Congress
McConnell sends a message
Mitch McConnell might not run the Senate anymore. But he made clear on Friday night that he still knows how to wield power.
After days of meeting with silence a steady stream of questions about whether he would support Pete Hegseth’s Defense secretary nomination, McConnell became the third Senate Republican to vote against Hegseth.
The move forced Vice President JD Vance to break a tie to get him through, making him the first Cabinet nominee since 2017 to need help from the vice president. And it made clear to Donald Trump that McConnell, a longtime party man, is willing to buck the president even after stepping down from leadership, especially on national security issues.
McConnell, in a lengthy statement, warned that whoever leads the Pentagon faces a “daily test with staggering consequences for the security of the American people and our global interests.”
“Mr. Hegseth has failed, as yet, to demonstrate that he will pass this test. But as he assumes office, the consequences of failure are as high as they have ever been,” he said.
The Kentucky Republican’s colleagues don’t expect him to be a perennial headache for Trump, his one-time ally, and some in the wake of Hegseth’s nomination vote said they aligned with his worldview even if they came to a different decision on the incoming Defense secretary.
“We can’t be isolationists,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who was viewed as a last-minute swing vote but supported Hegseth. “I do share his view of the role we should play in the world.”
McConnell has now made clear he intends to use his vote to make his points.
After stepping down from leadership, McConnell secured the Appropriations subcommittee gavel that will give him control over more than $800 billion dollars in yearly defense spending. He has also indicated he intends to use his Senate perch to do battle with the isolationist wing of the party, telling his biographer Michael Tackett that he was going to make the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) “sound like a dove.”
And he sent a veiled warning about Trump’s picks during a Senate floor speech earlier this year, vowing to “confirm nominees to senior national security roles whose record and experience will make them immediate assets — not liabilities — in the pursuit of peace through strength.”
Earlier on Friday, Trump anticipated McConnell might amount to a problem: “Of course, Mitch is always a no vote, I guess,” he said in an on-camera riff on the Hegseth vote — even though McConnell had voted to advance the nomination the day prior.
Trump’s fiery relationship with McConnell is no secret, of course. The two men didn’t speak for three-and-a-half years after the then-Senate leader congratulated Joe Biden as president-elect in December 2020. He later lambasted Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. But he voted against convicting Trump on impeachment counts and pledged to support him should he reclaim the GOP presidential nomination.
McConnell’s “peace through strength” threat does not end with Hegseth. McConnell’s vote now must be viewed as seriously in doubt on Tulsi Gabbard’s director of national intelligence nomination and possibly Kash Patel’s FBI director pick. Given his childhood bout with polio, he’s also seen as a possible opponent of the HHS secretary nomination for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has questioned the efficacy and safety of vaccines.
McConnell has been among the Senate’s most vocal advocates for continuing to arm Ukraine, pushing back against fellow Republicans who have sought to block new funding to help rebuff Russia.
Ahead of Trump’s return to office, McConnell did little to hide his disagreement with the more isolationist tendencies of the president and his wing of the party, telling a national security conference at the Ronald Reagan Library in December that “America will not be made great again by those who are content to manage our decline.”
And McConnell took a broadside to Hegseth’s, and by extension Trump’s, views on foreign policy in his statement on Friday night, warning that Hegseth “did not reckon” with how he would combat aggression from geopolitical adversaries, pointing to his remarks on NATO and China.
“As the 29th Secretary of Defense, Mr. Hegseth will be immediately tested by ongoing conflicts caused by Russian aggression in Europe and Iranian-backed terror in the Middle East. He will have to grapple with an unfinished FY25 appropriations process that — without his intervention — risks further harming the readiness of our forces,” McConnell said.
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley rescheduled a planned vote on Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general late Friday in a preemptive move as negotiations between the Trump administration and GOP holdouts continue.
The vote, now set for Tuesday after a scheduled Thursday vote was postponed, isn’t an indication that a deal allowing for Blanche’s confirmation is near, so much as it is a nod to Judiciary Committee rules that require three days of notice for a panel meeting.
There is no sign that President Donald Trump is about to acquiesce to the unflinching demands of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who wants a controversial settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS substantially pared back.
Cornyn, who lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed candidate, wants the Justice Department to nullify a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and limit the scope of a tax audit immunity component of the pact.
Trump told reporters earlier Friday the fund is “dead” but added “I wish it weren’t.”
“I’d like to see them compensated,” he added, referring to people he considers victims of government abuse, including participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
To advance Tuesday, Blanche needs to pick up Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another senator on the panel with similar concerns. He can’t lose any GOP votes if he wants to be reported favorably out of the Judiciary Committee.
“Chairman Grassley wants Todd Blanche’s nomination to be successful,” said a Judiciary Committee spokesperson, who declined to be named. “Noticing the markup gives more time for the White House to secure the votes for the President’s nominee. Grassley would like to see Blanche confirmed before the August recess as he has an excellent record restoring law and order and keeping Americans safe.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is zeroing in on one of House Republicans’ biggest contests — a purple district in Nebraska — when he starts his recess campaign sprint.
Scalise will travel to Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the Omaha area for an event with Republican Brinker Harding in the coming days, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter granted anonymity to share plans not yet made public. Republicans are digging in to defend the seat, which Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential race and is among Democrats’ best pick up opportunities this fall as they seek to flip the House.
Harding is running against Democratic consultant Denise Powell to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon. Bacon, a moderate-leaning Republican, flipped the Omaha district red in 2016.
After Nebraska, Scalise is planning to travel across the country throughout August, including to defend GOP incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ and Zach Nunn’s key battleground seats in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts and Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.
He’ll boost candidates working to flip blue districts like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District and Mike LiPetri in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.
Scalise also plans to travel to Michigan, Colorado, South Carolina and Texas for campaign events over the August recess.
President Donald Trump goaded John Cornyn on social media Friday morning, accusing the Texas senator of withholding his vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination in retaliation for Trump’s central role in his political demise.
Cornyn, who lost his May primary to Texas’ scandal-ridden attorney general, the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, has threatened to block Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the White House promises to permanently shelve its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in writing — something Trump appears unwilling to do.
“John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called “Fund,” which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Several Republicans bristled at the fund, which could have been deployed to compensate Americans who faced charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and which gives the president and his family audit immunity over taxes. At his July confirmation hearing, Blanche said that the fund, part of a settlement the president reached with the IRS, was defunct. But the administration has been “reluctant to change” the text of the settlement, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.
Trump signaled his continued support for the Jan 6 rioters on Friday.
“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!” he wrote. “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”
On Thursday, the president suggested that he could punt a Senate vote on Blanche until after Cornyn — and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — leaves the chamber at the end of the year. Cornyn, however, suggested on social media that there are other Republican senators with concerns about the fund.
“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” Cornyn told reporters.
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