Senate panel narrowly endorses Mike Pompeo for secretary of state after Trump intervenes with key Republican – by Karoun Demirjian (washingtonpost.com) / April 23 2018
BREAKING: The president persuaded a committed GOP naysayer to back Pompeo, securing the backing of the majority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after the vote, if not Pompeo’s ultimate confirmation, seemed in jeopardy only hours earlier. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) agreed to vote present, procedurally making it possible to send Pompeo’s nomination to the floor.
The vote was 11 in favor, 9 opposed and 1 voting present. Only 10 of the 11 senators who backed Pompeo were present in the committee room, making Coons’s switch — from opposed to simply present — necessary to clear the nomination.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who had pledged to oppose Pompeo, tweeted about Trump’s outreach and his newfound support for Pompeo just moments before the committee’s vote began.
Pompeo had been expected to fail the panel vote but secure the support of the full Senate later this week. Paul’s change of heart came after two Democrats facing challenging reelection contests this year announced they would vote for Pompeo even if the committee did not endorse him.
This story will be updated.
President Trump personally intervened Monday to convince a committed Republican naysayer to back Mike Pompeo for secretary of state, possibly securing the backing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a favored adviser whose committee vote, if not his ultimate confirmation, seemed in grave jeopardy.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who pledged to oppose Pompeo the day after he was nominated, tweeted about Trump’s outreach and his newfound support for Pompeo on Monday just moments before the committee vote started, seemingly saving face for the nominee, who was expected to fail the panel vote but secure the support of the full Senate later this week.
“After calling continuously for weeks for Director Pompeo to support President Trump’s belief that the Iraq War was a mistake, and that it is time to leave Afghanistan, today I received confirmation that Director Pompeo agrees with President Trump,” Paul wrote on Twitter. “Having received assurances from President Trump and Director Pompeo that he agrees with the President on these important issues, I have decided to support his nomination to be our next Secretary of State.”
Paul’s change of heart came after two Democrats facing challenging reelection contests this year announced that they would vote for Pompeo on the floor, seemingly clinching his nomination, even if the committee did not endorse him.
In a statement, Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) said he thinks Pompeo “will bring a unique perspective to the State Department and is the right person to lead the department,” adding that the nominee “will represent our interests well across the world and provide wise counsel to President Trump on our foreign policy.”
Sen. Joe Donnelly (Ind.) also voiced his support in a statement Monday afternoon, calling Pompeo “capable of advancing U.S. interests and leading the State Department.”
Manchin and Donnelly are the second and third Senate Democrats to announce their backing for Pompeo, after Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) announced hers last week. Together, their support was seen as more than enough to offset the Republican votes Pompeo was at risk of losing on the floor. Paul’s commitment to vote for Pompeo now makes his chances of passage all the more likely.
The three Democratic votes do not affect Pompeo’s committee vote, where strong Democratic opposition threatened to make Pompeo the first secretary of state nominee in almost a century to fail to win the panel’s backing — and the first potential Cabinet secretary to fail a committee vote before taking office. But with Paul committed to vote for Pompeo, the only Republican vote in question is that of Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who said last week that he was trying to find a way to support Pompeo, but was “not there” yet.
Pompeo’s supporters have argued that the committee is not representative of the full Senate. Last week, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told reporters that “the Senate will set [the panel] straight” if it refuses to endorse Pompeo’s nomination. Cotton also issued a threat to Democratic senators such as Manchin and Heitkamp who are facing difficult elections, noting that if they oppose Pompeo “and they’re up for reelection, they may suffer the consequences.”
Last year, 14 Democrats voted to confirm Pompeo as CIA director, but several of them have already stated they will not back Pompeo to serve as secretary of state. On Monday, White House officials again urged Senate Democrats to back Pompeo’s nomination, with White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying on Fox News Channel that the White House “hope[s] that some members will change their minds.”
A negative vote on his nomination from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote does not ultimately preclude the full Senate from taking up the nomination. The panel also has the ability to send Pompeo’s confirmation to the floor with an unfavorable recommendation, where Heitkamp, Manchin and Donnelly’s pledged support should secure his confirmation, provided no more Republicans waver in their support for the nominee.
To an extent, time is of the essence, as the State Department is operating without a confirmed leader mere weeks before Trump is expected to meet North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un for a denuclearization summit, and the United States must decide whether to continue to comply with the terms of the Iran nuclear deal. Senate leaders are expected to put Pompeo’s nomination to a floor vote later this week.
Pompeo has advised the president on such crises, even going to North Korea to meet with the country’s leader in preparatory talks. But politically, the tone for Pompeo’s tenure will be set in part by how his vote stacks up against that of his predecessor, ousted former secretary Rex Tillerson. Last year, Tillerson was confirmed as secretary of state by a vote of 56 to 43, “a remarkably low level of support,” said Jeff Rathke, a former career foreign services officer and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
If Pompeo secures more votes for his confirmation, “it could suggest marginally greater confidence from the Senate,” Rathke continued, but noted that the strength of his bipartisan mandate will be “historically low” and “will mean a reinforcement of the partisan divide on foreign policy.”
But others think Pompeo will make his reputation once in office — and that if he helps to rebuild the relevance of the agency, which flagged in morale and staffing under Tillerson’s stewardship, the politics surrounding his confirmation vote will not matter.
“Opponents say they want the State Department rebuilt and the secretary to have positions different from the president. Pompeo has promised the first. The second is not reasonable,” said Ronald E. Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a former career diplomat. “If confirmed, he will be judged on his performance going forward.”
