The Senate voted along party lines to continue with the nominations of two diplomatic posts, despite threats from Texas Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) that he would vote against it earlier this week.
Before the vote, Sen. Cornyn said earlier this week he intended to block the nominations of Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano not because he thinks they are ill-suited to serve as ambassadors to Jamaica and Slovakia, but because he wants President Donald Trump to release funds set aside for the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR.
“The only way it seems like you can get the administration’s attention on some of these funding issues is by using the leverage to withhold votes on nominees,” Sen. Cornyn told Semafor on Tuesday.
After losing his seat in the May primaries when Trump endorsed his opponent, the Texas Senator has not refrained from pushing back against the president’s nominees and overall agenda.
Sen. Cornyn said he also remains skeptical of confirming Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, despite Blanche’s insistence that the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund is dead.
Sen. Cornyn is also raising broader concerns about the Trump administration's political messaging ahead of the November midterm elections.
Last week at an Aspen Security Forum event, Sen. Cornyn also pushed back on the president’s national address regarding election integrity. Although the senator is supportive of voter-ID legislation like the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, he said, “We have 109 days until the midterm elections, and I don’t understand talking about what happened 6 years ago in light of these upcoming elections,” adding that the Senate Intelligence Committee had briefed Trump on potential election interference in the past.
Sen. Cornyn said it is no secret that foreign powers have tried to tamper with American elections, but regardless of the possibility, he thinks that would not have changed the outcome of the 2020 election.
Now, the senator, despite not being up for re-election, said he is worried conversations like these could cost his party the midterms.
“My concern is that it’s setting up a Democratic wave election,” Sen. Cornyn said. “We should be talking about what matters to the people around the kitchen table. And right now, they can’t afford their health care, their housing, their groceries or their gasoline.”
