Kellyanne Conway and Tom Cotton go to bat for the CIA director.
| | | | | The White House and its allies on Capitol Hill appear to be concerned about the likelihood President Trump’s nominee for secretary of State will have significant, if not sufficient, opposition in the Senate. In a Wednesday call with reporters organized by the White House, senior counselor Kellyanne Conway and Arkansas senator Tom Cotton insisted Mike Pompeo, the current CIA director, will be confirmed by the full Senate as early as next week. But with nearly every Democrat on the Foreign Relations committee, plus Republican Rand Paul, saying they’ll vote against recommending Pompeo, the former Kansas congressman’s path to confirmation is looking shakier than ever. Noting that Pompeo received bipartisan support of his confirmation for CIA director last year, Conway argued there is “absolutely no legitimate reason, and that would include sheer obstruction and partisanship as not being legitimate reasons, that he should not receive bipartisan support again 14 months later.” Cotton, who called Pompeo “one of my best friends” when both served in the House of Representatives, said Democrats who are withdrawing support for Pompeo are “two-bit Talleyrands” holding an “electoral grudge” that has nothing to do with Pompeo’s qualifications. The Arkansas Republican also emphasized that the Foreign Relations committee is “not representative of the Senate as a whole.” Cotton made a very explicit case that Pompeo’s Easter weekend trip to North Korea to meet with Kim Jong-un demonstrates both his qualifications for the job as well as the need to confirm him to maintain U.S. credibility. “First, many Senate Democrats have said in written statements or at the hearing last week that they believe that Mike Pompeo is too bellicose, that he wasn’t committed to diplomacy. Now that he's actually sat down with Kim Jong-un, I think that that's the best evidence imaginable that he is committed to diplomacy,” Cotton said. “And second, I have to say that this is a good example of how critical it is on the merits to confirm Mike Pompeo. He's already invested deeply in the upcoming summit between the president and Kim Jong-un. It would send a very bad sign and it would, I believe, set back the preparations and perhaps even the results of that upcoming summit for the Senate Democrats to oppose as they block Mike Pompeo's nomination to be secretary of State.” Read more... |
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Mark It Down—“I will say this about Rand Paul: He has never let me down.” —President Trump, on the Kentucky senator’s opposition to Mike Pompeo’s confirmation for secretary of State.
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| | President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reaffirmed their commitment to the so-called “maximum pressure” campaign against North Korea. At a joint press conference Wednesday evening at Mar-a-Lago, both leaders said their two governments would continue diplomatic sanctions until the Kim regime took real steps to change their antagonistic behavior.
“Just because North Korea is responding to dialogue, there should be no reward,” Abe said. “Maximum pressure should be maintained.”
Trump, who plans to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un for the first time as early as next month, echoed the sentiment, saying North Korea would have to come prepared to discuss significant change for the meeting to occur at all. “We’ve never been in a position like this with this regime,” Trump said. “If I think that it’s a meeting that is not going to be fruitful, we’re not going to go. If the meeting when I’m there is not fruitful, I will respectfully leave the meeting.” | |
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Trump Quote of the Day—"I'm very happy to have Larry Kudlow with us. He's a special man. He's been a friend. I've been on his show many, many times over the years, and we've had a lot of fun together. We haven't always agreed, but I noticed Larry is agreeing more and more with me, which makes me quite happy."
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For Your Reading List—Matt Labash, my colleague and a recreational Luddite, has a new piece condemning the practice of Fishtagramming. “In olden days, fishing skippers styled themselves after Captain Ahab or Santiago from The Old Man and the Sea: demented loners who thirsted for adventure. Now, thanks to social media, their job carries all the romance of being an insecure tween-cum-mall shutterbug at Olan Mills,” he writes. Read the whole thing here.
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| | Mueller Watch—Senate Judiciary committee chairman Chuck Grassley is moving forward with a promised vote on legislation that would protect special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired by the president—despite Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s frank statement Tuesday that he would not bring the bill to the floor for a full vote.
Grassley, a Republican, and Democrat and ranking member Dianne Feinstein agreed last week to take up the bill in committee. Grassley said Wednesday that he felt obliged to keep his word to his committee to hold a vote on the Mueller issue if they could agree on a specific proposal. The bill would not strip the president of his ability to direct the attorney general to fire a special counsel like Mueller but would allow special counsels to appeal a firing to a panel of judges.
“Last fall, I said we’re not going to do anything in this area unless you get together,” Grassley said. “They got together, so I feel an obligation to keep my word and move forward.” | |
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One More Thing—When asked at his Wednesday press conference if he was going to fire either Mueller or deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, Trump was nonresponsive. “They’ve been saying I’m going to get rid of them for the last three months, four months, five months,” the president said. “And they’re still here."
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