Former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson was confirmed by the Senate to lead the State Department on Wednesday, giving President Trump a key adviser on foreign policy and national security.
He was confirmed in a 56-43 vote. Four senators who usually vote with Democrats voted for Tillerson: Sens. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Mark Warner, D-Va., and Angus King, I-Vt.
Tillerson is the fourth Cabinet pick to receive Senate confirmation, and he was approved despite early signs that some Republicans might join Democrats in trying to sink his nomination. Instead, he took office with bipartisan support, though still less than customary for a secretary of state.
Most Senate Democrats opposed Tillerson for an array of reasons, ranging from his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin to his willingness to negotiate energy agreements as Exxon Mobil CEO despite opposition from the U.S. government. Such objections were enough to force a party-line vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but the opposition was galvanized once again by Trump’s immigration order temporarily suspending most travel from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.
“Rex Tillerson has not answered questions about President Trump’s Muslim travel ban,” Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said Wednesday before the vote. “Mr. Tillerson needs to tell us where he stands on this un-American policy.”
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly dismissed that attack, saying Tuesday that the restriction is “not a ban on Muslims” because the order permits travel from numerous Muslim-majority countries. “There are many countries, seven that we’re dealing with right now, that in our view, in my view, don’t have the kind of law enforcement records-keeping, that kind of thing, that can convince us that one of their citizens is indeed who that citizen says they are and what their background might be,” Kelly, who was confirmed on Inauguration Day, told reporters.
Tillerson takes over a State Department team that has expressed strong opposition to the ban. About 900 officials signed a letter, filed through an established dissent channel, warning that much of the Muslim world “sees the ban as religiously-motivated” and thus it will cause anti-American sentiment to spread.
“A policy which closes our doors to over 200 million legitimate travelers in the hopes of preventing a small number of travelers who intend to harm Americans from using the visa system will not achieve its aim of making our country safer,” the dissenters wrote.
As Tillerson awaited confirmation, foreign governments have begun testing the Trump administration, and will likely pose early tests for Tillerson. There has been a spike in violence in Ukraine, where U.S. diplomats say Russian-supported separatists are trying to recapture a critical city from the Ukrainian government. And Iran tested another intercontinental ballistic missile over the weekend.
“They’re all in it together,” New York Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Wednesday. “Russia and Iran have collaborated, it’s my belief that they collaborated all during the negotiations on the JCPOA [nuclear deal] and I think that that’s — the old line of the axis of evil, I think this is the axis of evil today. And we have to confront it.”
