Republican Senator Criticizes Trump’s ‘Intense’ Pressure Campaign on Behalf of Controversial Cabinet Nominees
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Some Republican senators are discontented with President-elect Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on behalf of his controversial Cabinet nominees.
According to Politico Playbook, Trump is determined not to allow the GOP Senate conference to dissuade him from moving on from his initial wave of nominees:
UNDER PRESSURE — Sen. TED CRUZ (R-Texas) met late last month with DONALD TRUMP’s AG pick, MATT GAETZ — then delivered a warning to the president-elect’s team.
Gaetz faced serious hurdles in the Senate, the Texas Republican bluntly relayed. He didn’t have the votes. And Trump’s team certainly got the impression that Cruz — a legal eagle who won several Supreme Court cases as Texas’ solicitor general — didn’t want Gaetz in the role, either, according to people familiar with what he conveyed.
Trump, who had heard similar complaints from other Republicans, got the message: “I don’t think you’ve got a path,” he told Gaetz the next morning, those people said, prompting him to drop out.
That might end up being the last time Trump bows to the concerns of Senate Republicans.
Instead of heeding them, Trump and his allies are now cracking down on them — adopting a new, confrontational approach on nominations, coordinating with outside forces to try to grind senators into submission, lest one failure cascade into another.
The report comes on the heels of another Politico report about how Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) changed her tune on Defense Secretary-designate Pete Hegseth after being leaned on by MAGA-world.
Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) are next up for the Ernst treatment, per Politico. But while the arm-twisting might get Trump’s nominees confirmed, it could also inspire a backlash.
“It might work in this situation [for Hegseth], but long term, it is not in the president’s interest,” one anonymous Republican told the outlet.
Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), meanwhile, signed her name to her criticism. calling the pressure campaign “a little more intense than usual, particularly Republican on Republican, which I don’t think is particularly appreciated.”
She even went so far as to warn that Trump could still lose Ernst, even despite her pledge to “support” Hegseth through his confirmation process.
“Anybody that thinks she’s weak has another thing coming,” she said.
