President Donald Trump recently criticized a long-standing Iowa Senator for his handling of potential nominees for certain positions.

Sources say, the President made a post to his social media platform that calls out Senator Chuck Grassley for adhering to a century-old procedure of using a “Blue Slip” when nominating US district court judges and US Attorney positions. According to Grassley’s Office, when these types of nominations are made, senators from the home state are allowed to make a recommendation on a blue slip of paper whether or not to proceed with the nomination.

Sources say President Trump’s post on Truth Social wanted Grassley to move immediately on these nominations and confirm them. Grassley says the President contacted a mutual friend in Iowa to relay the message and Grassley responded telling the individual that the Blue Slip process is a bipartisan topic with other Senators who wanted to keep it. He points out that this issue is a benefit to President Trump because there are now 23 district court judge vacancies that can be filled. 

“Those vacancies exist because Republicans didn’t return Blue Slips in the Biden Administration. So the Blue Slip is serving this President that he’s going to be able to get 23 judges that he wouldn’t otherwise have if Democrats didn’t honor the Blue Slip from Republican Senators.”

Grassley says another tactic with the Blue Slip process is through negotiations like when he held up two Democratic nominees from former President Joe Biden for US Attorney positions and managed to get one to flip into a Republican nominee. Grassley emphasizes that this information did not get back to the President and he takes personal offense to the comments.

“So it just doesn’t add up. Now it could be that the President didn’t promote this. There’s a bunch of 30-year-olds working in the White House that don’t know anything about how Congress operates. If that’s the case, they mislead the President. But regardless, the President personally insulted me and I’m distressed by it.”

All US District Court Judge and US Attorney nominations are reviewed and decided on by the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Grassley is the current chair.