Senate Dems Still Have Tools to Fight Trump’s Appointees. Will They Use Them?

After a long weekend devoted to inauguration pomp, the Trump administration has gotten down to business this week. Beyond Donald Trump’s flurry of executive actions, the next most pressing agenda item for the administration will be to confirm its cabinet nominees. While hearings have already started in the Senate, these are likely to take center stage over the next few weeks.

During Kamala Harris’s campaign against Trump, and in the months after her defeat, Democrats repeatedly raised the alarm about Trump’s potential nominees for his cabinet. Despite the withdrawal from consideration of Matt Gaetz, one of the most prominently divisive nominees, Trump’s picks remain among the most hateful, extreme and downright heterodox of any in the modern era.

Even if Democrats unite to vote against many of Trump’s nominees, the math is grim: Republicans control 53 seats in the Senate, while Democrats hold 45, plus two independents who caucus with them. Cabinet nominees only need to exceed the 50 percent threshold to be confirmed, meaning that Democrats are powerless to block any nominee in a partisan vote.

From a historical perspective, a rejection of just one nominee would be exceedingly rare, and the rejection of more than one would be unprecedented. Over the last 100 years, only three cabinet nominees who made it to the Senate confirmation process have been rejected — one each in the administrations of Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower and George H. W. Bush.

There is, however, another avenue by which a nominee’s cabinet appointment can be sunk; in fact, we have already seen it happen to one of Trump’s nominees: the withdrawn nomination. Over the course of Trump’s first term, four nominees withdrew from consideration for cabinet posts after their candidacies came under scrutiny. This is a slightly higher number than in recent administrations, but since Bill Clinton, every serving president has had at least one cabinet nominee withdraw or turn down their nomination.

These deferred nominations turn almost completely on the perception that that candidate would fail to achieve confirmation in a full Senate hearing, usually because of some personal history of scandal or — especially during Trump’s first term — a lack of experience. This phenomenon was on full display in recent weeks, as Trump’s contentious nominee to head the Department of Justice, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his nomination amidst a tidal wave of press reports about allegations he engaged in sex trafficking and sexual misconduct with minors.

Without the requisite votes to block Trump’s nominees outright, Democrats could lean heavily into this strategy if they wanted to sink the candidacies of some of Trump’s most ideologically minded picks, and even then there is no guarantee of success. Many of Trump’s picks already come with substantial personal baggage. Most notable among them is Trump’s now-confirmed defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who has been dogged by allegations of alcohol misuse and domestic abuse. These claims have resurfaced with a renewed intensity this week as multiple news outlets reported on an affidavit signed by Hegseth’s former sister-in-law stating that Hegseth’s former wife feared for her safety around him. Hegseth faced contentious confirmation hearings; the new allegations provided Democrats with ample ammunition, but ultimately weren’t enough to tank his candidacy. While three Senate Republicans — including former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — voted against his confirmation, a tie-breaker vote from Vice President J.D. Vance was enough to push him over the edge.

Meanwhile, some of Trump’s other picks are already on thin ice even within his own party, and an extra push from Democrats may be all that’s required to sink their candidacies. That situation is most pronounced in the case of Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s controversial and unconventional pick for director of national intelligence. Gabbard’s meeting with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and appearances on Russian state outlets have rankled military hawks in both parties. In a December meeting with senators, Gabbard reportedly struggled to assuage their concerns over her candidacy. If Democrats are looking to attack the weakest among Trump’s appointees and score a political victory, Gabbard may be a prime target.

Democrats can also use some of Trump’s more contentious executive orders to sow dissent within the Republican caucus and destabilize confirmation hearings. Trump recently announced his intention to rename Alaska’s Mount Denali to Mount McKinley (the name it had before 2015). The move rankled Alaska Republicans who are worried that stripping the mountain of its Koyukon Athabaskan name could upset Native American communities in the state where they comprise the largest share of the population. Democrats may find this wedge issue to be a useful tool when it comes time for former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum’s full Senate confirmation hearing as secretary of the interior.

So far, Democrats don’t seem to be terribly inclined to try to sink Trump’s appointees by attempting to generate controversy. Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, who has made escalating tensions with China a hallmark of his time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sailed through his full Senate confirmation with a 99-0 rubber stamp vote Monday. On Thursday, John Ratcliffe was confirmed as CIA director by a vote of 74-25, with Democrats nearly split. Comparably, in 2020, Ratcliffe was confirmed as national intelligence director under the first Trump administration by a much closer vote of 49-44.

With many more confirmations slated over the next few weeks, Democrats will have to cohere around a unified strategy if they want to have any chance at blocking Trump’s worst picks. With Democrats still licking their wounds over the bruising loss in November, this would be a good opportunity to breathe new life into the party and show voters that its representatives still have the willingness and inclination to fight Donald Trump’s agenda.