7 GOP Sen­a­tors Most Like­ly To Stand Between Trump And His Dream Cab­i­net

It’s not just Sen­ate Democ­rats who incom­ing Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump needs to wor­ry about in order to get his cab­i­net nom­i­nees con­firmed. A num­ber of Repub­li­cans are dodg­ing ques­tions over some of Trump’s more con­tentious nom­i­nees, throw­ing into ques­tion which of his picks may sur­vive the con­fir­ma­tion process.

The nom­i­nees get­ting the most push­back from inside the Repub­li­can tent are Sec­re­tary of Defense pick Pete Hegseth, Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence selec­tion Tul­si Gab­bard, poten­tial HHS Sec­re­tary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kash Patel, who Trump chose to run the FBI.

One GOP Sen­ate aide told the Caller those four nom­i­nees were the most in jeop­ardy as things cur­rent­ly stand, poten­tial­ly because they were the four Trump was more count­ing on to advance his agen­da.

Hegseth is cur­rent­ly fac­ing accu­sa­tions of sex­u­al assault, which he has adamant­ly denied and nev­er been charged for. In the weeks since his nom­i­na­tion was announced, lib­er­al media out­lets have run numer­ous sto­ries alleg­ing he has a drink­ing prob­lem and is too sex­u­al­ly promis­cu­ous. Hegseth has denied the alle­ga­tions and been backed by oth­er col­leagues from his time at Fox News.

Gab­bard, a staunch crit­ic of send­ing mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine, has faced push­back from some Repub­li­cans for alleged sym­pa­thies with Rus­sia and its allies in the Mid­dle East. Gab­bard met with Syr­i­an dic­ta­tor Bashar al-Assad in 2017 on a fact-find­ing mis­sion, and lat­er said she “will nev­er apol­o­gize for doing all that I can to pre­vent more of my broth­ers and sis­ters from being sent into harm’s way, to fight counter-pro­duc­tive regime-change wars that make our coun­try less safe, that take more lives, and that cost tax­pay­ers tril­lions more dol­lars.”

RFK Jr. is being attacked for also believ­ing in what his oppo­nents call “con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries.” How­ev­er, as the Dai­ly Caller has report­ed, some of his views being derid­ed by crit­ics are backed by sci­ence, such as rais­ing con­cerns about water flu­o­ri­da­tion. (RELATED: Stream Dai­ly Caller Orig­i­nal Doc­u­men­tary SICK about the cor­rup­tion of big med­i­cine)

As for Patel, Democ­rats are on a full-blown offen­sive over his promis­es to root out cor­rupt ele­ments with­in the FBI that pre­vi­ous­ly under­mined Trump dur­ing his first term.

Most Trump sup­port­ers are accus­tomed to fac­ing oppo­si­tion from Repub­li­can sen­a­tors like Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkows­ki of Alas­ka, but a GOP sen­ate aide iden­ti­fied South Dako­ta Sen. Mike Rounds and Louisiana Sen. Bill Cas­sidy as pos­si­ble names to watch out for. Anoth­er was Repub­li­can South Dako­ta Sen. John Thune, who was elect­ed in Novem­ber to take over Sen­ate lead­er­ship from his long­time ally Mitch McConnell.

The Caller con­tact­ed all of these Sen­a­tors to see if they were com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing a num­ber of Trump’s nom­i­nees.

Rounds, who serves on the Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Armed Ser­vices and Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee, will be present for hear­ings with Hegseth and Gab­bard and has been large­ly qui­et on if he will sup­port them. The Caller also asked Rounds’ office if he would be sup­port­ing Patel, but did not receive a response.

Cas­sidy, who serves as the chair­man of the Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Health, Edu­ca­tion, Labor and Pen­sions (HELP) and will be ques­tion­ing RFK Jr. and Trump’s pick for Labor Sec­re­tary, Lori Chavez-DeRe­mer, has also been large­ly qui­et. The Caller con­tact­ed Cassidy’s office about his sup­port for those spe­cif­ic nom­i­nees and also if he would be sup­port­ing Patel, but they did not respond.

Cassidy’s deci­sions may have got­ten that much tougher Wednes­day, when Louisiana Trea­sur­er John Flem­ing announced a pri­ma­ry chal­lenge against the incum­bent.

Collins has refused to say if she would sup­port RFK Jr. and Gab­bard and has been non­com­mit­tal about Patel.

“I don’t know Kash Patel. I had heard his name, but I don’t know his back­ground, and I’m going to have to do a lot of work before reach­ing a deci­sion on him. In gen­er­al, I’ve found it’s impor­tant to review the back­ground check, the com­mit­tee work and the pub­lic hear­ing,” she told reporters this week.

As for the oth­er nom­i­nees, Collins’ office told the Caller she like­ly would not take a posi­tion until after their hear­ings were con­clud­ed.

Murkows­ki, like Collins, has also been large­ly silent on her sup­port for Trump’s nom­i­nees, specif­i­cal­ly RFK Jr. and Gab­bard. Murkowski’s office did not respond to ques­tions from the Caller.

Thune has not com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing Patel as the next FBI Direc­tor. There were pre­vi­ous­ly ques­tions about whether he would sup­port nom­i­nees that weren’t sub­ject to FBI back­ground checks, an idea that was float­ed by some in Trump world.

Two oth­er Repub­li­can wild­cards who have been men­tioned as pos­si­ble obsta­cles for Trump’s nom­i­nees are Ken­tucky Sen. Mitch McConnell and North Car­oli­na Sen. Thom Tillis. McConnell has butted heads with Trump count­less times and has lit­tle elec­toral con­cern in Ken­tucky, where his term will end in 2027. Mean­while, Tillis is seen as a more mod­er­ate mem­ber of the Sen­ate GOP who is fac­ing re-elec­tion in a swing state dur­ing the upcom­ing midterms.

Oth­er mem­bers of the GOP are push­ing their col­leagues to stand firm behind Trump’s nom­i­nees.

“Don­ald Trump sur­vived attempts to kill him and have him impris­oned through a per­ver­sion of America’s jus­tice sys­tem. The Amer­i­can peo­ple elect­ed him again to smash Wash­ing­ton cor­rup­tion with a ham­mer, and gave him a man­date to choose the right team to do it. The Sen­ate should unite behind his nom­i­nees, get them con­firmed, and get to work deliv­er­ing on our promis­es,” Repub­li­can Utah Sen. Mike Lee told the Caller.

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