Rubio Gets Unanimous Confirmation; Hegseth, Noem Advance

The Club of Clubs takes care of its own — but even by that standard, Marco Rubio hit a grand slam. After spending several years building relationships with his Senate colleagues, Rubio won the first Cabinet confirmation in Donald Trump’s second term. Late in the afternoon, the upper chamber gave Rubio a unanimous vote to become Secretary of State:

The Senate on Monday resoundingly confirmed colleague Sen. Marco Rubio to be President Donald Trump’s secretary of State, making him the first member of the 47th president’s cabinet to win the chamber’s backing.

The swift Senate vote, 99-0, for Rubio followed shortly after the senior senator from Florida received unanimous support, 22-0, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which he was a member for his 14 years in the Senate. … 

At his hearing last week, Rubio impressed his colleagues with his knowledge of a wide range of issues including the declining number of countries that diplomatically recognize Taiwan, the regulatory landscape of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States security partnership, International Criminal Court indictments targeting senior Israeli leaders, support for Ukraine, China’s militarization of islands in the South China Sea, and the recent Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

All of this is true, but almost beside the point. Rubio prepared well for the hearing, of course, but he could have mailed it in and still been confirmed by acclamation. Rubio’s work on the Foreign Relations Committee is more than enough to justify his appointment, and the Senate loves to confirm their colleagues. 

But even more, Democrats need to support Rubio in order to rationalize their opposition to Trump’s other nominees as anything other than petty partisanship. That’s why the Senate held a roll call vote for the confirmation; they could have just as easily confirmed Rubio by unanimous consent or a voice vote. Democrats want a record that shows they backed a Trump nominee when they come after other Cabinet appointees such as Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert Kennedy Jr. 

It won’t make much difference in the end for most of these, however. Hegseth probably had the highest risk of rejection, but instead the Senate Armed Services Committee advanced Hegseth to the floor on a party-line vote:

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted Monday along party lines to send Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be defense secretary to the Senate floor as President Donald Trump tries to move quickly to get critical members of his Cabinet in place. 

All 14 Republicans on the committee voted in favor of Hegseth, while all 13 Democrats voted against him. Despite initial concerns about allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse and financial mismanagement — all of which Hegseth has denied — not a single Republican senator has said so far that he or she will vote no, meaning he is most likely on track to be confirmed by the Senate.

Thursday is the soonest that vote would occur in the full Senate unless all 100 members agree to move things along more quickly.

Democrats could delay this by demanding the 30 hours of floor debate that the rules allow, but what’s the point? John Thune could demand a more expedited process by threatening to keep the Senate in session continuously for 30 hours to get the vote more quickly. I’d guess that Thune and Chuck Schumer will agree on something more like 12 hours, which is plenty of time for debate, especially since there does not appear to be a clear back-up at the DoD in the meantime. 

Kristi Noem will get a far easier and likely quicker route to confirmation. The Senate Homeland Security Committee passed Noem’s nomination to the full Senate on a nearly unanimous vote:

A Senate committee cleared President Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with a bipartisan vote, paving the way for a Senate floor vote.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) by a 13-2 vote.

The vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee makes Noem one of a handful of nominees to be voted out of committee on Trump’s first day in office. She still has to be approved by the full chamber.

This is a bit surprising, given Noem’s intention to focus on implementing Trump’s immigration policies, which Democrats have obstructed in the past. Noem could cruise to an early confirmation; Democrats may be keeping their powder dry for Tom Homan later on.

Also getting a bipartisan-but-not-unanimous committee win is John Ratcliffe, whose nomination for CIA Director will now likely move quickly as well:

John Ratcliffe took a step closer to being confirmed to lead the CIA on Monday as the Senate Intelligence Committee advanced his nomination.

The panel advanced his nomination 14 to 3 shortly after President Trump was sworn into office. All three “no” votes were cast by Democrats.

The vote comes days after Ratcliffe’s confirmation hearing, which was largely cordial and void of fireworks. That marked a major change from 2020 when Ratcliffe, then considered a highly-partisan choice to become Director of National Intelligence (DNI) who Democrats deemed unprepared for the role, was confirmed in a party-line vote. 

However, Ratcliffe’s work during his tenure as DNI helped grease the skids for his confirmation this year, especially his stance on China and promise to Democrats to keep the agency apolitical.

Also greasing skids is the Democrats’ political conundrum. They spent the last several years shrieking about how Trump had been disqualified from office, only to find out that voters very much disagreed. It might be finally dawning on them that they have cried “wolf” several times too many, and now voters don’t believe a word they say — and that the media says, either.