Senator Tommy Tuberville threatened to oust Republican senators who don’t vote to approve former Representative Matt Gaetz’s nomination to be the next attorney general.
During an interview on Fox Business Wednesday, the Alabama senator criticized Republicans reluctant to get behind Donald Trump’s recent mindboggling nomination of Gaetz, who is the subject of a multi-year House Ethics Committee investigation for sexual misconduct, among a spate of other allegations.
When asked whether Gaetz would be confirmed by the Senate, Tuberville replied, “I don’t know, you’re finding all the swamp creatures coming out right now.”
“Everybody’s got an opinion up here, but at the end of the day, President Trump was elected by an enormous vote and he deserves a team around him that he wants, it’s not us to determine that,” Tuberville said. In reality, vetting the president’s Cabinet appointees is one of the Senate’s main responsibilities.
“We’ve got 53 votes in the Senate, we can confirm with 51. I’ve already seen where a couple of ‘em says, ‘I’m not voting for him.’ Wait a minute, you are not the United States of America, you have one vote in the U.S. Senate, you did not get elected president,” Tuberville continued, still appearing totally confused about what his job actually requires him to do.
“If you want to get in the way, fine. But we’re gonna try and get you out of the Senate too if you try to do that,” Tuberville added.
It’s a big 180 for Tuberville, who upon hearing that Gaetz had been nominated Wednesday, had initially responded, “Holy cow,” adding that he did not see this one coming.
Meanwhile, President-elect Trump is pushing for Senate leadership to approve recess appointments, which might allow him to install whoever he wants to his Cabinet without Senate approval. This could be really handy for forcing through his unsavory and unqualified picks, like Gaetz, and Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth, with his arguably white supremacist tattoos and extremist rhetoric.
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