Now that the GOP is back in power, Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley has held the line on blue slips\u00a0for district court and U.S. attorney nominations and Donald Trump is NOT HAPPY \u2014 which we know thanks to an unhinged social media rant.<\/p>\n And because it is 2025, Grassley responded\u2026 on social media.<\/p>\n A U.S. Atty\/district judge nominee without a blue slip does not hv the votes to get confirmed on the Senate floor & they don\u2019t hv the votes to get out of cmte<\/p>\n As chairman I set Pres Trump noms up for SUCCESS NOT FAILURE<\/p>\n \u2014 Chuck Grassley (@ChuckGrassley) August 25, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n Plus there\u2019s the way the blue slips have affirmatively *helped* the GOP.<\/p>\n The 100 yr old \u201cblue slip\u201d allows home state senators 2 hv input on US attys & district court judges In Biden admin Republicans kept 30 LIBERALS OFF BENCH THAT PRES TRUMP CAN NOW FILL W CONSERVATIVES<\/p>\n \u2014 Chuck Grassley (@ChuckGrassley) August 25, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n But why would Trump listen to reason when he\u2019s decided he\u2019s angry about something? At a press conference earlier today, Trump announced a questionable lawsuit about the practice. \u201cWe\u2019re \u2026 going to be filing a lawsuit on blue slipping,\u201d Trump told reporters. \u201cYou know, blue slips make it impossible for me as president to appoint a judge or U.S. Attorney because they have a gentlemen\u2019s agreement. It\u2019s nothing memorialized, it\u2019s a gentlemen\u2019s agreement that\u2019s about 100 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n Not every Republican sees the benefit of forcing through Trump nominees (cough, Alina Habba<\/a>, cough, cough) without blue slips. Senator Tom Tillis sees the shortsightedness of forcing the issue.<\/p>\n 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. It\u2019s why\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/rdLvkMIWg3<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Senator Thom Tillis (@SenThomTillis) August 25, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n We\u2019ll see if Trump goes through with his promised lawsuit over the practice \u2014 but it\u2019s not the most ridiculous loser argument<\/a> the Department of Justice has been forced to make in court at Trump\u2019s behest. <\/p>\n The post Donald Trump Goes On The Attack Over Blue Slips<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n The \u201cblue slip\u201d tradition, requiring home state senator approval for judicial nominees, is back in the news. If the tradition of getting senators to sign off on a president\u2019s judicial nominees \u2014 potentially of another political party \u2014 seems like it\u2019s from a bygone era, well, you\u2019re not entirely wrong.<\/p>\n During Trump\u2019s first term in office, the GOP abandoned the custom<\/a> for appellate nominees in order to stack the judiciary with far-right acolytes. Since then, Dems have, more or less, stuck with the system (only two nominees by Joe Biden were confirmed without blue slips). The Democrats\u2019 unwillingness to fight fire with fire severely limited<\/a>\u00a0Biden\u2019s ability to counter the tremendous influence Trump was able to exert in his first term as president. Though Biden shepherded a number of judicial appointees through the process, he abandoned valuable appellate court seats<\/a> to preserve the blue slip tradition.<\/p>\n Now that the GOP is back in power, Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley has held the line on blue slips\u00a0for district court and U.S. attorney nominations and Donald Trump is NOT HAPPY \u2014 which we know thanks to an unhinged social media rant.<\/p>\n And because it is 2025, Grassley responded\u2026 on social media.<\/p>\n Plus there\u2019s the way the blue slips have affirmatively *helped* the GOP.<\/p>\n But why would Trump listen to reason when he\u2019s decided he\u2019s angry about something? At a press conference earlier today, Trump announced a questionable lawsuit about the practice. \u201cWe\u2019re \u2026 going to be filing a lawsuit on blue slipping,\u201d Trump told reporters. \u201cYou know, blue slips make it impossible for me as president to appoint a judge or U.S. Attorney because they have a gentlemen\u2019s agreement. It\u2019s nothing memorialized, it\u2019s a gentlemen\u2019s agreement that\u2019s about 100 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n Not every Republican sees the benefit of forcing through Trump nominees (cough, Alina Habba<\/a>, cough, cough) without blue slips. Senator Tom Tillis sees the shortsightedness of forcing the issue.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll see if Trump goes through with his promised lawsuit over the practice \u2014 but it\u2019s not the most ridiculous loser argument<\/a> the Department of Justice has been forced to make in court at Trump\u2019s behest. <\/p>\n The \u201cblue slip\u201d tradition, requiring home state senator approval for judicial nominees, is back in the news. If the tradition of getting senators to sign off on a president\u2019s judicial nominees \u2014 potentially of another political party \u2014 seems like it\u2019s from a bygone era, well, you\u2019re not entirely wrong. During Trump\u2019s first term in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":131979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-29iO4M.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/08\/Screenshot-2025-08-25-at-11.17.02-AM.png?resize=1080%2C790&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her<\/a> with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/05\/Blue-Slip-300x182.jpg?resize=300%2C182&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
\nKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her<\/a> with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Mastodon @[email\u00a0protected].<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"