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.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the U.S. would respond after former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was convicted of plotting a coup to remain in power after his loss in the 2022 election, although the secretary did not go into detail about what a U.S. response would look like.

‘The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil’s supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro,’ Rubio wrote on X.

‘The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt,’ he continued.

Brazil’s Foreign Ministry argued that Rubio’s comment represented a threat that ‘attacks Brazilian authority and ignores the facts and the compelling evidence in the records.’

The ministry said Brazilian democracy would not be intimidated by the U.S. government.

Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison when he was convicted by the country’s Supreme Court on Thursday on charges of plotting a coup to stop President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking office in January 2023.

The former Brazilian leader was a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump during the first Trump administration.

‘Well, I watched that trial. I know him pretty well. I thought he was a good president of Brazil, and it’s very surprising that could happen very much like they tried to do with me, but they didn’t get away with it at all,’ Trump told reporters, noting the legal cases against the U.S. president in recent years at the state and federal level, which included his conviction in New York.

‘But I can always say this: I knew him as president of Brazil. He was a good man,’ he added.

Trump has criticized the Brazilian judicial system and threatened tariffs on the country for its case against Bolsonaro.

In July, the U.S. president placed 50% tariffs on most Brazilian goods in response to a ‘witch hunt’ against Bolsonaro. He later exempted some Brazilian exports, including passenger vehicles and numerous parts and components used in civil aircraft.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, his unspecified allies on the court and his immediate family members will face visa revocations, according to Rubio, who criticized what he called a ‘political witch hunt’ against the former president.

That same month, Rubio announced visa revocations on Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who presided over Bolsonaro’s criminal case, and his unspecified allies on the court after the court issued search warrants and restraining orders against Bolsonaro.

The U.S. Treasury Department had also sanctioned the judge over allegations of authorizing arbitrary pre-trial detentions and suppressing freedom of expression.

Bolsonaro’s son, Brazilian Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, said he anticipates additional U.S. sanctions against Brazilian justices following his father’s conviction.

‘We are going to have a firm response with actions from the U.S. government against this dictatorship that is being installed in Brazil,’ he told Reuters on Thursday.

He warned that justices who voted to convict the former president could face sanctions under the Magnitsky Act, which was previously used by the Trump administration against de Moraes.

‘If these Supreme Court justices keep following Moraes, they also run the risk of facing the same sanction,’ he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is continuing its investigation into former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen in the final months of his administration — focusing on pardons and commutations — though a senior official said Biden is unlikely to face criminal exposure.

A senior DOJ official told Fox News the autopen investigation is ongoing and not closed, adding investigators are reviewing clemency actions taken in the final months of the Biden administration.

The official also pointed out, however, that the use of an autopen by a sitting president is ‘established law.’

The issue under review is whether the autopen was used in violation of the law, specifically, whether Biden personally approved each name included on pardon and commutation lists.

‘These types of cases are tough. Executive privilege issues come into play,’ the official said.

What is also clear, the official indicated, is that the target of any potential prosecution would not likely be Biden.

‘It’s hard to imagine how [Biden] could be criminally liable for pardon power,’ the senior DOJ official said.

The official noted that one reason the former president would be unlikely to face charges stems from a 2024 Supreme Court ruling that originally involved current President Donald Trump but would also apply to Biden.

‘We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power requires that a former President have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office,’ the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States in 2024. 

‘At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute.’

Sources familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s team continues to review the Biden White House’s reliance on an autopen, contradicting a recent New York Times report that indicated the investigation had been paused.

Trump has pushed for consequences over the autopen controversy, alleging on social media that aides acted unlawfully in its use and raising the prospect of perjury charges against Biden.

Biden has rejected those claims, saying in a statement last year he personally directed the decisions in question.

‘Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,’ Biden said. ‘I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.’

The House Oversight Committee has homed in on Biden’s clemency actions, including five controversial pardons for family members in the final days of his presidency, citing what it described as a lack of ‘contemporaneous documentation’ confirming that Biden directly ordered the pardons.

The committee asked the DOJ to investigate ‘all of former President Biden’s executive actions, particularly clemency actions, to assess whether legal action must be taken to void any action that the former president did not, in fact, take himself.’

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Oliver contributed to this report.