David Perdue: “I rise today as one of a number of our colleagues to talk about something that really bothers me. We are seeing historic…”

“I rise today as one of a number of our colleagues to talk about something that really bothers me. We are seeing historic obstructionism in the Senate today. It has been going on for the last 2 years. One of the fundamental responsibilities in the Senate is to provide advice and consent on Presidential nominations. When President Trump took office, he acted with urgency to fill positions in his administration with highly qualified and highly skilled, experienced individuals from the real world--not just people from the bubble but people from America. Unfortunately, Democrats have slow-walked this confirmation process every step of the way. In my view, this is historic obstructionism, and it needs to stop. This is the first time in U.S. history that the minority party has not waived the 30-hour debate rule to this degree. As a result, of the 1,200 nominees to be confirmed by any new President, only 714 have been confirmed to date. At the end of last year, because of this historic Democratic obstructionism, we had 386 nominations in line waiting to be confirmed. At the end of Obama's first 2 years, only 5 nominees were outstanding, compared to the 386 for President Trump at the end of last year. Let me say that again. At the end of President Obama's first 2 years, only five nominees had not been confirmed. That means that out of everybody he sent to the Senate, only five at that point had not been confirmed.…”