Thune faces first loyalty test: What to do with Trump’s most controversial Cabinet picks

A series of controversial Cabinet picks have become an early test for how Senate leader-in-waiting John Thune will balance proving his loyalty to Donald Trump with the interests of his wide-ranging conference.

So far, he seems to be giving the president-elect wide deference.

Trump hasn’t finished his selections yet, but three picks for some of the most influential roles in the Cabinet are already prompting anxiety among GOP senators who must decide whether to confirm them: Matt Gaetz for attorney general, Pete Hegseth for secretary of Defense and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. And POLITICO first reported another pick Thursday afternoon: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services secretary.

Broadly, Republican senators, led by Thune (R-S.D.), say Trump should be allowed to fill out his Cabinet the way he wants — though a couple are openly expressing doubts, especially on Gaetz. Nominees can only afford to lose three votes on the Senate floor and still get confirmed.

“We don’t know until we start the process,” Thune said about Gaetz’s chances of getting confirmed. “And that’s what we intend to do with him and all the other potential nominees.”

The wait-and-see approach isn’t a ringing endorsement, and Thune will have his work cut out for him if he moves forward on confirming each nominee. In addition to publicly aired doubts from Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Thursday he wanted to see a House Ethics Committee report on Gaetz that details an investigation into several allegations against the attorney general nominee, including that he had sex with a minor. The chair of that panel has indicated the report won’t be released now, because Gaetz resigned from the House on Wednesday night.

The Department of Justice conducted its own investigation as part of a sex trafficking probe and, according to Gaetz’s lawyers and DOJ officials, decided not to bring criminal charges. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.

There are issues with Hegseth, Gabbard and Kennedy, too. Combat veteran Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has said Hegseth needs to “explain” his recent comments on a podcast that “we should not have women in combat roles.” Gabbard has sparked concern within the intelligence community due to her sympathetic views on autocrats like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. And some senators have dodged questions about confirming Kennedy — who has touted for years the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism — before reports of his official pick.

There’s a general theory on Senate-confirmed nominations that new presidents will offer a sort of sacrificial lamb, a nominee meant to go down to make others look better or provide cover to purple-state senators to approve others. But GOP leaders said they don’t think that’s Trump’s intention here, and regardless, more than one failure could sour Thune and Trump’s relationship early in the term. Thune has vowed to advance Trump’s agenda, and his nominees are the first test on how effectively he can deliver.

“He’s got a hard job,” said one GOP senator, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Be careful what you ask for. He knew it was going to be hard. He knew President Trump was going to put people in there that people [were] going to question.”

But, the senator noted, Thune remains responsible for getting members “on the same page, and that’s tough as Republicans.”

Compare it to 2017, when Republican senators had a slightly slimmer majority to confirm Trump’s picks in his first term. At the time, Trump had to withdraw his secretary of Labor nominee Andrew Puzder after it became clear he didn’t have the votes in a 52-48 Senate majority. Puzder faced multiple accusations of misconduct, most notably his admission that he did not pay taxes on the services of an undocumented immigrant who worked for him for years.

Puzder was the only Cabinet nominee that Trump had to pull in his first year, though he was far from alone over the four-year term. Senate Republicans, even those closely aligned with Trump, aren’t eager to hop into another bruising series of confirmation fights — or deal with cascading withdrawals again.

And in a further sign of the general levels of deference to Trump, leading GOP senators aren’t actively pushing back on suggestions that the president-elect use recess appointments for picks that may not have the votes in the Senate.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said she doesn’t think there’s been “any serious discussions on how to move forward on a recess appointment, because hopefully it’ll prove unnecessary.”

Republicans frequently brushed off questions about confirming the controversial nominees by pointing to the need for a thorough vetting process. And some argued that even if that process turned up negative information on nominees, it was in Trump’s best interest to find out before they were confirmed.

“We need to have a complete vetting of the nominees — not only so we know that the nominee is qualified but also to protect the president,” Cornyn said. “I’m sure it’s not in his best interest to have any surprises.”

“I don’t have any preconceived notions about it,” Cornyn later added about Kennedy’s planned nomination to HHS. But he said he’s “sure” Kennedy’s strong anti-vaccine position “will come up.”

With regards to Gabbard, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — a close Trump ally — noted that “we have different foreign policy positions at times” but that he intended to give broad latitude to the president-elect in selecting his government.

“I’m gonna do with Trump what I do with everybody: Let you pick your people,” he told POLITICO. “Defer to your choice, unless it’s too far.”

Collins, who voted against multiple Trump nominees in his first term, said she “can’t imagine” that the issues contained in the House Ethics Committee’s report about Gaetz wouldn’t “become public, either through the committee's extensive investigation or the FBI report or questions asked by committee members at Mr. Gaetz hearing.”

“Mr. Gaetz is an example of where the Senate’s role is critical to take a look at allegations and at his fitness for a very important job,” Collins added.

And Murkowski, after saying Wednesday that Gaetz was not a “serious” pick, declined to weigh in on Trump’s selections on Thursday, saying she needs to meet with her constituents.

Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), who’s broken with Trump on occasion, said he needed to learn more about each of the picks, especially Gaetz.

“I don’t know enough to be concerned right now,” he told reporters. “I think it would be responsible for me to learn more about each of these nominees.”

Others in the conference said nothing, even an adverse report from the House Ethics Committee, would shake their confidence and willingness to confirm Gaetz as attorney general.

“He’s very talented, and anyone who has spent any time with him knows he’s very smart and capable. I’m going to vote to confirm him,” said Sen.-elect Jim Banks (R-Ind.). “I’m not gonna speculate about what [the Ethics report] says or what it doesn’t say, because we don’t know what it says.”

Joe Gould contributed to this report.