When Senate Republicans come back to Washington next week, they will vote to confirm the largest bloc of President Donald Trump’s nominees to date.
Herschel Walker, the scandal-ridden ex-Senate candidate, and Sergio Gor, the Trump personnel chief who feuded with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, are among the ambassador picks that advanced in a Friday procedural vote, with other nominations rounding out the ranks of Trump’s senior leadership or filling U.S. attorney posts.
In total, the Senate voted on Friday 51-46 to move forward a bloc of 107 nominees, bringing Republicans one step closer to clearing most of the backlog on the chamber’s executive calendar.
The final vote is not expected until Tuesday, due to Senate rules that require a convoluted series of procedural steps, but the introduction of bloc voting has dramatically accelerated the process.
Last month, Republicans went “nuclear” to allow an initial batch of 48 names to be confirmed in a single vote, a rule change spurred by a Democratic blockade on virtually all of Trump’s nominees.
The eventual confirmation of Walker, nominated as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas, marks the latest example of Trump offering administration posts to unsuccessful GOP Senate candidates, including Sam Brown, now a Veterans Affairs official, and Mehmet Oz, the current Medicaid chief.
Walker, a retired football star whose Georgia Senate campaign was marred by allegations of domestic abuse, unsuccessfully ran for what Republicans considered a winnable seat in 2022.
Hung Cao, who lost to Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) in last year’s Virginia Senate race, was originally part of the bloc of 108 nominees currently under consideration, but his name was split out as a standalone vote due to opposition from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) over his qualifications.
The decision is part of several “protocols” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) implemented to protect the voting rights of the majority party, with any GOP senator allowed to nix a name from the list of nominees.
Cao was confirmed separately on Wednesday as undersecretary of the Navy, the second-ranking civilian post under Navy Secretary John Phelan.
Gor’s nomination as ambassador to India is notable for his involvement in the falling out between Trump and Musk. Gor, an influential Trump adviser who leads the White House personnel office, reportedly pushed out Musk’s pick for NASA administrator, part of a chain of events that infuriated Musk and soured his alliance with the president.
Other nominees set to be confirmed next week include Brandon Judd, selected to be ambassador to Chile after his tenure as president of the Border Patrol union, and Bill Bazzi, the Arab American mayor of Dearborn Heights who endorsed Trump in the 2024 race. He has been chosen as ambassador to Tunisia.
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The current batch also includes Trump’s choices for a wave of senior administration posts, including David Fink, picked to lead the Federal Railroad Administration, and more than a dozen prosecutor nominees.
Among those U.S. attorney nominees is Moore Capito, the son of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV).