The Senate moved swiftly to schedule a hearing Tuesday on President Trump’s picks to head his Pacific and North America military commands, even as the effort to get his remaining civilian appointees to the Pentagon grinds on.
Adm. Philip Davidson, who has been tapped to lead U.S. Pacific Command, and Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the pick for U.S. Northern Command, both will testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee just a week after being named.
If confirmed by the full Senate, the two officers will be in charge of combatant commands with geographic boundaries that cover about half of the Earth’s surface.
Meanwhile, Senate confirmation of Trump’s civilian appointees has stalled over the past two months.
“I was not confirmed until three weeks after my job officially started. It’s been difficult to get appointees through in the Trump administration,” said Michael Griffin, the new undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. “Some of that has been because of just the normal churn of doing business as you change administrations, and some of it is because, frankly, not everybody accepts the results of the election.”
Griffin was among the last batch of Pentagon confirmations on Feb. 15. Since then, the number of appointees has held steady at 41 out of 57 total Senate-confirmed positions.
Senate Republicans have blamed “historic” obstructionism by Democrats who aim to hold up Trump’s nominees and his agenda.
“Over and over again, we’ve had to file cloture and exhaust floor time on amply-qualified nominees who then soar through their confirmation votes by lopsided margins,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said this week.
Democrats have used the parliamentary delaying tactics 86 times so far during the Trump administration, compared to 12 times during President Barack Obama’s tenure, according to McConnell’s office.
The Senate was focused on moving judicial and other executive nominees this week. Two Pentagon nominees are now parked on the Senate floor calendar and awaiting a final confirmation vote.
Another seven civilian nominations are awaiting a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Trump added a new name to the mix on Thursday when he nominated James Anderson to be the new assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities.
