Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) finally flipped off the lights and sent his chamber home on Saturday after days of frustrating talks with Democrats. The two sides, who’ve been butting heads over the president’s long list of nominees, finally threw in the towel on negotiations when it was obvious that Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had no interest in doing his part to put Donald Trump’s team in place. After multiple attempts to break the logjam, Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) seemed to speak for everyone when he vented, “We’re stuck on stupid.”

By the weekend, the Democrats’ demands were almost comical. If Republicans wanted to move forward with the 100-plus names, Schumer decided the price of their cooperation would be a cool $1 billion. The offer? Restore the funds Trump cut in foreign aid and the National Institutes of Health, and we’ll vote. Not surprisingly, the proposal went over like a lead balloon.

In a scathing rant on Truth Social, the president told Democrats where they could stick that deal. “Senator Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is demanding over One Billion Dollars in order to approve a small number of our highly qualified nominees, who should right now be helping to run our Country,” Trump wrote angrily. “This demand is egregious and unprecedented, and would be embarrassing to the Republican Party if it were accepted. It is political extortion, by any other name,” he added.

To Republicans, Trump followed with another post urging Thune not to accept. “Tell Schumer, who is under tremendous political pressure from within his own party, the Radical Left Lunatics, to GO TO HELL! Do not accept the offer, go home and explain to your constituents what bad people the Democrats are, and what a great job the Republicans are doing, and have done, for our Country.” Finally, in an all-caps exclamation point, the president added, “THE DEMOCRATS ARE EXTORTIONISTS WHO ALMOST DESTROYED OUR COUNTRY. NOW WE ARE BACK, AND THE USA IS THE ‘HOTTEST’ COUNTRY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

After going around and around with Schumer and huddling with his own party, Thune agreed that the Democrats’ counteroffers were not only unserious but absurd. “The Dems’ demands are probably not going to be something that at this point we can meet,” Thune told reporters, as other Republicans blasted the other side’s historic obstruction.

“[Under] Clinton,” Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) explained to Breitbart, “98% percent [of nominees] went through voice vote or unanimous consent. Underneath Bush 43 … 90% went through voice vote or unanimous consent; 90% for Obama. You go to Trump — 1.0 Trump 45,” and there was a drastic dropoff. “He had roughly 44% of his [go] through voice vote,” Mullin pointed out before observing that 60% of Joe Biden’s enjoyed the quick approval of Republicans.

With the exception of their former Senate colleague Marco Rubio, Democrats “have not let one single nominee go through voice vote,” the Oklahoman shook his head, “meaning they have filibustered every single one — but one.” And even on Rubio’s, Mullin said, “Democrats still debated him.”

Schumer’s been trying to defend his party’s stunt by arguing that the men and women Trump wants to hire are “historically bad nominees” who “deserve historic levels of scrutiny.” Of course, Senator Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) pointed out, if that were the case, why were these people voted out of committee with large bipartisan margins? Frankly, he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Thursday’s “Washington Watch,” “Senate prerogative has never been abused like this. … So it may be time to just pull that Band-Aid off and say, ‘This isn’t working anymore.’”

Republicans have always believed, Cramer stressed, “that the president [who] wins the election is entitled to their government.” That doesn’t mean the Senate doesn’t do its due diligence with background checks and hearings and “all of that cross-examination.” But “the key is not to abuse [that power] just because Donald Trump’s the president. … We’ve never done that before. They are now doing it. And so maybe it’s just broken. We have to do something.”

That “something,” insiders say, could take any number of forms. Republicans could move toward “en bloc” votes on big groups of nominees, which, Politico explains, would “reduc[e] the amount of debate time for mid- and lower-level nominees.” Or they could do away with the procedural votes for those low-level hires altogether. “Republicans are also discussing reducing the number of nominees subject to Senate confirmation,” Jordain Carney reports. Any of these options could be on the table when the chambers come back after the August recess — and it would be no one’s fault but Schumer’s.

“What Schumer has done, he’s forced this,” Mullin reiterated. “Every action requires an equal reaction.”

While there was a lot of talk of recess appointments, the controversial process that allows presidents to send people directly to their posts while Congress is out, Thune decided better of the idea. Apart from the thorny idea of bypassing the Senate, there’s also the practical downside, which is that recess appointments don’t last a full term. Anyone that Trump appointed would only be able to serve through the end of 2026, Axios notes, and “without payment.”

There’s also the very real obstacle of getting the House back to D.C. to formally declare recess. “Recess isn’t just as simple as calling recess,” Mullin wanted people to know. “The House would have to agree, and the House has already left D.C.” Both chambers would have to agree. In the end, that was a hill too steep for Thune to climb.

What happens when the Senate returns is anyone’s guess. While having some time away from the Swamp should theoretically thaw some of these tensions, no one really expects Democrats to have a rush of goodwill after a month of hyper-partisan campaigning. In the meantime, expect the unexpected.

“It’s a lot of uncharted territory here in terms of the posture of the minority and the majority, and the president’s priorities,” Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) acknowledged. “If you like chaos, then you’re seeing a lot of it.”