The Senate voted to confirm Scott Bessent, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Treasury Department, on a bipartisan basis with a tally of 68-29.
This came after the whirlwind confirmation process for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who had kept his vote quiet, announced his support for Hegseth right before he walked onto the Senate floor, while Sen. Mitch McConnell shocked many when he joined Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine in opposition. Vice President JD Vance then had to head to the Capitol to cast his first tie-breaking vote in a dramatic fashion.
But as Inside Washington wrote last week, Hegseth was a cakewalk compared to the next round of confirmation votes. Perhaps the most tenuous confirmation will be for Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick to be director of National Intelligence.
Unlike Hegseth, a former Fox News host and outspoken supporter of not only Trump but also the various culture wars that the right has hammered for years, Gabbard’s specific policies might cause significant heartburn for old-school Republican hawks like McConnell, Collins, Murkowski and others.
Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who quit the party and endorsed Trump, has a number of hurdles to clear. For one, she will almost surely be asked about whey she visited now-deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and about her parroting Russian talking points.
But that’s not the only area where she might face significant questioning.
Senator Angus King, an Independent from Maine who caucuses with the Democrats, told The Independent that she faces significant questions about her previous support for Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of U.S. global surveillance programs. Gabbard went so far as to ask Trump to pardon Snowden back in 2020. She’ll also have to deal with other areas where she’ll likely encounter opposition.
“There are still issues about her position of the 702 for example,” Collins told The Independent.
Some Republicans object to her stance on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the gathering of foreign intelligence on non-Americans outside of the United States without a warrant. Gabbard has tried to walk back her earlier criticism of the program, but Collins said she had issues with Gabbard’s responses.
The hearing will take place during the same time as the confirmation hearing of one of Trump’s other nominees who will give Republicans heartburn: the Health and Human Services hearing for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer-turned-anti-vaccine activist.
“That's going to make things difficult for those of us who serve on both committees,” said Collins, who serves on both the Intelligence Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
Gabbard became a favorite even before her defection from the Democratic Party. During the first Trump transition, she visited Trump Tower in New York and earned praise from Trumpworld luminaries like Steve Bannon.
Other newer Republicans like Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, whom she knew in the House, will inevitably support her, as will other more pro-Trump Republicans who arrived later.
“I don’t need to hear anything else from Tulsi Gabbard, I’m going to vote for her,” Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio told The Independent, joking: “I’m easy.”
This means more attention will fall on Republicans like Todd Young of Indiana, a critic of Trump with a more conventional Republican foreign policy outlook, and Tillis.
“It's pretty straightforward. If she gets unanimous support out of committee, I'm supporting her,” he told The Independent. Tillis said he focused more on Hegseth because he spent eight years on the Armed Services Committee.
“But I don't have any expertise in Intel, so I'm going to defer to the majority, and it would take everybody on the committee to vote her out,” he said.
Tillis has to walk a tightrope because of the fact that many of the MAGA faithful and conservatives distrust him and he risks a primary challenge. But he will also be up for re-election in two years in a state that votes by the tightest margins. A Democrat like former governor Roy Cooper could mount a credible challenge.
As for McConnell, the purse-lipped former majority leader, has not let his losing his old perch change the fact that he refuses to speak to reporters, only flashing a smirk, as if to tell reporters he’s got a surprise ready for them.
