Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sharply criticized Republican leaders after Tuesday’s midterm elections. He said GOP lawmakers had failed to use their control of the White House and both chambers of Congress to advance major conservative changes.
In a Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham, DeSantis faulted Senate Republicans for not pushing a tougher immigration agenda. He also said they had not turned President Donald Trump’s executive orders into law and had not pushed back against federal courts that blocked the administration’s deportation plans.
He noted, however, that the administration still has a short window to secure favorable judicial changes before the new Congress takes over.
DeSantis calls for nonstop Senate work to confirm judges in the lame-duck period
Ingraham brought up the Supreme Court and the slow pace of judicial confirmations. She said the GOP Senate had delayed nominees for months and that the problem was now coming due. She mentioned the upcoming lame-duck session, existing backlogs, and open district court seats in Texas and other states.
Drawing on DeSantis’s record in Florida, she asked what approach he thought Republicans should take in the remaining weeks to reduce the harm on this front.
DeSantis said he would move cots into the U.S. Senate cloakroom and keep senators working around the clock. “I’d roll in cots to the U.S. Senate cloakroom. I’d have them work round the clock, because you are not going to be able to confirm any conservative judges starting January 3rd for the remainder of President Trump’s term,” he stated.
He added that Republicans hold 54 seats for certain and could finish with 56. “Even if you got some of these red-state Democrats to flip over, you are not going to get 6 Democrats for a conservative nominee. So I would make sure every vacancy is filled between now and January 3rd. You cannot leave anything on the table,” he said.
In an earlier post on X, DeSantis said President Trump has virtually no chance of confirming replacements for Justices Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito once Democrats control the Senate. He also warned that Republicans could stay unable to confirm Supreme Court nominees through 2033, even if they win the White House again in 2028.
DeSantis estimated Democrats could reach 55 Senate seats if Republicans lost the remaining races that prediction markets strongly favored for Democrats. “Chance of confirming a worthy successor to Justice Thomas and/or Alito during President Trump’s term: Zero,” he wrote on social media.
He described the odds of confirming a successor under a hypothetical Republican administration from 2029 to 2033 as “probably zero.” He said Republicans would not be able to retake enough Senate seats in the 2028 elections. DeSantis has also weighed in on another federal-versus-state clash, offering a constitutional defense of state AI laws.
Thomas, 78, and Alito, 76, are the court’s two oldest members. Attention has focused on possible retirements because the court holds a 6-3 conservative majority, and replacing either justice with a younger conservative could lock in that balance for decades.
DeSantis’s remarks reflected broader concerns among conservative commentators about losing Senate control. The Daily Beast reported that Ed Whelan, a conservative lawyer and former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, also questioned whether Republicans could confirm another justice before Trump’s presidency ends.
Whelan argued that a Democratic Senate majority would make judicial confirmations difficult during Trump’s remaining two years and potentially under a future Republican president. He expressed skepticism that either Thomas or Alito would retire before the new Congress takes office in January, citing uncertainty over whether Republicans could secure enough votes for a replacement.
Other Trump supporters voiced similar worries. Michael Flynn Jr., son of Trump’s former national security adviser, questioned whether the election results could eventually produce a liberal Supreme Court.
Alito recently said he had considered retirement but decided to continue serving. He told CBS News in early October that he believed he could still make a valuable contribution to the court.
Published: Nov 5, 2026 07:00 am