[…] Confirmations are the one piece of the list a hostile House cannot undo. A federal judge seated this month…
Written By TNT Staff, Posted on November 15, 2026
President Donald Trump used a Saturday Truth Social post to put a 50-day clock on the lame-duck session of Congress. The post was a statement he attributed to Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.: confirm every remaining nominee, pass the permitting bill, try a reconciliation package that needs no Democratic votes, and line up bills on military funding, air traffic control, stock trading by members of Congress, pardon brokers and fraud — “all in the next 50 days.”
Fifty days from Saturday is Jan. 3, 2027, the day the new Congress convenes under the 20th Amendment. After last week’s midterms, that is when the majorities Republicans still hold run out. Kennedy put the same point on the Senate floor Wednesday: “In January, the Democrats will take over, but Republicans are in power until then.”
The Senate returns Monday at 3 p.m. The first test of the checklist comes at 5:30 p.m., when senators vote on confirming Daniel Desmond Domenico to the 10th Circuit and, if that nomination is confirmed, on cloture for the permitting bill.
The Saturday post added no comment of Trump’s own. It quoted Kennedy as saying:
“I’m going to fight and get all of the President’s Nominees confirmed. Get the Permitting Bill passed. I want to do a Reconciliation Bill, which we can pass with no Democrat votes, provide money for the Military, money for Air Control, a Bill to ban Stock Trading, pass a Bill on Pardon Brokers, pass a Fraud Bill, all in the next 50 days. The FAA Funding should be a stand alone Bill — We should get Democrat support for that!”
The core of that list matches what Kennedy told the Senate a day earlier. In a floor speech his office released, he said Senate Republicans had already concluded they have “a lot of nominations, presidential appointments and judicial appointments that we have to address for the remainder of this Congress.”
“If we don’t confirm these people, my Democratic friends will not. I can assure you,” he said. “So, we have to do that.”
Confirmations are the one piece of the list a hostile House cannot undo. A federal judge seated this month holds the office for life. An executive nominee confirmed now is in place when the new Congress arrives. Trump made the same demand in his own words on Nov. 9, writing that it was “very important” for the Senate “to confirm all of our pending 161 Nominations, including 25 Federal Judges.” The Senate confirmed one of those judges, Gregory Carl Cook of the Northern District of Alabama, on Thursday. More are queued for this week, as The National Telegraph reported Friday.
Kennedy said confirmations should come first, but not alone. “That’s not enough,” he said. Democratic colleagues, “going to be in charge in January,” can wait out ordinary legislation. The way to pass a bill with “only a majority vote,” he said, is reconciliation. He would start with “at least $200 billion for our military” because “our military is running out of bullets,” then take up Sen. Joni Ernst’s bill “to address the rampant fraud throughout the federal government” and use the savings to pay down debt.
“If we fail, we fail, but at least we will have tried,” Kennedy said.
The Senate adjourned Thursday until 3 p.m. Monday. At 5:30 p.m., under a unanimous consent order entered in the Congressional Record, it will vote on confirming Domenico, of Colorado, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. If that nomination is confirmed, the Senate will then vote on the motion to invoke cloture on substitute amendment No. 6883 to H.R. 2347, the Capito substitute that carries the Senate’s permitting-reform text, titled the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026.
That cloture vote is not final passage. It is the next 60-vote test on a bill that already cleared two earlier ones: the Senate invoked cloture on the motion to proceed 73-25 on Nov. 9, then agreed to proceed 62-21 on Nov. 10. A later cloture vote on the underlying bill still sits on the calendar. Because the vehicle is a House-passed bill, any Senate-passed version would have to go back to the House before it could reach the president’s desk — and it has to do so before Jan. 3, or it starts over in a new Congress.
The rest of the list will take longer, and some of it cannot ride in a reconciliation bill. Budget reconciliation is exempt from the Senate filibuster, which is why Kennedy is right that it can pass with no Democratic votes. The Byrd rule, however, is designed to keep provisions without a budgetary effect out of that package. A ban on members of Congress trading stocks, and a bill on pardon brokers, would likely have to move as standalone legislation. Those items appeared on the list Trump posted; they were not in the excerpts of Kennedy’s floor speech his office released.
The call for a standalone FAA funding bill landed two days after a nationwide ground stop that the Trump administration blamed on overloaded legacy routers and copper lines, and after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy asked Congress for emergency money to finish a new air traffic control system. The National Telegraph reported that story Saturday. Whether the funding travels alone or in a larger package is a decision for the next 50 days.
None of this happens unless the Senate stays in session and senators show up. Kennedy told colleagues Wednesday to “stop the bleeding, pick ourselves up and fight.” The calendar will not do the work for them. Thanksgiving and Christmas will eat into the 50 days. A reconciliation bill still needs a budget resolution and the votes. The permitting bill still needs 60 senators, then the House, then a signature.
What Saturday’s post did was make the to-do list public, in the president’s own feed, with a date on it. Monday at 5:30 p.m. is the first box. The National Telegraph will track the rest.
Sources: President Trump, Truth Social (Nov. 14, 2026, and Nov. 9, 2026); Sen. John Kennedy, Senate floor speech as released by his office (Nov. 11, 2026); Congressional Record, orders for Monday, Nov. 16, 2026; U.S. Senate Daily Press and Periodical Press Gallery floor logs (Nov. 9, 10 and 12, 2026).
November 15, 2026 November 14, 2026
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