During President Joe Biden’s honeymoon in early 2021, Senate Republicans routinely deferred to the President’s selection for Cabinet secretaries, no matter how radical they were, how much they disagreed with the President’s policies and no matter how awful the selections turned out to be for national security and the individual liberties of the American people.
The Biden-Harris administration ushered in a regime of censorship, government surveillance and political weaponization that targeted now President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters, botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan on an arbitrary, no-conditions timeline, left the U.S. southern border wide open and allowed millions of illegal aliens to penetrate the U.S., restricted U.S. energy and agriculture production while prices soared, institutionalized Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) racial and gender hiring quotas into the federal bureaucracy and U.S. corporations via Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) mandates and pushed radical gender ideology in the nation’s schools via the Department of Education.
And dozens of Senate Republicans voted to confirm the nominees who enacted the worst policies — the very policies Trump and Congressional Republicans campaigned against in 2024, and who after winning, Trump is now designating his nominees to undo and reform the broken federal leviathan that operates of its own accord in the administrative state when a Democratic President is not in the White House. These entrenched federal bureaucrats must now be removed from their positions insofar as they are nested in the federal workforce and who promise once again to obstruct the popular mandate of Trump, who literally dodged bullets and just won the popular vote and the Electoral College and who Congressional Republicans singularly owe their majorities to.
As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished, and so it is with Senate Republicans, who are now refusing to confirm Trump’s nominees, including Trump’s choice of former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz to Attorney General, and are threatening to torpedo the nominees, with no deference whatsoever to the executive to staff his Cabinet and inner circle so that he can actually enact the policies that he openly campaigned on.
Perhaps the only difference between some of these Senate Republicans and Biden’s summation at the end of the campaign that Trump supporters are “garbage” is that Biden will tell them that openly, but these never-Trumpers will treat them like garbage while benefiting from their votes.
Apparently, these Senate Republicans have learned nothing since 2016 — but Trump has.
In so doing, Senate Republicans are exposing the outright fraud they have for decades played on Republican voters, giving all the deference in the world to Democratic administrations but not to the reform-minded President-elect, who promised to shake things up in Washington, D.C. and to drain the swamp.
They are protecting the swamp, and there is no other explanation.
In fact, moderate Senate Republicans deferred to every single cabinet choice by Biden. Every single one of them. Sure, there were some conservative members who opposed this selection or that, and some votes were closer than others, but the very members who are now refusing to confirm Trump’s cabinet gave Biden free reign to staff every department and agency. They are protecting the Washington, D.C. establishment, just like they did in 2017 when they willingly went along with the Russiagate hoax in its early days.
Avril Danica Haines was confirmed for Director of National Intelligence 84 to 10, with 34 Senate Republicans deferring to President Biden’s choice.
Lloyd Austin, who completely messed up the withdrawal from Afghanistan and degraded U.S. military readiness and service member morale, was confirmed to Defense Secretary on Jan. 22, 2021, 93 to 2 as 43 Senate Republicans deferred to the executive.
Janet Yellen was confirmed as Treasury Secretary 84 to 15, with 34 Senate Republicans deferring to Biden.
Anthony Blinken, whose tenure finds the U.S. on the brink of a potential nuclear war with Russia and the Middle East in flames and who greenlit the Iran nuclear deal (again), was confirmed 78 to 22, with 28 Senate Republicans deferring to Biden.
Pete Buttigieg was confirmed as Transportation Secretary 86 to 13, with 36 Senate Republicans deferring to Biden’s choice.
Miguel Cardona, who imposed DEI mandates and radical gender ideology into the nation’s school system as Secretary of Education, was confirmed 64 to 33, with 14 Senate Republicans deferring.
Alejandro Mayorkas as Secretary of Homeland Security, who ended up leaving the U.S. border wide open and censoring millions of Americans on social media, was only confirmed 56 to 43, but with 6 Senate Republicans deferring to the executive: Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah and Dan Sullivan of Alaska.
Xavier Becerra, who oversaw the Biden-Harris unconstitutional and illegal vaccine mandates, was by far the most controversial pick as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, only getting confirmed 50 to 49, with only Susan Collins deferring to Biden.
Even Merrick Garland, who unleashed the Justice Department on Trump and his supporters even while Trump was running for president, sat on declassified Russiagate documents and also engaged in censorship, was confirmed 70 to 30, with 20 Senate Republicans deferring.
Not a single Senate Democrat opposed any of these nominations. Not one. They voted with their party, and deferred to their president who similarly had a popular mandate after winning the 2020 election. But even if there had been some Democratic dissenters, in almost every instance save Becerra, Senate Republicans provided more than ample space for that to occur by padding the majority party’s threshold for each confirmation.
This is undoubtedly how the now 76 million Americans who voted for Trump expect his cabinet choices to be treated — with deference — while the opposition party, the Democrats, will use show votes to signal opposition to this or that policy or choice. These confirmations are usually rubber stamps anyway, for every other president, except apparently for Trump, while everyone mouths the words of how “serious” they take the Senate’s advice and consent role, allowing Democrats to enact whatever policies they want while obstructing their own party.
If Senate Republicans want to act as the keepers of the inner sanctum, so be it, it’s a wonder they’re Republicans at all, when in fact they support Democratic presidents, their policies and their choices for personnel and judges (another entire can of worms), while doing everything in their power to obstruct and go to war with Trump.
Know this: It won’t matter who the Senate ultimately confirms, because Trump’s policies that he openly campaigned on will not change. He won’t budge. He won’t choose from your hand-selected, whitelisted, compromised candidates. And he will get these departments and agencies staffed all the same, and enact the same exact policies that some Senate Republicans are now openly seeking to obstruct.
One difference this time is the American people are watching and they will no longer be willing to be played for fools. If Senate Republicans choose to go the route of Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney and so many others, so be it. They will never be forgiven.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
