Senate Democrats are working hard to slow down the confirmation process for Donald Trump’s nominees, subjecting them to some of the extreme vetting the popular vote loser is so fond of. But Democrats are also getting a valuable assist from none other than the Trump White House. Specifically, the Trumpies are so incompetent and so caught up in their internal battles and their leaking and their efforts to manage an unstable leader that they aren’t giving their nominees the support and protection expected by rich people who think they’re doing the world a favor in agreeing to take on jobs they’re not qualified for. And those nominees are looking at how Trump’s first labor nominee, Andy Puzder, pulled out after a string of terrible stories came to light, and worrying about their own futures.
"It's been a month since inauguration. Why are some Cabinet nominees waiting on return calls from the White House?” said a GOP operative with knowledge of the process, who like other people quoted in this story requested anonymity to speak freely about the issue.
“We're reaching a point where nominees like [agriculture secretary pick Sonny] Perdue are concerned. Potential ambassadors and judges are wondering how are you going to handle my confirmation? Very few people at that level don’t have skeletons in their closet so you [need to] get confirmations done lickety-split.”
During the transition, Politico’s Tara Palmeri and Andrew Restuccia report, there was an actual process for prepping nominees, but:
Since Trump took office, nominees have got less attention from top White House officials, who are focused on managing a chaotic first few weeks in office, according to people close to the process. With the transition team winding down, and the duties of getting nominees confirmed falling more heavily on the White House chief of staff and his deputies, potential ambassadors and other nominees say they fear their reputations will be tarred.
Poor, poor rich people, worried that they won’t get their chance to run the country (into the ground) without the public finding out little things like how they made their money, whether they hired undocumented immigrants before being nominated by a pr*sident who specializes in scapegoating immigrants, whether they’ve been accused of beating their wives. You know, stuff like that.
If they don’t want us hearing about it, they could always drop out. It’s certain Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon have nothing better to do than to fight over replacement nominees.
And good for Senate Democrats for keeping them scared.