President-elect Trump’s nominee to lead the State Department could prove too controversial to move out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but a GOP aide says even if that’s the case, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might still be able to get him a vote on the Senate floor.
“Mitch McConnell could still bring that nominee before the Senate,” according to a senior Senate Republican aide, even if Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson loses the vote in committee.
McConnell’s procedural powers as majority leader could come into play because Republicans have a bare, one-seat majority on the committee. While Republicans can generally be expected to support Trump’s nominations, one Republican, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has raised “serious concerns” about Tillerson, which puts him at risk of not surviving the committee.
“The next secretary of state must be someone who views the world with moral clarity, is free of potential conflicts of interest, has a clear sense of America’s interests, and will be a forceful advocate for America’s foreign policy goals to the president, within the administration, and on the world stage,” Rubio said Tuesday.
Democrats have similar worries about whether Tillerson would be tough enough on Russia given his past dealmaking with that country, a sign that Democrats may not be there to help if a few Republicans decide they can’t accept him.
But according to Senate rules, those problems still might not doom Tillerson. When committee members vote on Tillerson, they’ll be voting on whether to issue a positive or negative report to the full Senate. If the lack of majority support on the committee leads to a negative report, McConnell could still use his authority as majority leader to rescue Trump’s nominee.
“It could go onto the executive calendar with a negative report from the Foreign Relations Committee in Tillerson’s case, and the report from the committee would be, hey, we don’t think this is the guy that you should vote for,” the senior GOP aide said. “And Mitch McConnell could still bring that nominee before the Senate with the recommendation [from the committee] that it be voted down, effectively.”
McConnell wouldn’t bring it to the floor unless he had the votes to win. That would mean that Republican defections would have to be kept to a minimum, or some Senate Democrats — perhaps the ones running red states, or who have talked to Trump about their own potential as cabinet picks — would have to break ranks and salvage the nomination.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., pushed back against the idea that McConnell or Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Corker, R-Tenn., would circumvent a majority of the committee. “We don’t yet know how the Republican and Democratic members of the committee will vote,” Coons told reporters during a question-and-answer session in the Senate on Tuesday. “I think it’s good that we have, in Senator Corker, a chair of the Foreign Relations Committee who is known for being respectful and balanced in how he treats the majority and the minority.”
Democrats plan to use Tillerson’s nomination to litigate Trump’s stated desire to reconcile with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s alleged attempt to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign. It’s a point of particular vulnerability for Tillerson given the relationship he developed with Putin during his tenure as CEO of Exxon Mobil.
“It’s not just the picture of Putin pinning a medal of friendship on [Tillerson’s] lapel that will be a focus of some concern,” Coons said. “It’s really much more what’s the president’s priorities?”
But McConnell will be under pressure to back Tillerson, particularly given that Trump’s team is already angry that Senate Republicans plan to investigate CIA allegations that Putin tried to intervene in the 2016 campaign on Trump’s behalf. So far, McConnell has indicated his support.
“We need a full review of our national security policy, and I know Rex will face each problem head on with American interests and security as his top priority,” McConnell said. “I look forward to supporting his nomination.”
Win or lose, Tillerson’s nomination could be the rare move that backfires on the famously-resilient Trump, by giving Democrats a cudgel for criticizing the administration.
“If he does want to have a reset with Russia for sincere philosophical reasons, everything he does now is going to be interpreted through the lens of Tillerson’s [apparent] conflict of interest,” a Republican strategist said. “It’s going to be like Cheney and Halliburton on steroids.”
