The Senate confirmed one of their own — Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — as secretary of state Monday night in a unanimous vote, giving President Donald Trump a day-one Cabinet confirmation.
Now the hard part begins.
None of Trump’s other Cabinet picks will get confirmed this easily — especially on the national security side, which GOP leaders want to prioritize in the early days of Trump’s second presidency.
Over the next few days, Senate Majority Leader John Thune will look to round out Trump’s national security team by helping confirm a CIA director, Pentagon chief and DHS secretary. Thune will be looking for ways to blow past Democratic objections that could tie up the floor for several days on individual nominees.
At this point, it’s all but certain that Trump’s most critical Cabinet picks will get confirmed. It’s simply a question of whether Democrats will try to run out the procedural clock — and whether Thune will play hardball in response. All it takes is one senator to slow things down.
Thune has vowed to keep the Senate in session to grind through each nominee, nights and weekends if necessary. This could be enough to force Democrats to the table on fast-tracking some Cabinet nominees, although not all of them.
Next up: On his way out of the Capitol last night, Thune indicated that former Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), Trump’s pick for CIA director, could get a vote sometime today. Thune said there are some Democrats who want to speak about Ratcliffe’s nomination on the Senate floor before agreeing to a quick vote.
“I think there are people who want to talk on it [and] let people have their voices heard,” Thune said.
Ratcliffe cleared the Senate Intelligence Committee Monday evening on a 14-3 vote. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), the panel’s chair and vice chair, released a joint statement calling for an immediate floor vote.
If Ratcliffe gets confirmed today, Thune could begin the floor process on Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary. Absent a time agreement with Democrats — which we don’t foresee — Hegseth’s confirmation vote would take place sometime over the weekend.
Would Democrats agree to a quicker vote to salvage senators’ weekends? It’s unclear. Democratic senators will be under immense pressure from their base to raise hell about Trump’s more controversial nominees, especially Hegseth. But as any Senate watcher knows, jet fumes can be intoxicating.
Another option would be to punt Hegseth to next week and try to confirm Kristi Noem as the head of the Department of Homeland Security by the end of the week. Noem won committee approval on Monday in a bipartisan 13-2 vote. This could be a signal that Democrats are willing to shorten the floor process, even by a small amount.
So it’s possible that Noem could be confirmed by Thursday or Friday, allowing senators to head home for the weekend and deal with Hegseth next week.
Latest on Gabbard: The Intelligence Committee has yet to schedule a confirmation hearing for former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence. The holdup has been paperwork-related, including financial and ethics disclosures as well as an FBI backgrounder.
We’re told that the committee is now just waiting for Gabbard’s FBI file. Cotton, the panel’s chair, indicated to us last week that he’d schedule a hearing immediately when all paperwork has been transmitted.
As we’ve reported, Gabbard’s confirmation prospects are far from certain.