U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) talks to the media after a weekly Senate Democrats luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 7, 2016. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
Senator Chuck Schumer told President Trump to look in the mirror if he wants to blame someone for the slow pace of his confirmations. “If the President is looking for someone to blame on the slow pace of confirmations, he needs only to look in the mirror,” the Senate Democratic Leader said in a statement sent to PoliticusUSA.
President Trump blamed Democrats for obstructing his nominees after his tweets about the London Mayor reminded everyone that Donald Trump’s administration was nowhere near ready to handle a disaster.
In other words, yeah he might not be remotely competent, but it’s the Democrats’ fault:
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blew some facts Trump’s way, telling Trump to look in the mirror if he’s looking for someone to blame. And then:
“There are more than 500 senate confirmable positions. Even though it is now June, the administration has failed to select a nominee for 442 of them.”
Yikes.
“Of the 63 that have been nominated, the Senate has confirmed 39 of them. The Senate took no more than a couple of days to confirm cabinet nominees, each of whom is now in office. ”
The Washington Post and the Partnership for Public Service says of 559 key positions requiring Senate confirmation 442 have no nominee, 15 are awaiting nomination, only 63 have been formally nominated and 39 have been confirmed.
What are these positions? “These positions include Cabinet secretaries, deputy and assistant secretaries, chief financial officers, general counsel, heads of agencies, ambassadors and other critical leadership positions.” They note, “The Senate can only act on nominations that have been formally submitted by the Trump administration. Those marked ‘awaiting nomination’ above have been announced but not yet submitted, while those marked ‘formally nominated’ are awaiting action by the Senate.”
The Post’s data says that the average time for Trump’s nominees to get confirmed is even longer than the time to took for Obama’s nominees, 41 to 32 days. So maybe Trump has a point on the length of time it’s taking, even if he hasn’t nominated anyone for most of the positions yet.
But Schumer reminded Trump that he picked extraordinarily tough people to vet, “It was the Senate’s responsibility to give a thorough vetting for such important positions, with many of the nominees having conflicts of interest and incomplete ethics agreements when they were named. President Trump ought to roll up his sleeves and get to work rather than pointing false fingers of blame.”
Trump has tended to pick people with a lot of money and a lot of ties to industry, lobbying, etc., and some of them hadn’t completed the standard ethics and financial disclosures prior to hearings. Plus, 47% of Trump’s nominees are delayed awaiting movement from Republican-led committees.
There’s no reason why Trump hasn’t formally submitted other nominees — and these positions aren’t necessarily small potatoes.
The empty slots at the State Department are one of the concerns raised yesterday. The Atlantic reported on the twiddling thumbs of Foggy Bottom in March, “With the State Department demonstratively shut out of meetings with foreign leaders, key State posts left unfilled, and the White House not soliciting many department staffers for their policy advice, there is little left to do.”
The Post laid out in a separate piece the path from nomination to confirmation. It’s of note that the first move after nomination is disclosures.
But here’s something that’s different, and actually Trump should have been thanking the Democrats instead of complaining – because unlike the presidential transitions before him, Trump didn’t have to deal with the filibuster on nominations (Democrats changed a rule under Senator Harry Reid). Then in April, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell deployed the nuclear option to confirm the Supreme Court pick (Neil Gorsuch) Republicans stole from President Obama.
Trump ought to look back at how Republicans refused to even give President Obama’s Supreme Court pick a hearing for over 300 days if he wants a lesson in obstruction.
The Democrats don’t have it in them to obstruct Trump at every turn no matter what like the Republicans did Obama, even though Obama had an actual mandate from the people unlike Trump. But Democrats are doing their best to hold Trump accountable within the normal structure and as the minority party, slowing down his ‘worst picks possible’ approach to government — at least long enough to identify some major conflicts.
Ultimately, the only person holding Trump up is Trump.
The President shows little enthusiasm for doing the job he was hired to do, and instead seems determined to leave the U.S.A. vulnerable to an attack through neglect and starvation as he mumbles about his crowd sizes and watches too much cable news in between bouts of dangerous tweeting.
The only time Trump perks up is when he can take a stand to undermine America, and then he’s all in. Odd behavior, even for a Republican.
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