President Trump’s nominee to replace Nikki Haley as United Nations ambassador took fire at her confirmation hearing Wednesday for prioritizing human rights.
Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, began his grilling of Kelly Craft, currently the U.S. ambassador to Canada, with an open-ended question: “Lay out briefly for me the most pressing issues the United Nations faces as well as areas where you believe the United States should leverage the United Nations in pursuit of our foreign policy priorities.”
“I see ‘pressing issues’ as any issue that involves innocent people throughout the U.N. system, throughout the world that are being abused,” Craft responded. “It’s so important that we look after our human rights issues because that in turn is going to be humanitarian issues. So in my opinion, I look at every issue when it involves an innocent civilian as a crisis.”
That answer didn’t satisfy Menendez, and he told Craft so.
“I appreciate your response, in terms of humanitarian issues, and I would share those with you, but I would expect someone who was the nominee to be the U.N. ambassador in response to that question to talk about, for example, the challenges of North Korea aggression and nuclear proliferation,” the New Jersey senator said. “The challenges in Libya, a destabilized Libya, the challenges of China’s growing influence, on growing threats from Iran, the challenges from Venezuela — those are at minimum some of the hot spots in the world right now.”
That’s a rhetorical shift for Menendez, who on the Senate floor last year accused President Trump of “a fundamental disrespect” for the “founding values of the United States” by “declining to publicly champion the importance of human rights and good governance.”
His critique of Craft was part of a broader attack on her “lack of qualifications for such a complex and challenging role,” as Menendez portrayed her as a diplomatic dilettante.
“Historically, U.S. ambassadors to the U.N. have brought significant executive experience or experience working directly in foreign policy,” he said. “Before your short stint as ambassador to Canada, I understand you were active in Kentucky and national party politics, and in 2007, you were an alternate observer delegate to the General Assembly.”
Trump nominated Craft, 57, to replace Haley in May, after then-State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert withdrew her nomination amid reports that her family had employed a nanny who did not have legal authorization to work in the United States. Haley left office at the beginning of the year, after announcing her resignation in October.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who represents Craft’s home state of Kentucky, tried preemptively to blunt Democratic attacks when he introduced her at the hearing by touting her performance in Canada since she became ambassador in October 2017.
“Historically, that post is not one that is typically viewed as one of the tougher assignments in the diplomatic corps,” McConnell said before noting the president’s push to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, among other challenges in U.S.-Canada relations. “The current premier of Ontario has reflected, ‘Every premier I know thinks the world of her. … She really proved herself over some tough times.’ And watching Ambassador Craft’s tenure, a former Canadian ambassador to the U.S. has concluded, ‘She’s done the job very well.’”
Menendez argued that Craft has been an absentee ambassador, “away more than 300 days” from the embassy in Ottawa. “I find this staggering amount of time away from post very troubling and an abdication of leadership,” he said. “If confirmed, you would be serving alongside some of the most experienced, seasoned, and sometimes ruthless diplomats from all over the world.”
Craft countered that she traveled for official business, at her own expense, while playing a prominent role in talks to come to a new free trade agreement. “Little did I know that I would be living out of a suitcase most of the time during the trade negotiations,” she testified.
Republicans echoed that line of defense. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz noted that her absences from the embassy included trips to other Canadian cities, such as Montreal and Toronto. Her allies also pointed to trade-related travel to Washington, D.C., and around the United States.
“The bottom line being it was not possible for you to both be in those negotiations for USMCA and also some ceremonial event at a third-country embassy at the same time, and you prioritized in most cases the top priority of this administration in regards with our relationship with Canada,” Florida Republican Marco Rubio added, using the acronym for the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Craft pledged to conduct herself with “clear-eyed humility” if confirmed. “I have much to learn about the United Nations, a fact I first encountered in 2007 when I served as an alternate delegate to the U.N. General Assembly and saw firsthand the complexity of multilateral diplomacy at this unique institution,” she said in her opening statement. “I learned then that making progress at the U.N. requires constant attention to relationships, a knack for knowing the bottom line, and a belief in incremental, but determined, steps forward.
“Ultimately, I would not have accepted the president’s nomination for this position if I was not certain I was ready for the task at hand.”
