The White House signed Wednesday that President Obama does not oppose language in the Republicans’ continuing spending resolution aimed at speeding up the process of giving retired Gen. James Mattis a waiver so he can be the next secretary of defense.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama’s team is still studying the bill, which creates an expedited process for passing legislation that would change the law in order to allow Mattis to serve. Current law says former servicemembers have to be out of the military for seven years before they can lead the Defense Department, but Mattis has only been out for three years.
When asked if Obama can sign the CR, Earnest said it’s not yet clear, but he didn’t say there was opposition either.
“I’m not ready to render a judgment one way or the other on the proposal,” he said.
And when it came to the question of the Mattis language in the bill, Earnest stressed several times that presidents should be allowed to pick the people they want to serve in their administration.
“President Obama has long made the argument that while the Senate does have some responsibility to confirm the president’s nominees … at the same time, the president of the United States should be given significant latitude to assembling his team,” Earnest said.
“In many instances, that courtesy was not extended to this president by Republicans in the Senate, but the president believes that’s an important principle,” he said.
He also stressed that Mattis is “somebody that President Obama knows.”
“In general, what I can say is that President Obama believes in the principle of the president being able to assemble a team,” Earnest said. “But ultimately, the president-elect and the next Congress are going to have to determine how exactly to advance this nomination through the Senate.”
Before Earnest spoke, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Democrats wouldn’t oppose the language, a sign that the CR will be able to pass the House and Senate and become law. Democrats were much more opposed to the idea of including an actual waiver in the bill for Mattis, but the GOP bill doesn’t go that far, and instead sets up a faster process for considering legislation creating the waiver.
Failure to extend federal funding after Friday would result in a partial government shutdown.
