anchor the federal court system on the right. It also escalates the war with Senate Democrats to block the process by any means necessary – and makes good on a promise by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican.
Stripped of the filibuster during the fight over Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, Democrats began withholding blue slips to disrupt the parade of far-right nominees they viewed as objectionable. The plan mimicked one the GOP used to block former President Barack Obama's nominees for the federal bench, creating the dozens of vacancies Trump is racing to fill.
In a bold counter-strategy, Grassley – who in 2015 promised to uphold the blue-slip custom when he became chairman – announced in November that he would no longer broadly recognize the 100-year tradition. He said he would instead decide whether to ignore missing blue slips on a case-by-case basis, particularly for appellate-level candidates who would sit a step below the U.S. Supreme Court.
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