EXCLUSIVE — Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has found an off-ramp to simmering White House tensions over a Democratic blockade of President Donald Trump’s nominees.

In an interview, Thune called a change in Senate rules, which advanced along party lines Thursday, a middle ground for Republicans after months of procedural delays bottled up well over 100 appointees.

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Republicans held out on Trump’s demand for recess appointments, a loophole that lets presidents install their nominees unilaterally, as an option of “last resort,” but Thune instead hammered out a GOP compromise that allows an unlimited number to be confirmed in a single Senate vote.

“I think that retaining the power of confirmation, but also restoring the way that it was done in the past, and has been done, is kind of the objective here,” Thune told the Washington Examiner.

“I think this is a way of fulfilling his desire, and sort of dealing with the frustration he has about the way the Democrats are obstructing and blocking and keeping him from getting his people in place, but doing it in a way, I think, that it still respects the history and traditions of the Senate,” Thune said.

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The rule change, known as bloc voting, does not resolve the standoff over nominees completely, and Republicans have lines on how far they are willing to go to confirm them. Trump has directed blistering criticism at Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, over his refusal to get rid of blue slips, a privilege Democrats have used to block some of his U.S. attorney nominees.

Still, the rule change represents a pressure release valve that will ease some of that friction and spares Republicans the dozens of procedural votes Democrats have demanded on virtually all of Trump’s nominees so far.

The rule change does not apply to judges, a category Republicans considered but left out, and Cabinet nominees are also exempt. But Republicans can approve most executive nominees in large batches, meaning the roughly 150 available for a floor vote will be confirmed as soon as October.

“I think it’s most efficient in terms of using the Senate’s time wisely and well and freeing up time to do other things,” Thune said. “I think there’s an opportunity cost with us spending two-thirds of our time on personnel.”

The rule change marks the third time Thune, who became majority leader in January, has guided the Senate through precedent-setting changes with little room for disagreement within his party.

In June, Republicans voted to treat Trump’s tax cuts as deficit-neutral using a controversial scoring method that pushed the boundaries of budget reconciliation. Before that, they devised a way to avoid overruling the parliamentarian in a party-line vote to undo California’s pollution regulations.

Thune said the California emissions vote, in particular, was challenging given the elaborate floor procedure that GOP staff had to devise but that his thought process has been the same in each of the Senate flashpoints.

“You’ve got to identify, ‘What is the outcome or the result you’re looking to achieve,’ and then figure out, ‘OK, how do we get there?’” Thune said. “And then you’ve got to be very collaborative in trying to build support to get to that solution.”

To sell the bloc voting change, Thune emphasized a series of “protocols” he agreed to that protect GOP senators’ rights, including the ability to nix a name from a larger batch of nominees. Leadership also shared statistics with colleagues to put the gridlock of the current Congress in context.

Democrats have accused Trump of corruption and illegal behavior to explain the procedural hurdles, while Republicans note that the president has been denied unanimous consent or voice votes on even bipartisan or uncontroversial nominees.

“It’s really been collecting all the information, doing the analytics, and illustrating how just out of the norm this is,” Thune said.

“When you sit down and lay out the argument, lay out the data, it’s very powerful and compelling that something’s got to give,” he added.

At first, Thune’s answer to Trump’s frustration was long days in session and the most nominee votes in recent memory, but the decision to alter Senate rules gained traction as Republicans were unable to clinch a deal with Democrats to fast-track a batch of nominees before the August recess.

Another attempt at a bipartisan compromise, effectively a more modest version of bloc voting, fell apart Thursday with Republicans accusing Democratic leaders of dragging their feet.

In terms of recess appointments, Thune always held it open as a possibility but described the maneuver as impractical in the interview in some of his most expansive comments on the topic to date.

“I’ve always suggested that there’s a better way to do things,” Thune said, noting that recess appointments are unpaid and require the Senate to jump through procedural hurdles, including what he described as a mini “vote-a-rama” to adjourn.

“There are all kinds of these things, these targets you have to hit,” Thune said. “So, to me, it’s not easy — it’s disruptive.

“I think just getting everybody to kind of abide by the practice that’s been employed around here for decades, by making a modification to the rules to do in blocs what’s always been done on individual noms, makes the most sense.”

Thune also dismissed the idea of abandoning blue slips, which give senators the right to veto judicial or prosecutor nominees in their home state. The privilege drew Trump’s ire after Democrats blocked Alina Habba, his choice for U.S. attorney in New Jersey, and two prosecutor picks in New York.

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“He believes it’s been abused by the Democrats. We haven’t been able to find examples of that,” Thune said, adding that Republicans view the practice as useful when a Democratic president is in office.

“I don’t think that there are anywhere close to the votes to do it,” Thune said. “And I’ve tried to convey that to the White House.”