Gaetz, RFK Jr. to Get Vetted Amid Some GOP Skepticism, Thune Says
(Bloomberg) -- Incoming Senate majority leader John Thune said “all options are on the table” to clear President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees, including allowing them to take their jobs without Senate confirmation.
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“Hopefully it doesn’t get to that,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said during a Fox News interview on Thursday evening.
Trump’s nominations of Matt Gaetz for attorney general and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services have drawn criticism from some Republicans, as well as Democrats.
Gaetz, a Florida Republican who resigned his House seat after Trump’s announcement on Wednesday, has been the subject of a long-running ethics investigation, the results of which reportedly were set for release on Friday.
Thune told Fox host Bret Baier his guess is that a House Ethics Committee report on Gaetz, who has denied wrongdoing, would come out, adding that confirmation hearings tend to be “fairly comprehensive.”
“I don’t know the answer to that just yet,” said Thune when asked if Gaetz would get confirmed.
He said Republicans who wouldn’t vote for a nominee might not vote to put the Senate into a recess either and the House would also have to agree to that move, which would allow Trump to bypass Senate confirmation to install his officials as recess appointments.
“I always believe that you defer to a president when it comes to the people they want in their in their cabinet and to do a lot of these important jobs,” Thune said. “But obviously there is a process whereby we get down and scrub all these nominees and figure out whether or not one they’re qualified, and are they people who are fit to hold these offices.”
Separately, Thune, who was first elected in 2004, said he and House Speaker Mike Johnson have been discussing funding Trump’s border and immigration agenda via so-called budget reconciliation procedures that require just a simple Senate majority.
“We’re looking at those options right now,” he said.
Thune said he and Trump speak regularly, and he praised the Republican’s government efficiency effort headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
“This is long overdue, honestly,” he said, adding that some agencies could be moved out of Washington.
(Updates with Thune first elected in 2004, in ninth paragraph.)
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