McConnell on Upcoming Biden Nominations Votes
‘This week, the Senate is set to consider more of President Biden’s nominations… we will continue to fight hard against people who are the wrong choices for key positions. We’re going to shine a bright spotlight on anyone who seems more focused on far-left ideology than on serving all of the American people.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding nominations:
“This week, the Senate is set to consider more of President Biden’s nominations.
“I’ve consistently said that presidents should have latitude to staff up their administration with people of their choosing — so long as they nominate qualified and mainstream individuals.
“That’s why I and many other Republicans have supported many of the President’s mainstream nominees.
“Secretaries Austin and Vilsack were each confirmed with more than 90 votes.
“Secretaries Raimondo, Yellen, and Buttigieg with more than 80. Secretary Blinken got 78 votes including mine. Secretaries Cardona and Granholm each got more than 60 votes.
“Even with the time spent on impeachment, half of the nominees I just mentioned were confirmed faster than President Trump’s nominees to the same spots. And most of them received a more bipartisan margin now than four years ago.
“So this Administration is receiving perfectly fair treatment from the Senate. Frankly the President and his team must be thrilled that Senate Republicans are proving to be more fair and more principled on personnel matters than the Democratic minority’s behavior four years ago.
“But the fact remains that millions and millions of Americans elected 50 Republican Senators — an even split — to stand against policies and personnel who lean too far to the far left.
“That’s why many of us voted against confirming Secretary Mayorkas, who’s stood idly by while a major crisis has exploded on the border in just his first several weeks.
“Rather than confront the problem, he absurdly claims that a record number of unaccompanied children in custody, overflowing shelters, and catch-and-release policies during a pandemic do not actually constitute a “crisis” at all.
“Xavier Becerra, the partisan California Attorney General with no significant healthcare experience whom the President has nominated to run Health and Human Services during COVID-19, could not even get one Republican vote to get out of committee.
“So Republicans will continue to distinguish between qualified, mainstream people and nominees who are way outside the mainstream.
“I’ve already announced I’ll support Judge Merrick Garland, whose nomination to be Attorney General we will vote to advance later today.
“But we will continue to fight hard against people who are the wrong choices for key positions. We’re going to shine a bright spotlight on anyone who seems more focused on far-left ideology than on serving all of the American people.”
Related Issues: Nominations
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