USA | Trump’s secretary of state pick headed for Senate approval

Secretary of State-nominee Rex Tillerson testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington

President Donald Trump’s nomination of Rex Tillerson for secretary of state is headed toward Senate confirmation after several Democrats crossed party lines to back the former Exxon Mobil CEO.

The vote on Tillerson, scheduled for today [Macau time], comes as tension continues to build among congressional Republicans and Democrats over Trump’s executive order on immigrants and refugees. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared the order a litmus test for Trump’s remaining Cabinet choices. Any that refuse to publicly reject the “horrible” new policy should be opposed, the New York Democrat said.

But the Democrats just don’t have the numbers to block Tillerson from becoming the nation’s chief diplomat. Republicans hold a four-seat advantage in the Senate and during a procedural vote Monday on the nomination, three Democrats — Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Mark Warner of Virginia — cast their ballots for Tillerson. They’re unlikely to change their minds.

Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats, also supported Tillerson. The nomination needs only a simple majority to be confirmed.

The opening days of the Trump administration have seen little of the honeymoon period new presidents usually experience. The chief battleground has been Trump’s executive order temporarily blocking refugees worldwide and anyone from seven Muslim-majority nations.

With liberal groups pressing them to fight Trump, Democrats used delaying tactics on Trump nominees yesterday. It’s one of their limited weapons as the congressional minority to hamper the GOP.

Several other votes are planned today to get Trump nominees approved by committees, clearing them for confirmation in the full Senate.

Republicans said they would try anew to push two Trump nominees through the Senate Finance Committee, a day after Democrats said both men had lied to Congress about their financial background and blocked those votes.

Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., is Trump’s pick for health secretary, a post that would place him at the lead of Republican efforts to erase former President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. Democrats cited a newspaper report that officials of an Australian biomed company said Price received a special offer to buy their stock at reduced prices, despite Price’s congressional testimony that the offer was available to all investors.

Democrats said a bank run by wealthy financier Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s designee for treasury secretary, used a process for handling home foreclosures that critics have associated with fraud.

Both men and congressional Republicans said they’d done nothing wrong. Richard Lardner, Washington, AP