Leadership of Inhofe to depart from McCain’s
WASHINGTON» With the death of John McCain, the Senate Armed Services gavel almost certainly will pass to James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, marking a significant change in leadership style and priorities for the powerful panel.
While the boisterous McCain was a hard-charging critic of the Pentagon and the commander in chief, the more-subdued Inhofe is, in many ways, the opposite.
During his time as the Armed Services Committee’s ranking member from 2013 to 2015, the Oklahoma Republican rarely raised his voice, a marked contrast to McCain’s sometimes fiery outbursts from the committee’s podium or Senate floor.
And while McCain was a persistent and vocal critic of the Trump administration, including Defense Secretary James Mattis, Inhofe often defers to Mattis on major military issues and has lauded President Donald Trump’s foreign policy decisions.
“I do disagree on a few things with McCain,” Inhofe told reporters at a November breakfast after McCain had said he worked better with former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who served under President Barack Obama, than Mattis.
“Mattis, he’s a godsend,” Inhofe said.
Beyond Mattis, Inhofe’s relationship with the president has also been far warmer than McCain’s famously fraught relationship with Trump.
Before Trump won the presidency, he invited Inhofe to Trump Tower in New York to discuss military issues. Since Trump assumed office, Inhofe has praised Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and has praised Trump’s nuclear talks with North Korea.
Inhofe and McCain were also of different minds on policy issues affecting the military and its vast bureaucracy.
During Senate debate last year on the fiscal 2018 defense authorization act, McCain offered an amendment that would have created a new Base Realignment and Closure commission to review all military installations.
The proposal potentially could have started a new controversial round of base closures, but the amendment ultimately failed.
Inhofe, who doesn’t altogether oppose the closure and realignment process, opposed starting a new round when the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress were in the nascent stages of a military build-up.
“When you talk about excess resources, excess capabilities and you’re in the middle of growing and rebuilding the military, it doesn’t make sense to (do a closure round) at that time, because you don’t know what you’re going to need,” Inhofe said.
With Inhofe now expected to helm the Senate Armed Services Committee, Pentagon hopefuls with careers in defense contracting — a sore spot for McCain, who worried about the so-called revolving door — could face less scrutiny.
With Inhofe at the helm, the committee can expect more hearings on China’s military ascension, Africa issues and space.
After the Pentagon’s January release of the National Defense Strategy, which labeled Russia and China as the nation’s top security threats, Inhofe has traveled the globe and has witnessed China’s rise first-hand.
During a trip through East Africa in late May, Inhofe and his office said U.S. military officials believe the Chinese are looking to parlay a Chinese-built commercial port in Manda Bay, Kenya, into a military facility — an unwelcome development on Capitol Hill.