HOUSTON, United States  

The US Senate on Thursday confirmed 48 of President Donald Trump's nominees in a single vote under a new "nuclear option" rule change created by the Republican-controlled chamber one week ago, according to multiple news outlets.

The 48 nominees were all confirmed at the same time in a 51-47 vote across party lines for Trump's sub-Cabinet positions and ambassadors.

They included former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle as ambassador to Greece, Callista Gingrich -- wife of former US House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich -- as ambassador to both Switzerland and Liechtenstein and former Republican Congressman Brandon Williams as undersecretary of energy for nuclear security.

The rule was introduced by Senate majority leader John Thune and approved by the Republican-controlled chamber on Sept. 11, allowing the legislative chamber to go "nuclear," a term for changing Senate rules on a party-line basis.

The new rule overturned existing rules that required a 60-vote threshold in the 100-member Senate chamber to confirm executive branch nominees in batches and allows the Senate to approve the president's picks with just a simple majority vote. It does not apply to Cabinet nominees or prospective judges.

Thune introduced the change after accusing Democrats of unprecedented obstruction and slow-walking approval of Trump nominees in previous weeks that he said had made the Senate dysfunctional.

Thursday's bloc of 48 nominees is the first to earn confirmation since the rule change was approved.

It now paves the way for Trump and future US presidents to confirm their nominees along party-majority lines in the Senate, allowing the confirmation of an unlimited number of picks in blocs under just one vote.

Republicans said they will allow their own senators to object to a nominee included in any given bloc, and if that happens, they would either try to work out the hold with the objecting senator or pull the nominee out of the bloc being voted on. Democrats will not be granted that same option.

The latest rule change is one in a series of moves over the past 12 years to erode minority party powers in the Senate, a chamber that has historically granted individual senators unusual amounts of influence in determining the approval of presidential nominees.