President-elect Donald Trump
He wants picks to express own thoughts
is shrugging off contradictions with his own Cabinet picks that have been on display during Senate hearings this week.
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is shrugging off contradictions with his own Cabinet picks that have been on display during Senate hearings this week.
“All my Cabinet nominee are looking good and doing a great job. I want them to be themselves and express their own thoughts, not mine!” Trump said Friday over Twitter.
The comment came after members of Trump’s future Cabinet separated themselves from the presidentelect on a series of issues, including Russia, torture and Muslim immigration.
Partly as a result the nominees have gotten mostly gentle treatment from Senate Democrats.
“As I meet members of the Cabinet I’m puzzled because many of them sound reasonable,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat. “Far more reasonable than their president.”
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, picked for attorney general, said he’s against any outright ban on immigration by Muslims, in contrast to Trump’s onetime call to suspend admittance of Muslims. Secretary of State candidate Rex Tillerson affirmed U.S. commitments to NATO and took a relatively hard line on Russia, both in contrast to Trump. And CIA pick Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., affirmed his opposition to torture and said he would refuse any Trump order to torture. Trump, while campaigning, suggested bringing back waterboarding and more.
In addition to Democrats’ softer treatment at the hearings, the outings also have lacked drama due to Democrats’ decision while in the Senate majority to lower the vote threshold for Cabinet nominees and others from 60 votes to 50, allowing Republicans to ensure approval as long as they can hold their 52-seat majority together. There could be fireworks yet to come, however, because several of the most potentially explosive hearings are pending, including for former Goldman Sachs partner Steven Mnuchin for Treasury secretary.
Democrats have set up a website to solicit stories from the thousands of people whose homes were foreclosed on by One West Bank while Mnuchin headed a group of investors who owned the bank.
They hope to use Mnuchin’s nomination hearing to attack Trump’s populist appeal with working-class voters and cast themselves as defenders of the middle class.
Also pending are hearings for Rep. Tom Price of Georgia for Health and Human Services; Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a denier of climate change science, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency; and fast-food executive Andrew Puzder to head the Labor Department.
Also in Washington on Friday, House Republicans went after the federal ethics official who questioned Trump’s potential conflicts of interest.
Democrats slammed the move, saying GOP lawmakers are trying to intimidate an independent watchdog for having the temerity to challenge Trump’s business arrangements.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, RUtah, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has summoned Walter Shaub Jr., director of the Office of Government Ethics, to answer questions about his public comments on Trump.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported Friday that Russia has invited the incoming Trump administration to Syrian peace talks it is sponsoring later this month with Turkey and Iran, part of a process from which President Barack Obama’s administration pointedly has been excluded.
U.S. participation, especially if an agreement is reached, would be the first indication of the enhanced U.S.-Russia cooperation that Trump and President Vladimir Putin have forecast under a Trump administration.
The invitation, extended to Trump’s designated national security adviser, Michael Flynn, came in a Dec. 28 phone call to Flynn by Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador in Washington, according to a transition official.
The official said that “no decision was made” during the call.
A spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that the United States would attend the talks, according to Turkish media. To be held in Kazakhstan, the talks are tentatively scheduled to begin Jan. 23, three days after Trump’s inauguration. Syrian government and opposition representatives are also expected to attend.