Thune, Grassley, and Ernst hold the power to Stop Trump's Most Problematic Cabinet Nominations

Advancing Trump’s Agenda and Nominating Qualified Executive Branch Officials are not Mutually Exclusive

The election of South Dakota’s Senator John Thune as Senate Majority Leader is one of the few bright spots for our democracy as we move into the second presidency of Donald Trump. Trump will have vast powers as he takes over in January with Republicans holding the House, the Senate, and a compliant Supreme Court that recently granted him immunity from crimes he might commit while in power.

But that’s not enough for Trump. He’s nominating people for cabinet positions that are not only unqualified, they could prove to be a danger to the health and safety of the American people, our alliances abroad, and our democracy. Their only qualification is loyalty to Trump the man, not the Constitution of the United States.

Matt Gaetz, nominated to lead the Department of Justice, was recently investigated by that department, and remains under investigation for allegedly having sex with a 17-year-old girl, as well as facing allegations of illegal drug use. Tulsi Gabbard, nominated to be the Director for National Intelligence, has no intelligence experience and has suspect relationships with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, among other issues. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nominated to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, is a vaccine denier. Fox News Weekend host Pete Hegseth, nominated to be the Secretary of Defense, has no experience in any administrative role and would be asked to administer the largest and most complex organization in the world — the Pentagon. He also has tattoos linked to white nationalism, and says the military is “woke” and women shouldn’t serve in combat.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of problems with these nominees. It’s unlikely any of them could pass a standard FBI background check, which is precisely why Trump doesn’t want the background checks to happen.

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These nominations should be troubling to Americans regardless of ideological worldview or party identification. However, pushback against the incoming administration is primarily coming from politicians in the Democratic Party and progressive activists. Republicans in the Senate, including incoming Leader Thune and our Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst should also feel the need to challenge actions that run counter to the Constitution and accepted political norms in Washington. In fact, what Eliot Cohen, professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins and former counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, wrote in The Atlantic in the early days of the first Trump administration is still applicable today: “For the community of conservative thinkers and experts, and more importantly, conservative politicians, this is a testing time. Either you stand up for your principles and for what you know is decent behavior, or you go down, if not now, then years from now, as a coward or opportunist.” While a few courageous Republicans will likely stand up and publicly oppose the president-elect, it is time for Republicans who oppose government overreach and political cronyism to take a stand and ask our Republican elected officials to use the institutions of government to check the president-elect.

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When the Constitution was drafted in 1787, the delegates in Philadelphia grappled with the issue of a chief executive. The framers desired to create an independent executive that would not evolve into an authoritarian presidency. As a result, they created an executive with limited enumerated powers that was subject to checks and balances bestowed upon the Congress and the federal courts, including the advice and consent powers over presidential appointments. As James Madison wrote in Federalist #51 in 1788, “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

The structural checks in the proposed Constitution, as Madison argued, were the institutions that would serve to prevent one branch of the government from usurping the power of the other branches, including the president from the legislative or judicial branches. The issue today is one of implementation of the framer’s vision. Our Constitution is not a self-executing document but relies upon elected and appointed officials at the federal and state level to execute its provisions. In other words, if the Congress or the courts fail to check the president, who will?

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So why do Republicans who fundamentally disagree with abdicating their advice and consent powers need to act now? The answer is grounded in changes to the Senate rules over the last decade or so. Opposition Democrats make up a minority in both houses of Congress, including in the Senate where Republicans will hold 53 seats. Historically, the minority party could use the filibuster as leverage to formally object to presidential appointments. However, in the absence of the filibuster, four Republicans would need to vote with the entire Democratic caucus to stall an executive appointment or prevent recess appointments from being made.

Leader Thune can and should, for the sake of the health and safety of our people, and our democracy, do what the Constitution demands. Hopefully, he will find allies in Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst. Grassley, incoming Chair of the Judiciary Committee, likely won’t abide someone like Matt Gaetz. We suspect neither of them will want to put the public health in danger with a Kennedy appointment, or our national security at risk with the Gabbard and Hegseth appointments. And we suspect that Ernst, a combat veteran and member of the Armed Services Committee, might want to have a word or two with Hegseth about the important roles women play in combat in the modern world.

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The Framers of the Constitution never intended for recess appointments to be used as a way to bypass the advice and consent powers granted to the Senate. Recess appointments were intended to be a temporary way in which a president could fill vacancies in the executive branch when the Senate was in recess and the logistics of traveling to the capitol were far more complicated than they are today. Even so, Thune has said he would agree to recess appointments. Ernst has said recess appointments should be considered. However, Grassley opposed recess appointments made by President Obama. 

By choosing to rubber stamp these unqualified and potentially dangerous nominees either through regular order or by deferring to Trump and allowing recess appointments, Thune, Grassley, Ernst, and the rest of the Republican members of the Senate would be choosing to treat the appointment of these problematic nominees as the only path forward as they work to implement Trump’s agenda. But they are not mutually exclusive. There are certainly plenty of conservative Republicans out there who would bring significant experience to the executive branch who could advance the Trump agenda while not posing a potential danger to our democracy and political system.

So ultimately, Thune, Grassley, and Ernst have a choice to make. Is their loyalty to one man Donald Trump, or is it to the Constitution, the American people, and our democracy? And as to their legacy — do they want to be remembered as “cowards or opportunists” who sold us all out in their quest to maintain favor with the incoming president? Or do they want to be remembered as heroes who adhered to the Constitution and protected the separation of powers and prerogatives of the Senate?

Our nation and our allies are watching.

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My friend Andrew Green who is the co-author of this column is a professor of political science at Central College in Pella, Iowa. Andrew has started a new Substack newsletter called American Politics: Views from the Upper Midwest. This column is cross-posted there.

Andrew and I have been talking about politics for nearly 20 years, and he packs my brain with all kinds of information I had no clue of every time we speak. He’s going to drop some maps and data over the next week or so that I think is going to rock the Iowa political landscape. Andrew is also the author of From the Iowa Caucuses to the White House: Understanding Donald Trump’s 2016 Electoral Victory in Iowa.

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My friend and fellow Iowa Writers’s Collaborative member Rachelle Chase has an interesting new podcast called “Reading with Rachelle.” Rachelle and her guests discuss history we were never taught and dig deeper into some of the history we know but want to learn more about. Each week she selects a book and highlights the compelling history found in its pages through reviews, interviews, videos, and/or audio, along with suggestions on where to go to find out more. I’m enjoying listening and hope you will too.

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I’m a proud member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please check out our work here. Subscribe! Become a paid subscriber if you can afford it. Please and thank you. We need you. Thanks for being part of the team! Want to buy me lunch or a cup of coffee? Venmo @Robert-Leonard-238. My friend Spencer Dirks and I have a podcast titled the Iowa Revolution. Check it out! We can get ornery. And have fun! I also publish Cedar Creek Nature Notes, about Violet the Dog and my adventures on our morning walks at Cedar Bluffs Natural Area in Mahaska County, Iowa.

And please check out the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative political podcast, Iowa Down Ballot.

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