In a decisive victory for President Donald Trump, the GOP-led Senate confirmed on Monday the first judicial nominee of his second term.

Whitney Hermandorfer, of Tennessee, prevailed in her bid to become a U.S. Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit by a 46-42 vote along party lines. She is poised to replace Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch, an Obama pick. A dozen members of the upper chamber did not vote.

The confirmation of Hermandorfer to join the Cincinnati-based bench that hears appeals from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee is “a boon to the federal judiciary,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said in a statement.

“As the Director of the Strategic Litigation Unit in Tennessee, she’s led major cases on civil rights and the separation of powers and is widely praised for her legal mind, impeccable qualifications, collegial nature and constitutionalist philosophy,” Grassley added. “I was proud to lead Ms. Hermandorfer’s nomination through the Senate Judiciary Committee and am confident she will be an excellent federal judge.”

When Trump nominated Hermandorfer earlier this year, the White House said that she was the director of the Strategic Litigation Unit in the Office of the Tennessee Attorney General, had previously served as an associate at Williams & Connolly, LLP in Washington, D.C., and boasted experience working as a law clerk to Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett of the Supreme Court, now-Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh when he was a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The White House also noted that Hermandorfer earned her B.A., magna cum laude, from Princeton University, where she was co-captain of the women’s varsity basketball team, earned her J.D. from the George Washington University Law School, where she graduated summa cum laude and first in her class, and was editor-in-chief of the George Washington University Law Review.

“I am pleased to announce the nomination of Whitney Hermandorfer to serve as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social in May. “Whitney has been serving the Great People of Tennessee, in the Attorney General’s Office, where she has strongly litigated in Court to protect Citizens from Federal Government Overreach. A former Co-Captain of the Princeton University Women’s Basketball Team, Whitney is a staunch defender of Girls’ and Women’s Sports. She has a long history of working for Judges and Justices who respect the RULE OF LAW, and protect our Constitution, including Justice Samuel Alito and two fine Supreme Court Justices I appointed in my First Term. Whitney is a Fighter who will inspire confidence in our Legal System. Thank you Whitney!”

Democrats warned that Hermandorfer was too green and might give into politics.

“Senate Republicans just confirmed their first judicial nominee of Trump 2.0,” Senate Judiciary ranking member Dick Durbin (D-IL) said on X. “Whitney Hermandorfer is inexperienced and partisan – with a record that repeatedly put Donald Trump ahead of the law. This is the playbook we must watch for, call out, and vote down.”

When Hermandorfer testified during her confirmation hearing last month, she contended that judges should adhere to boundaries established under the Constitution. That came as Republicans had been pushing for impeachment of some members of the federal judiciary who were ruling against some of Trump’s actions in a way they believed had waded into activism.

“It is an extraordinary power, the Article III power, to decide cases … With that power, again, comes great responsibility and humility to understand the proper role of a judge is to interpret the law and not make the law or bend the law to whatever policy preferences the judge might have individually,” Hermandorfer said.

Hermandorfer later advanced out of the Judiciary Committee by a 12-10 vote. Other Trump nominees for judgeships were also reported favorably to the full Senate and could be confirmed in the days and weeks to come. If Trump’s second term is like his first, he still has more than a couple hundred judicial appointments to go.

“Tennessee native — Judge Whitney Hermandorfer — is the first judicial nominee confirmed by the Senate in [Trump’s] second term,” Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) said in a post on X after the final vote on Monday. “She will set a benchmark of excellence for future judicial nominees — President Trump could not have made a better choice. Congratulations, Judge Hermandorfer!”

Grassley’s team said that during the first six months of Trumps’ second term, the Senate has confirmed 21 members of Trump’s Cabinet, “putting his team in place faster than the last three incoming administrations.” It also pointed out that the upper chamber has so far confirmed 89 of his civilian nominees, “outpacing the first Trump administration,” and confirmed 12 ambassador nominees, “which is more than the incoming Biden, first Trump and George W. Bush administrations.”

WASHINGTON—As Congress gears up for a fight over the rescissions package that would make permanent many of the Department of Government Efficiency’s cuts, House Republicans are encouraging their colleagues to seize the moment.

“If we can pass this with some sense of urgency, then that invites the White House to send more rescission packages up to Capitol Hill,” Congressman Mark Harris (R-NC) Harris told The Daily Wire on Monday. “That’s the way I’ve been describing it back in the Eighth District of North Carolina to my people, because they want to see some action, and this is the way we’re going to see it done.”

The bill, which the Office of Management and Budget sent to Congress in early June, contains many of the cuts that were revealed by Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative. Examples highlighted by the OMB include funding for NPR and PBS, “Being LGBTI in the Caribbean,” and “training women in gender equity.”

The rescissions package also includes cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program, which OMB reported hid payments for programs like “transgender people, sex workers and their clients and sexual networks” in Nepal, “resilience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gender, intersex, and queer global movements,” and circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia.

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) has spoken out against cutting PEPFAR from the budget, which was intended to assist those affected by HIV and AIDS.

“I want to strike the rescission of funds for PEPFAR, which has an enormous record of success, having saved some 26 million lives over the course of the program, as well as preventing nearly 8 million infants from receiving AIDS from their infected mothers,” Collins said. “So I can’t imagine why we would want to terminate that program.”

Harris, who voted to pass the rescissions package through the House, commented about Collins’ gripes about the bill.

“We’ve got to remember we are $37 trillion in debt,” Harris continued. “We have got to take care of America first. … And if we’re not maintaining our own economic health — if we’re not maintaining our own economic future — we’re not going to be any good to anybody on any continent.”

Holdout Republican members are not only in the crosshairs of the Senate whips, but of the president as well.

Recently, President Donald Trump posted about the rescissions package that “any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement.”

It is unclear how Collins, who is expected to campaign to keep her seat during the midterm elections, would be affected by Trump’s lack of endorsement.

The rescissions package must arrive on Trump’s desk by Friday, or it would expire, causing the payments exposed by DOGE to continue.

“We’ve all been supportive of the work that DOGE has done, and this has been just the start,” Harris said. “It’s time for us to make sure that we are taking the congressional action that we need to take.”