President-elect Trump's unfortunate nomination of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to head the Department of Justice points to potential limitations in swaying candidates and interacting with Senate Republicans. It was an early sign that Trump's room for maneuver was shrinking. His cabinet was installed.
President Trump, buoyed by his election victory earlier this month, nominated Gates to be attorney general in what emerged as an easy test for Senate Republicans, as he has done many times before. , expected Republican lawmakers to capitulate to him.
But Gates turned out to be poisonous. The Senate says his withdrawal is a strike against Mr. Trump's selection, and that the former president cannot afford to have one of his nominees ousted from the floor in the coming months. This was a warning to Republicans.
“Once you vote against the people in power, you don’t realize how easy it is to vote against them,” one Republican senator told The Hill.
This experience could serve as a lesson for Team Trump moving forward.
“You can choose someone who is unconventional and anti-establishment, but Mr. Gaetz is a reminder that that person matters,” one Senate Republican aide told The Hill. “I think President Trump recognizes that he doesn’t want someone who ends up overshadowing himself and his policies with baggage.”
For weeks, Senate Republicans have vociferously declared that Mr. Trump has the prerogative to carry out Cabinet picks, and many have indicated they intend to proceed largely in tandem with the Cabinet picks.
But Trump's selection of Gaetz immediately tested that theory, with the former Florida congressman stepping down after many members of Congress, including many Trump allies, made it clear they had little interest in confirming Gaetz. I ended up doing it. This was difficult for many people to accept.
In the wake of the eight-day drama, President Trump nominated former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) to replace her, who is expected to have a much easier time winning a floor vote next year.
But whether Mr. Trump will go back to the well in search of numbers in Mr. Gaetz's mold after his failed start is an open question, and Republicans are worried that if such a candidate comes to the floor and fails, the next administration are concerned that they may not be able to recover.
“An early vote failure could have laid the groundwork for four years of lame duck status,” the Senate Republican said.
Republicans will now focus on three candidates: former Rep. Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. President Trump hopes they don't suffer the same fate as Gates, but questions abound. To each their own.
The most pressing concern is Mr. Hegseth, a candidate for Pentagon chief. After his nomination, sexual assault allegations from 2017 surfaced. “This matter has been thoroughly investigated and I have been completely exonerated, so I am going to let this matter go,” he told reporters. He also facing doubts About his tough stance on female combatants.
However, Gabbard, President Trump's nominee for director of national intelligence, may face the same difficult path to confirmation as Hegseth.
Gabbard, a former House Democrat, has raised eyebrows over past comments about the Ukraine war that seemed to reflect the talking points of Russian state media. This is a concern for many defense hawks and Kiev supporters in the Senate, and could ultimately come back to bite her.
As for Kennedy, he is seen as having the best chance of passing the Senate, despite his skepticism about vaccines and other positions that senators may question.
But sources believe Gates' experience could be helpful in making these choices in the coming days and weeks.
“I think this is a reminder that he can get people in there who shake things up and make unconventional choices. But when it comes to relationships on the hill, there's an inherent fear. “When you have someone who has had a lot of trouble and someone who is facing challenges, when he has personal baggage, those kinds of things get in the way of President Trump's eventual policies,” Senate Republicans said. a close aide said.
This doesn't mean President Trump doesn't have arrows in his quiver, especially just weeks after winning the general election with majorities in both chambers. Some of these could include recess appointments to install one or more cabinet options.
of theory not provenHowever, if both chambers do not agree, President Trump could put the Senate into recess.
Some Senate Republicans still believe it is unlikely to move forward for a variety of reasons. Above all, it could damage relations with the Senate, as it would be an attempt to circumvent the senator's role of advice and consent for nominees.
“It's hard to imagine a scenario in which a Republican Congress would approve a recess appointment even though it's actually decided by a majority vote,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, RN.D.political handbookon Thursday.
But despite questions over its validity, there's a reason Trump floated the idea just days after his Nov. This was done with the possibility that this would occur.
“At the end of the day, this was a test of where he was at to get an adjournment vote in either chamber. Granted, falling short of 50 votes with Mr. Gaetz was a problem, but… , the real problem is they can't achieve it. “We should let the House adjourn, knowing it's about Gaetz,” a Senate Republican aide said.If there's one organization that hates Gaetz more than the Senate Republican Conference, it's the House Republicans. He pointed out that there is.
“We don't know if he has the same problem with other candidates,” they added.
