It was my pleasure to sit down with Winston Marshall to discuss this week’s round of Trump cabinet nominees, all of whom face challenges as Washington reacts to the potential rise of independent-minded disruptors put forward for critical positions. You can watch the interview here (there should be more behind Winston’s Substack wall soon):
For the hearing updates yesterday, I joined Brian Kilmeade to discuss this morning on Fox Radio — listen here:
Here’s my take in The Spectator on Tulsi Gabbard’s performance, which after a bracing opening statement descended into a relitigation of the Edward Snowden case and her refusal to call him a traitor as opposed to a criminal. I don’t think anyone who’s paid attention to Lt. Col. Gabbard’s position over the years would be surprised by this, but it sure made Democratic Senators Michael Bennet and Mark Warner very upset. The support she received from Richard Burr, Joni Ernst, and Chairman Tom Cotton, though, was emphatic — and the most important outcome from the day was that Susan Collins, considered the key swing vote on her path to the floor, was very positive about her answers. And if Tulsi gets Collins’ backing on the way to the floor, it’s hard to see the numbers that have her stopped in the vote there, unless James Lankford or Todd Young really want to test their limits.
When it comes to Kash Patel’s hearing, the highlight was a shouting match with Amy Klobuchar and an expected confrontation with Adam Schiff. But the truth is that this hearing went smoother than expected, with fewer fireworks and more Republican unanimity. Politico seems disappointed the hearing was relatively boring besides this, but that’s a good thing for a nominee. At least the audience got to be shocked by a hard R for entertainment purposes.
What could turn out to be the worst performance was RFK Jr’s in front of the HELP Committee, given that it seemed to do very little to assuage the concerns of its chairman, Bill Cassidy. Cassidy repeatedly tried to give Kennedy an out on vaccines, but RFK refused to take it. When the chairman of a committee opposes you, it means a lot more than when just a random member does — and Cassidy is viewed as an authority on health policy within the conference already. The MAHA movement will have to work the phones to push more Senators in his direction in my view, but there’s still time to do that.
More coverage from the day:
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