Grassley disappointed about Trump attacking him on social media about “blue slip” tradition

NEW HARTFORD — Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he’s disappointed that President Trump attacked him on social media over the weekend over the “blue slip” tradition in the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the right to approve or object to nominees to serve as federal judges or US attorneys in their home states.

Grassley tells Northiowanow.com News that Republicans want to keep the “blue slip” tradition and that Trump doesn’t realize it is currently working to his advantage.   “There’s 28 vacancies on the district court level from Republican senators withholding blue slips on Biden liberal appointees to those courts, so the president can fill those 28 vacancies with constitutional conservatives, and I think he forgets that. That’s what the blue slip is, they gave him the power to appoint 28 vacancies to district courts that he wouldn’t otherwise have.”

Grassley says the “blue slip” tradition allows for more local say by Senators for appointments to their home states.  “And he ought to be thankful that Republican senators did exactly that in the Biden administration, and that’s what the blue slip did to preserve the voice of senators in the state that probably know more about what’s going on in that state than the President of the United States would, whether that’s a Republican president or a Democrat president.”

Trump’s latest personal attack irritated other GOP senators who are already frustrated with the president’s attacks on Grassley, with many believing that Trump is making a strategic error.