The Wall Street Journal editorial board issued another warning to Donald Trump on Monday, cautioning that one of his latest political moves could ultimately damage Republicans themselves.
At the center of the controversy is the long‑standing Senate “blue slip” custom, which permits a senator to block nominees for federal district court or U.S. attorney positions from their home state.
Trump recently criticized the practice after the dismissal of his former personal lawyer, Alina Habba, from her post as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey.
According to the Journal’s conservative editorial board, Trump is urging Senate Republicans to push aside this tradition and even press for recess appointments, but doing so could be shortsighted. “The worry is that such machinations might become routine to evade Senate confirmation,” the board cautioned.
The editorial underscored that the blue slip process often benefits Republicans whenever they are in the minority. As the board explained, it “serves Republicans when they’re out of power, and it tends to encourage Presidents to pick qualified and scrupulous lawyers for these posts.” In other words, weakening it could backfire once the political pendulum swings the other way.
By maneuvering to install Habba and pressuring for exceptions to the confirmation process, Trump is, in the board’s view, endangering an institutional norm that historically restrains presidents of both parties.
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“By trying to circumvent it, including his maneuvers for Ms. Habba and his demands for recess appointments, Mr. Trump is setting a precedent that could come back to bite Republicans,” the Journal concluded.
While this latest move of Trump might end up harming the Republicans, this is not the only reason that he has given the party to form a section that is necessarily against him as a leader. The MAGA base had quite a massive reaction regarding the Epstein files and the lack of clarity about the documents and the proceedings saw even the most loyal of the Trump supporters criticise him.
Attorney General Pam Bondi had previously mentioned that new files of the Epstein case will be released but after the Department of Justice said that no new evidence will be released, the MAGA base had sensed foul play and criticized Trump.
Trump is restating his push to eliminate Blue Slips…
Read more below… https://t.co/KaWLC0MJ9l pic.twitter.com/3dlISt0XuZ
— Observing Consciousness (@holonabove) August 25, 2025
Moreover, Trump’s decision to get involved in the Iran-Israel war had also drawn negative comments from the MAGA base as even the top leaders of the party were not in support of America getting actively involved in the fight.
Now that Trump is after the blue slip in a way that might actually have graspable negative consequences on the Republic party, it now remains to be seen how his fellow party members and followers react to it.
