LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump has announced more choices for who he wants to serve in his cabinet.
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
He's filling top positions for everything from the Department of Treasury and Labor to who will head up the CDC and the FDA. A Republican-controlled Senate is expected to consider these nominees early next year.
FADEL: NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh joins us now with more on what's ahead. Good morning, Deirdre.
DEIRDRE WALSH, BYLINE: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: So let's start with his pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, who was named just hours after Matt Gaetz dropped out last week. Now, she seems to be getting a much better reaction, right?
WALSH: Definitely. Senate Republicans point out her experience. She was a prosecutor eight years as Florida's attorney general. Like Matt Gaetz, she's viewed as a strong Trump loyalist. She defended him as part of his impeachment team defense team back in 2019. Bondi just doesn't have the same kind of political baggage that Gaetz had. House Ethics Committee investigated him for allegations of sex trafficking. That just made his nomination an uphill battle from the day he was picked. In terms of the Justice Department, Pam Bondi is likely to pursue the same kind of agenda Trump campaigned on and Gaetz was promising, reforms at the department and retribution against Trump's political opponents.
FADEL: Now, are there some nominees that could face challenges in the Senate from Republicans as well as Democrats?
WALSH: There's already more attention on Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon. He's a former Fox News host who served in the Army National Guard. He was accused of sexual assault in 2017. NPR has seen the police report from the Monterey, California, police. Hegseth argues he was cleared. There were no charges filed, and his lawyer confirmed to NPR that Hegseth settled with the accuser to prevent her from filing any lawsuit. He already has some significant support. Senior Republicans on the Armed Services Committee and the new No. 2 GOP leader, John Barrasso, has endorsed him.
Trump's pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard - she's a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii - is another nominee facing some scrutiny. Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Lankford, who sits on the Intelligence Committee, said on CNN yesterday there are lots of questions for Gabbard. He pointed to a trip she took back in 2017 when she was serving in Congress to Syria, where she met with the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. All these nominees are expected to go through some background checks in some form. And Barrasso said they're going to start hearings on January 3, and he expects some votes on nominees on Inauguration Day.
FADEL: Now, as we mentioned, Republicans will control the Senate with 53 seats. And for cabinet nominees to be approved, they just need a simple majority. That's 51 votes.
WALSH: Right.
FADEL: Does this make it likely that most of the president's picks will get through?
WALSH: I expect most will. I mean, even if three Republicans break and vote against a nominee, Vice President JD Vance, who will also be serving as president of the Senate, can break a tie. If four Republicans oppose a nominee, they will fail. There are a group of senators we're keeping an eye on who have raised questions about nominees and want to see more information - people like Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, incoming Utah Senator John Curtis, who replaces Mitt Romney, and Mitch McConnell, who stepped down from leadership but is still in the Senate. All of these senators are saying the same thing. The president gets to nominate who he wants, but it's the Senate's job to advise and consent. Some nominees will have bipartisan support. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is up for Secretary of State, is well-known. And some Democrats I talked to say they could see voting for him.
FADEL: That's NPR's Deirdre Walsh. Thank you, Deirdre.
WALSH: Thanks, Leila. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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