GOP: Senate Democrats Stick With Obstruction Strategy

Republicans in Congress say Democrats don’t seem interested in pulling back from what the GOP calls their obstructionist strategy against the Trump administration.

The latest senator to describe the attempts to hinder the administration is Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who told Breitbart that Democrats show no sign of abandoning their "obstructionist brand."

Blackburn said in an interview with the outlet that Senate Democrats are "disagreeing simply for the purpose of being disagreeable because they hate Donald Trump."

She described the approval process for many top administration positions that require Senate confirmation. The process can move along quickly. But Democrats, she said, have decided to throw up every possible time-consuming roadblock they can, which has created a large backlog of waiting appointments.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has warned he may keep the upper chamber in Washington over its August summer break to force the issue and keep Democrats at work. Blackburn said that's one option to handle the growing workload.

"We need to force the Democrats to be here and to vote to give up their August and not be able to be in their states during August," she said.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told Newsmax this week that Senate Democrats have resorted to "unprecedented obstruction" to interfere with the Trump administration's appointments. He said that even if the Senate doesn't take its August break, it may not be able to finish the work.

"Well, I know that many have said we need to stay here during the month of August, and certainly I'm open to that," he said. "The problem is we will never catch up if we have to continue dealing with this unprecedented obstruction."

Trump posted on Thursday that the Senate needs to forget about the scheduled August break. "The Senate must stay in Session, taking no recess, until the entire Executive Calendar is CLEAR!!!"