Senate Republicans Give Trump Another Big Win
In a single action, Senate Republicans confirmed more than 100 of President Donald Trump’s nominees, reducing the backlog of unfilled appointments. The Senate GOP altered its regulations to allow the majority of executive branch nominees to be approved collectively rather than individually, which led to the confirmations.
The change does not apply to cabinet secretaries and judicial nominees. Since the rule change went into force, this move marks the biggest block of confirmations. Former Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who will represent the Bahamas, and former White House Presidential Personnel Office director Sergio Gor, who will represent India, were among those authorized.
Following months of Democratic resistance that had delayed the confirmation process to a standstill, Republicans invoked the so-called “nuclear option”—a party-line rules change—to expedite it.
For a brief period, some Republicans thought about permitting President Trump to nominate people during the break, which would allow him to fill positions while the Senate was not in session. But in the end, GOP leaders turned down that notion, claiming it might backfire when their party is next in the minority.
As his administration continues to fill important positions throughout the federal government amid a persistent partisan impasse, the mass confirmation represents a significant success for Trump.
Senate Republicans considered amending the chamber’s confirmation procedure in September because they were dealing with a backlog of judicial nominations brought on by minority Democrats’ stalling tactics.
Recently, President Trump has named four new federal district court judges. Two of them are top prosecutors in Texas who he praised for following his strict immigration policies in their cases.
In a series of social media posts, Trump announced the four nominees from Florida, Ohio, and Texas. This is part of his ongoing effort to strengthen conservative influence on the federal judiciary, which had already shifted sharply to the right during his first term.
The nominees are Acting U.S. Attorney John Marck of the Southern District of Texas and his No. 2, Arthur “Rob” Jones. The president chose them to be judges for life in their district, which includes Houston.
It was the most recent time that Trump used prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office to fill open positions in the district. The Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Nicholas Ganjei, the district’s previous top federal prosecutor, to a judgeship in February. This made Marck the acting U.S. attorney.
The office has been an important part of Operation Take Back America, a U.S. Department of Justice program that started in 2025 to stop illegal immigration and drug cartels.
Last Friday, Marck said that his office had charged 440 people with immigration and border security crimes in just the last full week of March.
“As Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, John has worked tirelessly to help us deport Criminal Illegal Immigrants and stop the trafficking of Lethal Drugs ravaging our Communities,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Trump similarly hailed Jones, the executive assistant U.S. attorney, saying he has “fought tirelessly to stop the flow of Illicit Drugs into our Country.” Jones started his career in 2002 as a line prosecutor in Laredo, focusing on border-related crime.
To fill a vacancy in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Trump nominated Mike Hendershot, who serves as chief deputy solicitor general under Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.
Trump said that Hendershot “has strongly and successfully represented Ohio in Election Law cases and challenged the Radical Left Policies of the Obama and Biden Administrations.”
Trump also picked Chief Judge Jeffrey Kuntz of Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal to be a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida.
Trump Admin Says It Uncovered $10 Billion Obamacare Fraud Scheme
The Trump administration says it has uncovered what it describes as a massive fraud scheme within the Affordable Care Act.
Members of Trump’s administration allege that roughly $10 billion in taxpayer money was improperly paid out between 2021 and 2024 because of weakened enrollment safeguards under former President Joe Biden.
According to a Department of Health and Human Services report, officials have already removed nearly three million fraudulent or improper Obamacare enrollments and estimate another 2.6 million questionable enrollments remain.
Administration officials say the findings are part of a broader government-wide effort to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse across federal programs.
The report traces the alleged problems to changes made during the Biden administration that expanded enrollment opportunities while relaxing income verification and eligibility checks.
At the start of Biden’s presidency, approximately 10 million people were enrolled through the Affordable Care Act exchanges. By 2024, enrollment had surged to roughly 22 million.
Federal investigators now believe millions of those enrollments were improper, fraudulent, or created without the knowledge of the individuals involved.
“By our estimate, improper, phantom, and fraudulent enrollment peaked at 5.6 million people in 2025,” the report states.
“We estimate 2.6 million improper and phantom enrollments remain, including over 1 million enrollments without a Social Security number.”
According to the report, several different forms of abuse contributed to the alleged fraud.
Officials say some applicants intentionally understated their income to qualify for larger taxpayer-funded subsidies.
Others allegedly received premium assistance despite failing to meet eligibility requirements.
Investigators also identified what they describe as “phantom enrollments,” in which insurance brokers allegedly enrolled people in Obamacare plans without their knowledge to collect federal commissions.
The report argues that reduced verification requirements made those practices significantly easier to carry out.
Since taking office, the Trump administration says it has restored stricter income verification requirements, ended several special enrollment periods, increased screening for duplicate Medicaid enrollment, and launched investigations into brokers suspected of creating phantom policies.
Officials also say they have strengthened oversight of agents participating in the federal marketplace.
As a result of those efforts, nearly three million enrollments have already been removed from the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
Even after those removals, approximately 19.2 million people remain enrolled.
The administration says its goal is not to reduce legitimate coverage but to ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent only on individuals who actually qualify.
“Preserving the fiscal and programmatic integrity of the ACA Exchanges is key to safeguarding taxpayer-funded resources for those that truly need them,” the report states.
“The federal government paying brokers to enroll individuals without their knowledge is not.”
The report also says the administration will continue pursuing additional enforcement actions against brokers and others accused of exploiting the program.
“The Trump Administration continues to aggressively root out fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption by promulgating new regulations to improve program integrity, investigating suspected improper or fraudulent enrollment, and taking action against agents and brokers committing fraud.”
The findings are likely to reignite debate over the Affordable Care Act and how aggressively eligibility rules should be enforced.
Supporters of the administration argue the report demonstrates that stricter oversight is necessary to protect taxpayers and preserve benefits for those legally entitled to receive them.
Critics of previous verification rollbacks have long warned that loosening enrollment safeguards could increase improper payments and fraud, while supporters of the Biden-era policies argued the changes made healthcare more accessible to eligible Americans, Fox News reported exclusively.
The administration says its investigations remain ongoing, with an estimated 2.6 million additional enrollments still under review as officials continue auditing the federal health insurance exchanges.
Trump has been pushing to replace Obamacare for over a decade, and this may give Republicans enough motivation to actually do something.
