Trump slams ‘blue slip’ custom in Senate
Authorized and political strategist Katie Zacharia weighs in on a longtime political custom presumably altering and the newest replace within the standing of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on ‘Fox Information @ Evening.’
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President Donald Trump is waging battle towards a century-old custom within the Senate that each Republicans and Democrats don’t need to contact.
Trump has ebbed and flowed in his disdain for the blue slip custom within the higher chamber, taking out his frustrations on Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and different Republicans who’ve drawn a agency line within the sand for his or her help of the apply.
A lot of his anger stemmed from the blue slip’s function in derailing a pair of his hand-picked U.S. lawyer nominees — Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan — final 12 months.
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President Donald Trump walks to Marine One for departure from the South Garden of the White Home, Jan. 16, 2026, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Trump sounded off on the apply late final 12 months within the Oval Workplace, arguing that the GOP ought to “do away with blue slips, as a result of, as a Republican President, I’m unable to place anyone in workplace having to do with US attorneys or having to do with judges.”
However the apply, which has been round since World Warfare I, is probably going not going anyplace, on condition that it’s been a priceless software for minority events to dam nominees.
The custom permits for house state senators to weigh in on judicial nominees, giving them a say on who does and doesn’t transfer ahead. Returning a blue slip is the equal of giving a thumbs as much as the nominees shifting ahead, whereas conserving the slip successfully blocks the method.
Whereas the custom was used to dam each Halligan and Habba, each of whom served as Trump’s attorneys whereas in between stints within the White Home, Republicans have nonetheless been profitable in confirming a number of of the president’s judicial picks.
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Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is seen within the U.S. Capitol throughout votes associated to the federal government shutdown in Washington, Oct. 16, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Name, Inc. through Getty Photographs)
Grassley famous in a submit on X that “practically 1/5 of the 417 nominees who had been confirmed this [year] went” by way of his committee.
“I’m able to course of much more within the new [year] simply want supplies from WH and DOJ so [committee] can proceed contributing to Senate’s historic nominations progress,” he mentioned.
Whereas Senate Democrats tried to dam as lots of Trump’s nominees all through final 12 months, Republicans modified the principles to ram extra by way of. That resulted within the higher chamber confirming 36 U.S. attorneys and 26 federal judges.
4 of these had been from Democratic senators with blue slips in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota, the place the Trump administration’s utilization of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers has confronted authorized challenges.
Each of Minnesota’s Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, who aren’t quiet critics of Trump and his administration, returned their blue slips for U.S. Lawyer Daniel Rosen final 12 months.
“Placing apart political variations, he’s revered throughout the board in Minnesota, and so I assumed he could be a great U.S. lawyer,” Smith mentioned.
And notably, the blue slip custom was utilized by Republicans to make sure that Trump would have 15 judges to nominate as soon as he took workplace, blocking a number of of former President Joe Biden’s nominees within the course of. There may be additionally not a single blue slip holding up a judicial nominee presently making its means by way of the method.
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Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., seems on “Meet the Press” in Washington, Nov. 23, 2025 (Shannon Finney/NBC through Getty Photographs)
There have additionally been a number of Senate Republicans who’ve pushed again towards Trump’s demand to decimate the custom, together with Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and John Kennedy, R-La., each members of the Judiciary Committee.
They argued that your entire level of the blue slip was to make sure that particular person senators received to have a say on the matter, and that the “challenge reduce each methods.”
“I might urge my colleagues to respectfully inform the president that we might do harm to this establishment, and we’d do harm to the ability of particular person senators if we had been to rescind the blue slip,” Tillis mentioned on the Senate ground final 12 months.
Like many cases of Trump’s need to take a sledgehammer to Senate custom or process, Republicans largely aren’t biting.
And neither are members of Senate GOP management, together with Senate Majority Chief John Thune, R-S.D., who final 12 months argued that there was extra of an “intense feeling about preserving the blue slip perhaps even than there may be the filibuster.”
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Thune famous that he and fellow South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds each took benefit of the blue slip course of to make sure that their state had a Republican-appointed district courtroom decide for the primary time since former President Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
“There have been two vacancies,” Thune mentioned. “They needed one Dem, we gave them a Dem, we received a Republican particular person into that place in South Dakota. So it’s — there are examples of how that course of, I believe, works to our benefit, and that’s what most senators cling on to on the subject of a dialogue concerning the blue slip.”
