Todd Blanche inches closer to Senate confirmation after agreement with GOP holdouts and more top headlines

Todd Blanche getting to the one-yard line on confirmation is a story about negotiation actually happening inside the Republican conference, which frankly doesn't get enough credit when it works. Holdouts held out. They apparently wanted something specific addressed before signing on, and rather than being steamrolled or lectured about party unity, they got an agreement. That's not dysfunction. That's the Senate doing the slow, unglamorous thing it's supposed to do before handing someone one of the most powerful legal jobs in the country.

It's worth remembering that Blanche isn't some career bureaucrat sliding through on a rubber stamp. He was Trump's own defense lawyer, which means his nomination was always going to get extra scrutiny, including from within his own party. Good. A nominee who can survive skeptical questions from people who actually agree with him on most things is a stronger nominee than one who just gets waved through because leadership said so.

We'd rather see this kind of friction than none at all. A confirmation process where every senator falls in line the moment the White House sends a name over isn't oversight, it's theater. The fact that a handful of Republicans made their votes conditional on real answers, and got them, suggests the process still has some teeth left in it. That should reassure people who worry the Senate has become a formality rather than a check.

None of that guarantees Blanche will be a great Deputy Attorney General. It just means the people confirming him did a little more homework than usual before saying yes, and that's a habit worth keeping regardless of who's in the White House next.