Republicans are holding up his judges.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans have confirmed 57 of President Trump’s nominees this term to lifetime seats on the district courts and the appeals courts. Reuters reported on Sunday that roughly one-third of active federal judges are now his appointees. A last push to seat more of them, before Democrats take the Senate, is hitting Republicans who will not move the names.

Senator Alan Armstrong, an Oklahoma Republican, said: “We put up a lot of really qualified candidates that we sent to the White House, and they basically ignored that and just put through their one.”

We put up a lot of really qualified candidates that we sent to the White House, and they basically ignored that and just put through their one.

Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas are leaving the Judiciary Committee’s Republican side. Reuters reported that the two of them can deny a nominee the votes to advance. Armstrong and Cornyn have withheld public support for two nominees in their own states. Tillis has used the committee to help block candidates his colleagues oppose.

On Tuesday the White House withdrew the nomination of U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky to the St. Louis-based 8th Circuit and replaced him with J. Cody Hiland, a justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Senators John Boozman and Tom Cotton of Arkansas had opposed Rudofsky. Boozman led that opposition and favored Hiland. Hiland said in August that he had been offered a trial-court nomination and declined it. Tillis told colleagues he supported the Arkansas senators. Rudofsky is a first-term Trump appointee. He is known for a ruling that weakened enforcement of a major voting-rights law.

Tillis told reporters on Thursday that the White House has at times essentially told senators, “This is our guy, I hope you’ll get on board.”

Majority Leader John Thune said on Monday that judicial confirmations were a top priority while Republicans still control the chamber. The Senate confirmed its first judicial nominee of the lame-duck session on Thursday.

The photograph is a file from Nov. 1, 2026. Trump is pointing at a rally at the Five Flags Center in Dubuque, Iowa. His mouth is closed. Evan Vucci, Reuters. It is not Sunday. Armstrong, Tillis, and Cornyn are not in the frame.