In a whirlwind of negotiations over three days, Democrats asked for multiple billions in government funds to be released in exchange for a vote on a batch of nominees President Trump wanted confirmed before lawmakers left for their August break, sources told CBS News.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was negotiating with GOP leadership for $5 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $1 billion for the Global Fund, $300 million for the World Food Program, $50 million to fight HIV in developing countries, about $140 million for the United Nations Children’s Fund, and other money funding that had been previously approved, sources said.
After much back and forth, senators believed they had an agreement to get about 20 nominations through before Mr. Trump on Saturday nixed the deal, several sources said.
Some of the negotiations were about Republicans not withholding funds Congress has already agreed to. Schumer wanted no clawbacks, including so-called pocket rescissions, two of the sources said, referring to presidential funding cut proposals to Congress that are very late in the fiscal year.
As of now, about 140 Trump nominees await a vote, including some 30 ambassadors. Among those are Mike Waltz, who is awaiting a confirmation vote as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, nominated for U.S. ambassador to Greece.
Those who were confirmed Saturday include Defense Department officials Earl Matthews and Adam Telle; trade official Will Kimmitt; judicial officials Jeanine Pirro and Jason Quinones; and ambassadors Andrew Puzder for the European Union and Brian Burch for the Vatican. Also confirmed was Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s son-in-law, Luke Lindberg, for an undersecretary post at the Agriculture Department.
Mr. Trump on Saturday praised Thune and Republican senators in a Truth Social post, and criticized Democrats for “doing everything possible to DELAY these wonderful and talented people from being approved.”
The remaining administration officials Mr. Trump was hoping to get installed will have to wait until at least September. Thune said the Senate will adjourn until Sept. 2.
“We were serious about trying to make some progress,” Schumer told reporters at a news conference Saturday. “But ultimately, Trump wouldn’t agree. He took his ball, he went home — leaving Democrats and Republicans alike wondering, “What the hell happened?”
Pressed on whether he had asked the White House to unfreeze some aid for Palestinians, Schumer said: “I’m not going to get into the details. Obviously, we’d all like to help Gaza, but the bottom line is, we were getting close on a whole lot of issues, and Donald Trump just pulled the rug out from under people. And even before that, when it looked like we were getting close, a day before, he again called in and screwed it all up.”
Mr. Trump got his response in even before Schumer began his press conference, posting a message to the senator on Truth Social that read: “GO TO HELL!”
“Senator Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is demanding over One Billion Dollars in order to approve a small number of our highly qualified nominees, who should right now be helping to run our Country. This demand is egregious and unprecedented, and would be embarrassing to the Republican Party if it were accepted. It is political extortion, by any other name,” Mr. Trump wrote.
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