Senate Republicans on Thursday bulldozed past Senate precedents and changed the rules to break a Democratic blockade of President Trump’s nominees, in an extraordinary move that is likely to undercut Congress’s future role in vetting executive branch officials.

Just hours after hearing from President Donald Trump during a caucus meeting, Republicans in the Missouri Senate showed they are ready to please him by shoving a new congressional district map to passage over opposition from Democrats.

On the same day that thousands of protesters filled the Missouri Capitol to protest gerrymandering, Republicans used a rare procedural maneuver to cut off debate over the rules of the special session.

Senate Republicans used what is known as the nuclear option to break a Democratic blockade of President Trump’s nominees, weakening Congress’s vetting role.

The rules of the Senate are an important storehouse of a great deliberative tradition, and they should not be lightly changed. But neither should they be wielded to exercise a power that the Senate doesn’t even need to possess and doesn’t currently use for any serious purpose aside from pointless delay.

A key Republican senator is pressing to waive federal regulations for artificial intelligence companies while they test and develop their products, according to a draft of the bill viewed by Bloomberg News.