Baffled Dianne Feinstein walks out of Senate chamber wondering what just happened: 'Did I vote for that?'

• Dianne Feinstein didn't seem to know what took place on the Senate floor Wednesday morning.
• The retiring California Democrat asked staff for confirmation about a vote she had just attended.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein emerged from the Senate chamber on Wednesday seemingly confused about what she had done during a two-vote series.

"Did I vote for that?" Insider overheard the California Democrat ask her long-time chief of staff, David Grannis, about approving a judicial nominee to the federal bench.

Grannis, who had just finished explaining to his 89-year-old boss that the six Senate votes scheduled throughout the day would be on Biden appointees, shook his head and said, "No."

The most jarring part about the public episode was that Grannis was trying to map out what Feinstein — whose cognitive ability has increasingly come into question — needed to know about what was happening later, but she couldn't recall what had transpired minutes before.

An Insider review of the floor proceedings confirmed that Feinstein did not vote on the nomination of Judge Adrienne C. Nelson to serve on the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. Nelson was confirmed by a vote of 52-46. Feinstein voted to invoke cloture on judge Ana C. Reyes to serve on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. That procedural motion passed by a vote of 52-47.

Feinstein's latest stumble comes less than 24 hours after her staff announced that she wouldn't run for a seventh term in 2024.

Her looming retirement seemed to catch the decades-long politician off guard, causing Feinstein and her staff to clash over her career plans.

The last time Feinstein blew up at staff in Insider's presence, she was taking some junior aides to task for rushing her into a continuing resolution vote she appeared unprepared for.

"I don't even know what that is," Feinstein told staff last fall on her way through the Senate subway.

Feinstein aides did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why she would have been thrown by the judicial nominees' votes.

Several House Democratic lawmakers, including Reps. Katie Porter, Adam Schiff, and Barbara Lee, have already announced they're running or are reportedly preparing to mount a bid for her Senate seat.