Sen. John Fetterman returned a blue slip for President Donald Trump’s pick for a Philadelphia-based federal trial court, allowing Antonio “Tony” Pozos to keep moving through the nomination process. The Pennsylvania Democrat became the first Democratic senator to take that step for one of Trump’s second-term judicial nominees.
The move landed on Friday, the same day it was first reported and the same day Demand Justice said it was launching a six-figure ad buy in Pennsylvania aimed at Fetterman. The group said it was responding to his decision to let Pozos’ nomination advance, making the blue-slip return more than a routine procedural note and turning it into an immediate political fight back home.
Pozos is a partner at Faegre Drinker and a former federal prosecutor whom Trump said in May he would nominate to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He interviewed with Sen. Dave McCormick in March and with the White House Counsel’s Office in April, putting him on a standard path toward consideration before Fetterman became the first Democratic senator to return a blue slip for a second-term Trump judicial pick.
Blue slips are part of the Senate process for federal judicial nominees, and returning one can allow a nomination to move forward. Fetterman’s office did not frame the move as a promise of support, however. A spokesperson said on Friday that he would still decide whether to vote to confirm Pozos “when the time comes.”
That hesitation leaves the bigger question unresolved even after the procedural win for the nominee. Fetterman has often broken with Democrats to back some Republican priorities, a pattern that has frustrated progressives, and this decision now puts him in line for more pressure from both sides: from activists angry that he helped a Trump judicial pick advance, and from supporters of the nomination who will now wait to see whether he actually votes yes.
Demand Justice, which has targeted Fetterman before in ads aimed at Democrats who voted to confirm Trump judicial nominees, seized on the opening immediately. Its political message was blunt: Fetterman had the chance to stop what it called a Trump loyalist from securing a lifetime seat and let it pass. The senator’s next vote, if it comes, will decide whether that criticism stays about process or becomes about final confirmation.
