White House inches closer to ending Kevin Cramer blockade on Trump nominees

The White House is growing “optimistic” it can resolve a dispute with Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) that is threatening the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominees at the worst possible moment for Republicans: right before they lose control of the Senate.A senior White House official told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that talks with Cramer, who is slowing down the appointment of most executive branch nominees, are “headed in the right direction” and that staffers have been “working tirelessly with his team to try to get to a good position.”There have been signs that the Trump administration is willing to meet, or at least come closer to, his demand: the reversal of a Biden-era conservation rule that Cramer has denounced as an illegal “land grab.” In September, the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to revisit the regulation. A month later, the director of the agency traveled to Cramer’s home state to speak with affected farmers.But time is running short for the White House to resolve the impasse after Democrats picked up at least eight Senate seats in last week’s midterm elections. The outcome was enough to flip control of the chamber, giving Republicans a narrow window in the lame-duck session to confirm outstanding nominees.As of now, Cramer isn’t holding up judges or Health and Human Services nominees. Cramer also agreed to allow Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling to be confirmed in September after the Trump administration committed to revisiting its rule.He reiterated Thursday, however, that most categories of nominees are still caught up in the blockade and that he still expects the Trump administration to rework its policy, a wetland protection program that restricts farming in North Dakota and other states.“I have rewarded good-faith efforts toward finding a solution by releasing a limited number of nominations in response to the work being done by the Department of the Interior and the White House,” Cramer said in a statement shared by his office.“They have made the right moves and said the right things, but the ball is in their court to finish the job, not the environmental activists who are not party to these contracts and are lying about our farmers,” he added.In a brief interview, Cramer similarly described talks as productive and said he was “pretty confident” the standoff will be resolved “not too long after Thanksgiving.”He decided to lift his hold on HHS nominees after HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum made their own trip to North Dakota last week. Cramer told the Washington Examiner that another, larger meeting with farmers is now in the works and that he also will let Trump’s choice for ambassador to Colombia move forward.“In the meantime, I’ve had good discussions with the White House,” Cramer said.Those talks include a recent conversation with Stephen Miller, who took over as White House chief of staff earlier this week.RICK SCOTT TAKES SWIPE AT RON DESANTIS AFTER MIDTERM VICTORY LAP IN FLORIDAThe standoff with Cramer is not the only obstacle facing the White House as it attempts to clear its backlog of nominees before the end of the year. Several of Trump’s judicial picks are also encountering GOP opposition, and the White House was forced to pull one of them, a circuit court nominee in Arkansas, earlier this week.Others are already being brought to the floor after Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) extended the week to confirm one judge and tee up two others. The nominations are being processed as Republicans negotiate a slate of year-end legislation with Democrats, including a government funding deal and Congress’s annual defense policy bill.