Trump critics' gavels going to big supporters
Loss of McCain, Corker changes the way Senate will handle oversight.
Sen. John McCain’s death heralds a sea change for congressional challenges to the Trump administration on national security, as the president’s two most vocal Republican critics pass their powerful committee gavels to two of President Donald Trump’s biggest supporters.
McCain, R-Ariz., who used his chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee to question the president’s stance on issues such as Russia, torture and immigration, leaves control to Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who has been a one-man Greek chorus of epithets decrying Trump’s chaotic approach to diplomacy, will hand the reins to Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, at the start of the new year. The d epar t ure of either
committee chairman would be noteworthy, as both have attracted considerable attention for criticizing the White House over foreign policies they deem flawed. But together, they portend a sweeping change in how Congress may use its oversight authority to check the president’s international agenda, according to current and former lawmakers, lob- byists and policy watchers — a changing of the guard with potentially enormous consequences for holding the president to account during crises.
“Corker and McCain, the way they have led those committees, have been excep- tions to the rule . ... Both have done a good job of really probing and questioning and disagreeing with their own Republican president when they needed to,” said former defense secretary Chuck Hagel, who also served in the Senate as a Republican alongside McCain, Corker, Inhofe and Risch. “That will shift — there’s no question about it.”
McCain and Corker have been celebrated for the tenacity they have brought to oversight of both Democratic and Republican administrations. As a former presidential candidate, Vietnam War hero and one of the most recognizable American statesmen on the world stage, McCain was one of the few lawmakers who could often command more authority on national security than the commander in chief — which he used to dare presidents to cross him.
Since Trump took office, that has happened most frequently on matters concern- ing Russia.
McCain and Corker have been as pointed in their crit- icism of Trump’s actions visa-vis Russian President Vladi- mir Putin as they were instru- mental last year in getting Congress to pass sanctions that checked the president’s authority to scale back puni- tive measures against Moscow without lawmakers’ approval.
Both also led repeated legislative efforts to reaffirm the United States’ commitment to NATO in the face of presidential statements they thought were intentionally designed to undermine it.
“No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant,” McCain said of Trump’s performance during a July summit in Helsinki, in which the U.S. president suggested he might take Putin’s denials of interference in the 2016 elec- tion over the findings of his own intelligence community.
“The Helsinki conference was a sad day for our country, and everyone knows it,” Corker said, calling Trump’s performance “deplorable.”
Such commentary earned them the jeers of the pres- ident and his allies but the cheers of the foreign policy establishment — and the previous administration.
“I don’t like to picture a Senate without Bob Corker and John McCain . ... Some- times we butted heads hard, but I never doubted for a sec- ond that they were serious,” former Secretary of State John Kerry said in an email.
McCain and Corker both grilled Kerry fiercely over the Obama administration’s policies, including the deal with Iran to end crippling sanc- tions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
Both lawmakers opposed the deal, though Corker, who led the legislative effort to guarantee that Congress could review the pact, later urged Trump not to with- draw from it.
“You need enough people like that on both sides to create a critical mass to get something done, other- wise you have a big flashing disincentive that empowers the worst actors to call the shots,” Kerry said.
Colleagues fear the Senate will lose that edge once Inhofe and Risch take over, concerned that they will be more acquiescent to the White House.
“We’ve transferred a lot of authority to the executive over the years ... and I’m concerned that new leadership that is closer to the president doesn’t view as skeptically as it should executive power,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who has also criticized Trump’s approach to foreign policy and is retiring at the end of his term. “I think they’re less likely to question moves by the president . ... It’s going to be less independent.”