President Donald Trump has attacked the Senate for blocking his preferred nominees from being confirmed to key positions, but lawmakers and people familiar with the process say the Senate is not necessarily to blame.

Trump has faulted the Senate’s ‘blue slip’ tradition, an unwritten rule requiring nominees for judge, U.S. attorney and U.S. marshal to obtain home state senators’ approval prior to being confirmed.

He said blue state senators will only greenlight ‘Democrats or maybe weak Republicans.’ The president called on Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to abolish the practice, and he threatened to sue over it.

But Grassley and other Republicans are unbudging in their position that blue slips are an indispensable part of the confirmation process. Blue slips have been used for more than a century. Past presidents have gotten many nominees confirmed under the system, suggesting other factors are contributing to Trump’s struggle to secure blue slips from Democrats.

Trump threatens to sue over ‘gentlemen’s agreement’

Trump and his allies escalated attacks on the blue slip process this week, accusing Grassley of blocking nominees by maintaining it.

‘This is because of an old and outdated ‘custom’ known as a BLUE SLIP, that Senator Chuck Grassley, of the Great State of Iowa, refuses to overturn,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The president threatened to sue over what he said was a ‘gentlemen’s agreement,’ though it is unclear whom the government would sue and on what grounds.

‘It’s not based on law, and I think it’s unconstitutional, and I’ll probably be filing a suit on that pretty soon,’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Asked about the possible lawsuit and why Trump’s nominees in blue states are struggling with confirmation, the White House told Fox News Digital in a statement the holdup must be addressed.

‘Senate Democrats have led a campaign of historic obstruction against President Trump and his nominees,’ White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. ‘The left’s partisan, obstructionist agenda is only hurting the American people and it must end.’

‘Troubling’ pattern of circumventing Senate

Trump appointed his former personal defense lawyer Alina Habba as ‘interim’ U.S. attorney, which carries a 120-day term limit that federal judges have the ability to extend under federal vacancy laws if no one has been confirmed by the Senate to the position by then.

Judges have opted to extend Trump’s nominees, like in Jay Clayton’s case in the Southern District of New York. But in an unusual move, the federal judges of New Jersey rejected Habba.

The judges selected someone else, whom Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi promptly fired. Trump and Bondi then used a series of legal maneuvers to reinstall Habba to another temporary term, but a federal judge ruled the moves unconstitutional. The Trump administration is appealing that decision in a case that could now make its way to the Supreme Court and force the justices to weigh in on what has become a pattern of Trump end-running around the Senate.

John Sarcone in the Northern District of New York faced a situation similar to Habba’s, and he is now serving as ‘acting’ U.S. attorney. Bill Essayli in the Central District of California, who has taken on a vocal pro-Trump stance amid high-profile deportation cases in his district, has also transitioned from ‘interim’ to ‘acting’ U.S. attorney. Acting U.S. attorneys also carry a temporary term of 210 days. It is unclear how Trump will proceed once those terms expire.

Carl Tobias, University of Richmond law professor, said the workarounds defy the spirit of the Constitution, which says nominees must be confirmed ‘with the advice and consent’ of the Senate.

‘It’s good to have that scrutiny from the Judiciary Committee and then on the floor, and so hopefully they could return to something like that, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen, and so I think it is troubling,’ Tobias told Fox News Digital.

How to get a blue slip from the other party

The administration must engage with the Senate during the nomination process, including by consulting early on with home state senators about possible nominees.

Former President Joe Biden secured blue slips from opposing parties for 49 nominees, including 27 U.S. attorneys, while Trump’s first administration was able to secure confirmations for nearly all the U.S. attorneys the president nominated.

The blue slip, to senators, is a crucial negotiating tool, one that Article III Project founder Mike Davis said is not going away, despite Trump’s intensifying objections to it. Davis, a staunch Trump supporter, served as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and oversaw nominations under Grassley in the prior Trump administration.

‘It’s not going away. Why would it? Why would senators give up their power? They’re not going to do it,’ Davis told Fox News Digital, adding that blue slips to the Senate are ‘the sacred china that’s never going to get broken.’

The vetting process

Nominees must also provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with a questionnaire, an FBI background check and financial disclosures. A source familiar with the process told Fox News Digital the committee did not receive Habba’s paperwork to begin vetting her. 

Habba has said she could not begin the process because Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim of New Jersey, would not give blue slip approval. It is unclear if and when the Trump administration approached the pair of senators about Habba. 

Habba, like Trump, blamed Grassley.

‘The blue slip TRADITION prevents a nominee from getting to the point of making that case to the committee and Senate floor. You know who can get rid of it? YOU @ChuckGrassley,’ Habba wrote on X.

She told Grassley ‘this is a time for leadership, not deflection’ and that the chairman should not be ‘doing the dirty work of Thom Tillis, Corey Booker and Andy Kim.’

Booker’s and Kim’s offices did not respond to a request for comment.

Grassley defends bipartisanship

Grassley went on a tear on social media this week, defending his decision to maintain blue slips, which the committee chair has discretion over.

‘U.S. Atty/district judge nominee without a blue slip does not hv the votes to get confirmed on the Senate floor & they don’t hv the votes to get out of cmte,’ the 91-year-old senator wrote. ‘As chairman I set Pres Trump noms up for SUCCESS NOT FAILURE.’

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who is among several Republicans who will not vote for a nominee who has not been approved by home state senators, pointed to a statement on social media when asked for comment by Fox News Digital.

‘Chairman Grassley is a principled conservative who wants to keep radical liberals off the bench. Getting rid of the blue slip is a terrible, short-sighted ploy that paves the path for Democrats to ram through extremist liberal judges in red states over the long-term,’ Tillis wrote on X.

Are Democrats to blame?

Trump has thus far secured opposing party blue slips for four nominees. Davis said Trump is facing a unique level of obstruction from Democrats.

‘Every White House does what it can to engage the opposition party, but Democrats have made it clear they’re not interested in working with President Trump, so it’s understandable that his focus has been elsewhere for now,’ Davis said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for instance, has refused to give a blue slip to Clayton, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman. But Clayton’s ability to win the vote of the federal judges in the Southern District of New York has allowed him to serve as U.S. attorney without confirmation.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member, has further complicated the confirmation process by putting a hold on U.S. attorney nominees, which drastically slows, but does not fully block, the process.

Vice President JD Vance, then a senator, did the same for Biden’s nominees toward the end of the last administration.

Trump’s fight with the upper chamber is likely to evolve, especially as higher courts weigh in on Habba’s nomination, which is currently invalid, according to the district court judge’s decision this month. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has set a briefing schedule in the case that stretches through October, but eventually the Supreme Court could also chime in on whether Trump’s manner of sidestepping the Senate is constitutional. 

Demetre Daskalakis, an official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), resigned this week, claiming the Trump administration’s policies ignore science. However, his own leadership during the Biden-era monkeypox response was criticized for putting optics over public health.

Amid the Trump administration’s efforts to push out CDC Director Susan Monarez, a handful of other top CDC officials, including Daskalakis, resigned in protest of the Trump administration’s policies. Daskalakis wrote in his resignation letter that was posted to social media that the health policies put forward by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy do not ‘reflect scientific reality.’ He also accused the Trump administration of attempting to ‘erase transgender populations,’ while also using the term ‘pregnant people’ to describe women who are about to give birth.

But flashback to 2022 and 2023, after the monkeypox virus had spread across several countries and made its way into the U.S., during which Daskalakis was among the Biden administration’s top advisers who spearheaded the national response to the disease outbreak. 

Government communications from that time period, uncovered by watchdog group the Oversight Project, show that officials were aware that the disease was spreading among the gay community. However, those communications, and other records, show the administration appeared to be more concerned with protecting the stigma targeting the gay community, than they were with implementing measures that would provide the best mitigation response.

‘A common theme was public health officials identifying locations where outbreaks occurred, to include bathhouses and saunas,’ according to the Oversight Project. ‘Officials never broached consideration of shutting down these locations. This draws a stark contrast to the public health guidance and shutdowns of gathering places during COVID, to include gyms and skate parks.’

In 2023, after the monkeypox outbreak had taken hold in the U.S., Daskalakis went on national television to let the country know that his team was ‘making sure [they] got the word out in a way that supports people’s joy, as opposed to calling them risky.’

‘You know, one person’s idea of risk, is another person’s idea of a great festival or Friday night, for that matter. So, we have to sort of embrace that with joy and make sure that folks know how to keep themselves safe,’ the Biden monkeypox coordinator added.

Meanwhile, during the outbreak, Daskalkis posted a tweet from gay sex app Grindr that stated ‘Dr. Daskalakis could jab me any day,’ with a sticker of a flattered cat.

In other social media posts from around the same time, Daskalkis can be seen using male models wearing leather bondage straps to make an entrance at an HIV prevention summit. 

While in his role at the White House leading the monkeypox response, Daskalkis also reportedly ran an STD screening operation from an after-hours sex club in New York City. When asked about the operation in an interview, Daskalakis described it as ‘exciting’ and added there was ‘not much sleep time.’ Later in the interview, he added: ‘I’d already kind of been the bathhouse HIV testing doctor.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Daskalakis about the juxtaposition between his criticism of Kennedy’s policies not reflecting ‘scientific reality,’ and his role in the Biden administration’s approach to monkeypox, but did not receive an immediate response.

There is no question that President Donald Trump is deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize. Nations, statesmen and elected officials around the globe have seen the fruits of his labor to bring peace to different hemispheres. 

The big question is, ‘Is there a real pathway for President Trump to actually receive the Nobel Peace Prize?’ I believe there is. But it’s a pathway that must be flawlessly executed. 

And in doing so, it’s important to understand the history of the Nobel Peace Prize and the actual process for awarding it. We can also gain insight from how a former Trump appointee led an international organization to receive it. And we can learn from how a former Republican president worked to end a war and received the Nobel Peace Prize despite protests from Norwegian and Swedish politicians and media.

The Nobel Prizes were established by the will of the famed Swedish industrialist and inventor, Alfred Nobel. Nobel was the inventor of dynamite and, at the time of his death in 1896, was the owner of Bofors, the Swedish armaments manufacturer. 

I personally became intrigued with the Nobel Prizes while doing consulting work for Bofors in the late 1990s and visiting Karlskoga, Sweden, a number of times.

Nobel’s will provided for prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. A Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was added in 1968. The original prizes have been awarded since 1901. 

In his will, Nobel provided that the prizes were to be awarded by different Swedish entities, with the exception of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was to be awarded ‘by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting [Parliament].’ Today, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is responsible for selecting Nobel Peace Prize laureates. Appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, it should surprise no one that historically its members have been former members of Parliament and cabinet ministers.

Only ‘qualified nominators’ can submit a name for the Nobel Peace Prize. These include members of national assemblies, national governments, current heads of state, previous recipients, certain university professors and directors of peace research institutions. 

This explains why President Trump has been nominated by numerous members of Congress, several nations, heads of state and university professors. Nominations are due on Jan. 31 each year, followed by a multi-stage selection process. The winner is announced in early October, with the award ceremony taking place on Dec. 10 every year at Oslo City Hall.

Make no mistake, this is a very political process. I served for a number of years on the board of the Norwegian-American Foundation. I remember when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Barack Obama for ‘the promise’ of his vision. My Norwegian friends were flabbergasted. 

The running joke in Norway was that he received it because a couple of left-wingers on the Committee wanted a chance to meet him and have a photo-op. In Trump’s case, you actually have a president who has resolved conflicts and helped to bring peace to different regions of the world.

In addition to the formal nominations, I believe there are key actions supporters of President Trump can undertake to maximize his chances. Consider these: 

, the former NATO secretary-general, is back in the current Labour government’s cabinet serving as finance minister. Following Trump’s victory last November, Stoltenberg said that during Trump’s first term, they had ‘established a good and reliable working relationship.’ He further noted that they ‘got things done,’ and that ‘NATO had become stronger.’ A former Labour prime minister, he could be helpful with one or two members of the committee. In fact, committee member Gry Larsen is a member of the Labour Party and served as state secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when Stoltenberg was prime minister. 

, founded by former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, is considered much less political than the Norwegian Nobel Institute. It has a history of actually being in the field promoting peace and strengthening democratic political institutions and processes. I met with him as he was laying the foundation for the center and heard his vision. An ordained Lutheran minister, he’s the former head of the Christian Democratic Party. Current committee member Anne Enger served as Bondevik’s deputy during his first term as prime minister. And committee member Kristin Clemet served as Bondevik’s minister of education during his second term.

Either through the ambassador when he’s confirmed, or through the current charge d’affaires, the embassy needs to take a proactive role in making the case for President Trump to the Norwegian media and institutions. 

: Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley received the prize as the Trump-appointed executive director of the World Food Program (WFP) in 2020. The WFP had been nominated numerous times over 40 years, but it was under a Trump appointee’s leadership that it finally happened. Insights on how Beasley and the WFP interacted with Norwegian authorities can be helpful. 

: The Republican president received the Nobel Peace Prize despite protests from liberal Norwegian politicians and Swedish media. His efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War were too meritorious and couldn’t be ignored. Likewise, President Trump supporters can make a similar case with the conflicts that he has helped to end. The embassy can play a big role in articulating this.

On the merits, President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. But this is a political process, and his supporters need to work the process. 

A Norwegian friend reminded me that the prize is supposed to consider achievements over a period of time. He pointed to President Trump’s brokering the Abraham Accords during his first term as laying a foundation for real peace in the Middle East. 

He’s right. President Trump’s achievements during his first term, combined with what he’s done so far in his second term, have earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.

President Donald Trump is reportedly working on a move that would give the U.S. a new military and economic foothold in Africa, counter China and Russia and strike a blow against Islamist terrorists in the region. And now a leading senator has told Fox News Digital this goal can be realized by recognizing the breakaway Somaliland as an independent state.

Somaliland, on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden, broke away from Somalia in 1991. Its government is said to be offering the U.S. a new air and sea base close to the entrance of the Red Sea, and directly across from Yemen and the Houthis, if the U.S. formally recognizes it, 30% of the world’s container ship traffic is reported to pass through its waters en route to or from the Suez Canal.

In the Oval Office on Aug. 8, Trump told reporters, ‘We’re looking into that right now,’ when asked about the recognition of Somaliland and the possible resettlement of Gazans there, adding, ‘We’re working on that right now, Somaliland’. 

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas., told Fox News Digital, ‘There is a very real opportunity that President Trump will recognize Somaliland during this administration.’

Cruz added, ‘President Trump is bringing a new era of clarity in American national security, after four years of the Biden administration rewarding our enemies and punishing our allies, and recognizing Somaliland should be part of this new era.

‘Somaliland has been a reliable ally to the United States, is integrating itself with us and our allies globally, and is committed to helping us counter efforts by China to undermine the safety and prosperity of Americans,’ he said.

The White House did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

Neighboring Somalia has been battling Islamist fundamentalist fighters for decades. U.S. Africa Command has increased the number of airstrikes against both ISIS and al-Shabab terrorists under the current administration.

But Somaliland, 99% Muslim, has allegedly eliminated radicalism and has aligned itself with the U.S. and Israel, leading Cruz to tell Fox News Digital, ‘They’re a Muslim country, in a very dangerous part of Africa, showing real courage. I will continue to push for deepening the U.S.-Somaliland partnership, including through the Africa Subcommittee in the Senate, and I expect that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will be receptive to doing so.’

Earlier this month, Cruz wrote to President Trump about Somaliland, stating, ‘it requires the status of a state. I urge you to grant it that recognition.’

Somaliland’s president, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi , is optimistic, telling the British Guardian newspaper on May 30, ‘Recognition is on the horizon.’ He added, ‘It’s a matter of time. Not if, but when’.

Somaliland’s port at Berbera is the jewel in any Washington deal. Analysts say it is in such a strategic position that both Russia and China have tried to acquire it. Right next door to it is one of Africa’s five longest runways, offering the U.S. the possibility of both a sea and air base that can strike Houthi rebels to the north and Al Shabaab terrorists to the east. 

In his letter to the White House, Cruz wrote, ‘Somaliland has emerged as a critical security and diplomatic partner for the United States, helping America advance our national security interests in the Horn of Africa and beyond. It is strategically located along the

Gulf of Aden, putting it near one of the world’s busiest maritime corridors. It possesses capable armed forces and contributes to regional counterterrorism and piracy operations. It has proposed hosting a U.S. military presence near the Red Sea along the Gulf of Aden.’

The U.S.’s largest military base in Africa is just up the coast in Djibouti. But there are security and surveillance issues at the Camp Lemonnier U.S. base where the Chinese and other nations have opened their own bases and monitoring stations nearby.

Somaliland is also offering the White House access to rare earth minerals essential for high-tech industries, such as lithium and silicon quartz.

The U.S. has described Somalia, with large numbers of both ISIS and al-Qaida-linked operatives, as a terrorist safe haven. Now the increasing presence of China and military forces from countries such as Turkey is reportedly leading some in Washington to be increasingly unhappy with its ‘one Somalia’ policy, where Somaliland continues to be recognized only as a part of Somalia. 

For now, a State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital the official position: ‘The United States recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia, which includes the territory of Somaliland. The State Department is not in active discussions with Somaliland’s representatives about a deal to recognize Somaliland as a state.’

But, Somaliland’s foreign minister worked Washington’s corridors and politicians in April, and several African sources, including the influential Horn Observer news outlet, have reported that President Abdullahi is expected to come to D.C. ‘soon’. U.S. officials, including the U.S. ambassador to Somalia, Richard Riley, are said to have been to Somaliland to meet with the president at least three times this year.