🚨🚨BREAKING: Sen. Marsha Blackburn is calling on Senate Republicans to ram President Trump’s agenda through before Democrats seize control of Congress in January, starting with a third reconciliation bill that needs only a simple majority to pass.🚨🚨

“We’ve got the farm bill, the NDAA, and we have that third reconciliation bill that we need to get across the finish line,” Blackburn said in a Fox News interview this weekend. She added that “there are so many things that we need to get done and buttoned up.”

Blackburn just won the governor’s race in Tennessee and will leave the Senate in January. She has nothing left to prove in that chamber, and she is fighting anyway for every inch of ground this president can hold. Every Republican senator who plans to stick around should be fighting at least that hard.

Congress came back to Washington today, and the clock is already running. On Nov. 3, voters handed Democrats the House and the Senate.

Republicans walked into Election Day holding 53 Senate seats. In January, Chuck Schumer’s party takes the gavel, and every bill and every nominee will need Democratic permission to move.

Republicans have about five weeks to get their work done before that happens, and the rules are on their side. Budget reconciliation lets the Senate pass tax and spending bills with a simple majority. Democrats cannot filibuster it, and debate is capped, so they cannot talk it to death. With 53 seats, Republicans can lose three votes and still win with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie.

They have already done this twice in this Congress, and most of the laws Republicans have sent to President Trump came through those two bills.

The third package is sitting on the table waiting for someone to pick it up. The House already passed a budget plan for it, 216 to 214. The plan would replace defense money spent on the Iran war, send aid to American farmers, and fund grants to help states require voter ID and proof of citizenship. Before the election, Senate Republicans let it stall because they could not line up the votes. Now they have run out of excuses.

Every one of those priorities will be dead on arrival in a Democratic Congress. Democrats have refused to pay for the war effort, and they have blocked the SAVE America Act in the Senate. Does any Republican senator believe Chuck Schumer will hand them a second chance next year?

The fight over President Trump’s nominees is every bit as urgent. More than 20 of his judicial picks are still waiting on the Senate, including four for federal appeals courts. These are lifetime appointments.

A judge confirmed this December could still be ruling on your rights in the 2050s. Once Democrats take over, the Senate is expected to confirm few, if any, of the president’s judges. A seat left empty this month could stay empty for the rest of his term.

Judges must be confirmed one by one, which takes floor time and full attendance. Many executive branch nominees can move in large packages, thanks to the rules change Republicans forced through last year to break the Democrats’ blockade. Majority Leader John Thune says a package of dozens of Trump nominees is coming. Earlier packages have included U.S. attorneys and U.S. marshals, the officials who prosecute federal crimes and hunt down fugitives. Every one of those posts left vacant is a gift to the Democrats who spent two years trying to keep this president from building his team.

A simple majority confirms every one of these nominees, and that majority exists only if Republican senators actually show up to vote.

Lame-duck sessions usually fall apart on attendance. At least 17 senators are leaving at the end of this Congress, and departing members have a long and sorry record of skipping votes in the final weeks. Some Republicans in both chambers want to work weekends and holidays to clear the list.

Every Republican senator should be standing with them. A senator who heads home early this December is doing Chuck Schumer’s work for him.

Democrats wrote this playbook themselves. In the 2024 lame-duck session, with their Senate majority about to end, Democrats rushed through 22 of President Biden’s judicial nominees. In 2010, they used reconciliation to force through changes to Obamacare without a single Republican vote. Republicans owe them no apology for playing by the same rules.

Government funding runs out on Dec. 11, and Congress still has to pass the defense bill and the farm bill. That is a heavy load, and it is the reason senators should cancel their holiday plans. Nobody should fly home while judges, prosecutors, and a reconciliation bill sit unfinished on the Senate calendar.

Republicans spent years telling voters what they would do with power.

They hold that power for five more weeks. The country will remember whether they used every hour of it or let it slip away. It's time to take the gloves off!!