After an attempt to secure a bipartisan deal failed, Senate Republicans went nuclear for the fourth time in the Senate’s history Thursday to speed up confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominees.

Republicans had threatened turning to the ‘nuclear option,’ which would allow for a rule change with a simple majority vote, to blast through the blockade from Senate Democrats and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. 

Lawmakers were frustrated that, through the first eight months of Trump’s presidency, not a single nominee had moved through fast-track unanimous consent or voice votes.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., argued it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Democrats what Republicans intended to do. 

‘I’ve been saying all week, ‘We’re going to vote on this on Thursday, one way or the other,” Thune said. 

‘We’re going to change this process in a way that gets us back to what every president prior has had when it comes to the way that these nominees are treated here in the United States Senate — by both sides, Republicans and Democrats; both presidents, Republicans and Democrats.’ 

The GOP’s rule change, which was born from a revived Democratic proposal from 2023, will now allow lawmakers to vote on Trump’s nominees in batches.

Senate Republicans’ rule change, which has been pitched as beneficial to the current and future administrations, would only apply to nominees subject to the Senate’s requirement for two hours of debate, which includes sub-Cabinet-level positions and executive branch picks.

Judicial nominees, like district court judges and district attorneys, don’t fall under the rule change. Lawmakers are expected to plow through dozens of nominees early next week under the new rules with the intent of clearing the backlog of Trump’s picks, which grew to more than 140 and counting. 

With the change in place, it will only take a simple majority vote to confirm the picks. Still, the decision to do bloc packages will require 30 hours of debate before a final confirmation vote. 

Schumer panned the move and contended Republicans had turned the Senate into ‘a conveyor belt for unqualified Trump nominees.’

‘This is a sad, regrettable day for the Senate, and I believe it won’t take very long for Republicans to wish they had not pushed the chamber further down this awful road,’ he said. 

However, before resorting to the nuclear option, lawmakers were close to a bipartisan deal that would have allowed for 15 nominees to be voted on in groups with two hours of debate.

Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, blocked the new proposal on the floor and argued that Senate Republicans were trying to rush through the negotiating process ahead of their plan to leave Washington for the weekend.

‘What they’re asking for is unanimity, and we don’t have it,’ he said. ‘And, so, if you’re interested in enacting this on a bipartisan basis, the process for doing that — it is available to you. But, again, it’s more a matter of running out of patience than running out of time.’

A frustrated Thune fired back, ‘How much time is enough?

‘Give me a break,’ he said. ‘Two years. Not long enough. How about eight months? Eight months of this.’

The nuclear process began earlier this week when Thune teed up 48 nominees, all of which moved through committee on a bipartisan basis, for confirmation on the floor.

‘It’s time to move,’ Thune said. ‘Time to quit stalling. Time to vote. It’s time to fix this place. And the ideal way to fix it would be in a bipartisan way.’

Both parties have turned to the nuclear option a handful of times since 2010. In 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., used the nuclear option to allow for all executive branch nominees to be confirmed by simple majority.

Four years later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., went nuclear to allow for Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority. In 2019, McConnell reduced the debate time to two hours for civilian nominees.

The first day of opening statements in Ryan Routh’s federal trial ended with Judge Aileen Cannon noting the case was ‘moving at a pretty fast clip,’ after a lengthy day of testimony that put the Secret Service agent who spotted Routh in the bushes, a civilian witness who chased him down, and FBI agents on the stand.

Routh is accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump last year while he was golfing.

The morning began with Routh’s own rambling opening statement, which lasted just seven minutes before Cannon cut him off for going off-topic.

‘What is intent? … Why are we here? What is our intent? To love one another … Is this so difficult?’ Routh asked. He went on to reference Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Putin, Sudan’s civil war and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

‘We have limited patience, and you don’t have unlimited license to go forward and make a mockery of the dignity of this courtroom,’ Cannon told him.

Federal prosecutors opened their case against Routh on Thursday, telling the 12 jurors he had come ‘within seconds’ of assassinating Trump during a round of golf in West Palm Beach last year.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Shipley read Routh’s own words to the jury — ‘Trump cannot be elected’ and ‘I need Trump to go away’ — before laying out what he described as a ‘deadly serious’ plan to kill a major presidential candidate.

Shipley said Routh had traveled from Hawaii to the mainland with a Chinese military-grade assault rifle, 20 rounds of ammunition, 10 burner phones, three aliases, stolen license plates and ‘a trail of lies from Honolulu to Florida.’

Jurors then heard from Special Agent Robert Fercano, who testified he was five feet away when he saw Routh’s face and the barrel of a rifle pointing directly at him on the sixth hole of Trump International Golf Course. ‘

‘This appeared to be a textbook ambush scenario,’ he told the jury, describing how he fired while walking backward to cover. Prosecutors showed the Chinese-made SKS rifle and played Fercano’s radio calls, where ‘shots fired, shots fired, shots fired’ could be heard.

Routh, representing himself, opened his cross-examination with: ‘Good to see ya. First question, is it good to be alive?’ Fercano replied, ‘Yes, it is good to be alive.’ The agent repeatedly identified Routh as the man who smiled at him from the bushes.

Later, jurors heard from Tommy McGee, a mental health professional who testified he saw a frantic man running from the golf course and later helped authorities track down Routh’s black Nissan Xterra. McGee identified Routh in court and in video shown to the jury. Routh’s cross-examination drew objections after he asked McGee if he supported Trump and whether ‘Madea, Beyoncé and Michelle Obama will be mad’ if he did.

Additional agents who testified described recovering the rifle and other gear, and processing Routh after his arrest. One FBI agent displayed the clothing Routh allegedly wore the day he was captured, along with a debit card in his name.

Routh’s questions grew increasingly odd as the afternoon wore on — at one point asking an agent whether ‘someone who loses things’ might drill a hole in a debit card to keep it on a key ring.

Routh has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate and assaulting a federal officer. Prosecutors say he had been armed with an AK-style rifle when Secret Service agents stopped him near Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach in September 2024. The attempt came just months after Trump had been shot and narrowly survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The trial resumes Friday morning in Fort Pierce federal court.

Last-minute closed-door talks between Senate Republicans and Democrats failed to prevent a ‘nuclear option’ in the upper chamber, as frustrations on both sides killed a deal to move ahead with President Donald Trump’s nominees.  

Lawmakers were inching closer to a deal that would have allowed sub-Cabinet-level nominees to be voted on in bunches, but neither side could reach a final agreement.

Senate Republicans argued that a majority of their counterparts agreed with the new proposal, but that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was still standing in the way.

‘I think the majority of Democrats are on board with it,’ Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital. ‘And Schumer is blocking it from actually having consent to come to the floor.’

The failed deal was a modified version of a proposal first unveiled by Senate Democrats in 2023, and would have allowed 15 nominees to be batched together en bloc and voted on while still requiring two hours of debate for the group.

But when Lankford brought the proposal to the floor for consideration, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, blocked it.

Schatz argued that Senate Republicans were trying to rush through the negotiating process ahead of their plan to leave Washington for the weekend.

‘What they’re asking for is unanimity, and we don’t have it,’ he said. ‘And so, if you’re interested in enacting this on a bipartisan basis, the process for doing that — It is available to you. But again, it’s more a matter of running out of patience than running out of time.’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., fired back ‘how much time is enough?’

‘Give me a break,’ he said. ‘Two years. Not long enough. How about eight months? Eight months of this.’

With the prospects of bipartisan deal to move nominees through Democrats’ blockade, Senate Republicans are expected to continue down the path of the ‘nuclear option.’

That means that their initial proposal, which would allow for an unlimited number of sub-cabinet level nominees to be voted on en bloc with 30 hours of debate tacked on, is expected to pass with a simple majority, and effectively change the confirmation process in the Senate.

‘We are achingly close to doing this like adults,’ Schatz said.

The White House issued a rare public rebuke of Israel for its strikes on Hamas leaders in Qatar, putting Washington in an awkward position between two key allies.

The Trump administration almost never breaks publicly with Israel on military campaigns. But analysts say the deeper question is how much the U.S. knew in advance — and whether it quietly offered its blessing.

Hamas said the strike killed five of its members but failed to assassinate the group’s negotiating delegation. A Qatari security official also died, underscoring the risk of escalation when Israeli operations spill into the territory of U.S. partners.

‘There’s a lot of opaqueness when it comes to exactly what the United States knew and when,’ said Daniel Benaim, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. ‘But the President has been pretty clear that he was unhappy with the substance and the process of what happened yesterday. This kind of public statement by a U.S. president in the wake of a strike like this is already very notable in its own right.’

Just days before the strike, Trump issued what he called a ‘last warning’ to Hamas, urging the group to accept a U.S.-backed proposal to release hostages from Gaza. The timing has fueled speculation about whether the strike was connected to Washington’s frustration with Hamas and whether Israel acted with at least tacit U.S. approval.

‘It just seems like the Israelis wouldn’t have done this without him knowing,’ said Michael Makovsky, CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. 

‘They’ve got a U.S. base right in that country with everything going on with the hostage talks. I got a sense that he knew, and it’s hard to understand exactly what happened — that if he knew, he sat on it, and then he told the Qataris only when the missiles were flying.’

But Trump on Tuesday had harsh words about the strike, writing on Truth Social that it ‘does not advance Israel or America’s goals.’

The White House claimed it learned from the U.S. military that missiles were on the move, and gave warning to the Qataris. Qatar has denied getting any sort of advanced warning. 

If Washington knew in advance, why issue the rebuke? If it didn’t, how could Israel act so freely in airspace dominated by the U.S. military? Either option raises uncomfortable questions about America’s leverage.

‘Israel would not do what it did without some sort of an approval by the U.S.,’ said Dr. Yoel Guzansky, senior researcher and head of the Gulf program at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. ‘The Trump administration wants to distance itself, and it’s understandable, because it has good relations with the Qataris.’

That relationship is anchored in hard power. The U.S.’s biggest overseas air base, Al Udeid, sits on Qatari soil and hosts more than 10,000 American troops. Qatar is a top buyer of U.S. weapons and recently gifted the administration with a new Air Force One jet. Yet none of that deterred Israel’s strike. ‘If indeed the U.S. wasn’t aware, then we have a big problem, because Israel surprised the U.S., and it might cause damage to U.S.-Qatari relations,’ Guzansky said.

Others argue the U.S. may have been more aligned with the operation than its rhetoric suggests. ‘The fact that U.S. defenses at Al Udeid were not used against Israeli jets is a great indicator that Washington was not opposed to the strike,’ Ahmad Sharawi, a researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

But Qatar’s international Media Office called claims that Qatar was re-evaluating its security partnership with the U.S. ‘categorically false.’ 

‘It is a clear and failed attempt to drive a wedge between Qatar and the U.S.’

Strains on Gulf relationships

The reverberations extend beyond Washington and Doha. The strikes risk unsettling the delicate outreach between Israel, the U.S., and Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, which has been under quiet but sustained pressure to join the Abraham Accords — the U.S.-brokered normalization deals between Israel and Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.

‘Regional power dynamics are shifting,’ said Benaim. ‘Gulf states are a bit less concerned about the threat from Iran, which was pushing them closer to Israel, and they’re seeing that Israel is engaged in activities across the region, whether it’s Syria or inside Iran or now inside Doha.’

The divergence is stark. Gulf leaders want de-escalation and stability to rebrand their states as hubs of investment, tourism, and economic recovery. Israel, meanwhile, is pursuing a strategy of direct confrontation with Iran across multiple fronts.

‘Gulf states that are really focused on their own economic recovery don’t like the image of smoldering, smoking Gulf cities subject to bombs because they’re trying to attract investment and create an image of common stability,’ Benaim said.

That mismatch could slow normalization, even if it doesn’t derail it. ‘Israel is probably underestimating the power of Gulf solidarity and the barrier being crossed when you see Israel striking inside of a GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] state,’ one former senior State Department official added. ‘I don’t think that means their relationships are going to fall apart or unravel, but these things cast a long shadow.’

Sharawi counters that Gulf outrage may be less about Israel itself than about the precedent of a strike on GCC soil. ‘It was an Israeli action against a fellow GCC partner, despite the hostile relationship that countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE had with Qatar in the past,’ he said. ‘But Gulf leaders are also deeply critical of Qatar for hosting Hamas. Privately, many will understand why Israel acted, even if publicly they condemn it.’

Qatar’s balancing act

For Qatar, the strikes open up both a vulnerability and an opportunity. On the one hand, it cannot allow itself to appear passive in the face of foreign attacks on its soil. Analysts expect Doha to respond through diplomatic channels, critical media coverage, and perhaps limited economic measures against Israel.

But Qatar also has a long history of turning crisis into relevance. ‘Qataris want to be again the mediator, because they earn a lot of points internationally — especially from the U.S.,’ said Guzansky. ‘It’s in their DNA.’

That means Qatar’s public outrage may coexist with a return to shuttle diplomacy, positioning itself once more as indispensable to ceasefire negotiations.

Sharawi argues that Qatar’s victim narrative also obscures its complicity. ‘The leadership of a terrorist organization has failed to bring in a sustainable ceasefire, and Qatar has empowered Hamas by hosting them,’ he said. ‘Even though Gulf leaders won’t say it publicly, they are very anti-Hamas. That context matters for how normalization prospects are viewed after this strike.’

Earlier this week Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade told a Qatari spokesperson it sounded more like the nation was ‘taking Hamas’ side’ than playing mediator. 

‘When one of the parties decides to attack our sovereignty in a residential neighborhood where my countrymen, the residents of Qatar, live in schools and nurseries right next door. Believe me, it’s very difficult to maintain a very calm voice,’ foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said. 

A different reaction than Iran

The Doha strikes also highlight an asymmetry in Gulf reactions. When Iran struck Al Udeid Air Base earlier this year, Gulf solidarity with Qatar was muted. This time, condemnations poured in minute by minute.

‘You didn’t see Gulf leaders coming and hugging the Qataris after Iran’s strike,’ Guzansky noted. ‘But with Israel, the reaction was much louder, with strong rhetoric across the Arab world.’

Sharawi agrees but frames it differently: ‘They were overly critical of Israel compared to Iran. The Jordanian king even said Qatar’s security is Jordan’s security — a very strong statement. The Arabs don’t hesitate to latch onto anything that criticizes Israel, and that showed yesterday, even in comparison with Iran.’

The contrast underscores a regional reality: Gulf leaders fear escalation with Tehran, but criticizing Israel carries little risk. For Qatar, the difference offers a chance to rally sympathy and spotlight its sovereignty — even as its neighbors quietly question its choice to host Hamas.

A shadow over normalization

Israel’s military reach is undeniable. But by striking inside Doha, it may have paid a hidden diplomatic price — reinforcing perceptions of Israel as a destabilizing actor at a time when Gulf states seek calm.

The fact that Hamas leaders survived while a Qatari security official was killed may further complicate fallout, heightening anger in Doha while leaving Israel’s core objective incomplete.

Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz has promised to strike ‘enemies everywhere.’

‘There is no place where they can hide,’ Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X, raising questions about whether a sovereign nation like Turkey, a NATO ally, which houses Hamas senior leaders, may be next. 

The Secret Service has its hands full combating an unprecedented level of political threats, an issue underscored in the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. 

While the Secret Service is initiating a series of changes to bolster its security practices following two assassination attempts on President Donald Trump last year, the agency is now operating at an extremely heightened state amid an unprecedented level of threats, according to experts. 

‘The Secret Service now has to play at a level of enhanced security that they’ve never dreamed of before. I think [Secret Service Director Sean Curran] is doing a good job in leading that effort,’ Tim Miller, who served as a Secret Service agent during Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton’s administrations, told Fox News Digital on Thursday. ‘But here’s the bad news for the Secret Service: They don’t have time. This threat is now. Can you imagine – they already shot our president once. Can you imagine if they’re able to kill him?’ 

Kirk, 31, died after he was shot in the neck during his ‘American Comeback Tour’ at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. The assassination comes a year after two attempts to take the president’s life. 

Twenty-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on Trump from a rooftop during a campaign rally in July 2024, and one of the eight bullets shot grazed Trump’s ear. The gunman also shot and killed Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter, father and husband attending the rally, and injured two others. 

Likewise, Ryan Routh was apprehended and charged with attempting to assassinate Trump at his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September 2024. Routh was charged with attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, among other things, and his trial kicked off on Thursday. 

Both assassination attempts against Trump are under investigation.

Bill Gage, who served as a Secret Service special agent during Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s administrations, said that even though the agency didn’t provide security during the Kirk event, it would conduct a review of the assassination like it does for others all over the world. As a result, the agency would perhaps consider enhancing smaller security details for members of Trump’s family, like the president’s son Barron, in response to Kirk’s death, Gage said. 

‘I think they will probably be taking another look at probably beefing up those smaller details that sometimes might only have two, maybe three agents on it, okay?’ Gage told Fox News Digital on Thursday. ‘And so once again, it’s going to increase that pressure where the agency’s already stretched thin.’ 

Miller, who now heads up Lionheart International Services Group, which provides security support and training, said that Kirk’s assassination was not a ‘one-off’ incident, and that the agency should adopt a similar mindset to the Department of Defense to train up warfighters. 

‘The Secret Service should be the biggest, baddest, meanest people on the planet,’ Miller said. ‘They ought to have the experience and a skill to where, when it goes bad, there’s none better.’

Miller has previously described the attack in Butler to Fox News Digital as a ‘wake-up call’ for Secret Service, and noted that the incident served as the impetus for reform within the agency. 

A bipartisan House task force that investigated the attack found that the attempted assassination was ‘preventable,’ and concluded multiple mistakes were not isolated incidents.

Former Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe told lawmakers in December 2024 that immediate changes to the agency following Butler, Pennsylvania, included expanding the use of drones for surveillance purposes, and also incorporating greater counter-drone technology to mitigate kinetic attacks from other drones. 

The agency also overhauled its radio communications networks and interoperability of those networks with Secret Service personnel, and state and local law enforcement officers, Rowe said. 

Although Miller said the Secret Service is working hard to implement changes, he said he worries it might not be fast enough to keep up with threats the president faces. Additionally, he said that in light of Kirk’s assassination and the attempts against Trump last year, there is additional pressure on the agency to sharpen its skills. 

‘After yesterday, I am sure every Secret Service agent recognizes that every day that they go to work could be the day,’ Miller said. 

The Secret Service extended its condolences to the Kirk family, but declined to comment on any specific changes to Trump’s security detail. 

‘President Trump receives the highest levels of U.S. Secret Service protection and the agency adjusts our protective posture as needed to mitigate evolving threats,’ a Secret Service spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Thursday. ‘Out of concern for operational security, we cannot discuss the means and methods used for our protective operations.’ 

The gun recovered by authorities in the assassination of Charlie Kirk was a bolt-action rifle — a common hunting weapon valued for its reliability but limited to a single shot before reloading.

Unlike a semiautomatic, the shooter must manually operate the bolt handle to cycle the weapon: lifting and pulling it back moves the spent cartridge, while pushing it forward chambers a new round from the magazine. Lowering the bolt locks the round and seals the chamber, making the rifle ready to fire again — a simple, durable design that has kept it popular among hunters and target shooters.

‘This process limits the rate of fire, you can only take one shot at a time,’ explained retired Marine Lt. Col. Hal Kempfer in an interview with Fox News Digital.

Kempfer noted that with a bolt-action rifle, the spent cartridge often remains in the chamber rather than being ejected, meaning shooters don’t leave behind shell casings or ‘brass’ that investigators can use for forensics.

‘That’s just one of those things where you, if you’ve thought it through, you know that you can’t leave any forensic evidence for investigators to work with,’ he said.

On Thursday, authorities said they recovered the rifle used to assassinate Kirk in the woods near the scene, where investigators believe the shooter abandoned it while fleeing to evade law enforcement.

‘They’re gonna be doing a lot of work on the forensics of this weapon as these firearms tend to have a history,’ he said, adding that investigators will try to trace where it was sold and how it changed hands. 

‘It’s possible the shooter used a straw buyer or another method to conceal their identity — but that’s the kind of legwork investigators will now have to do to track the shooter,’ Kempfer said.

Kempfer, who served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, said that the fatal shot was ‘not a particularly difficult’ one but does take planning.

‘You wouldn’t have to be some expert sniper or something, hunters take this shot all the time,’ he said, adding that the distance, clear weather, and elevated position all worked to the shooter’s advantage.