WASHINGTON — Conspiracy theories about vaccines. Secret meetings with dictators. An enemies list.
President Donald Trump’ s most controversial Cabinet nominees — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel — flooded the zone Thursday in back-to-back-to-back confirmation hearings that were like nothing the Senate has seen in modern memory.
The onslaught of claims, promises and testy exchanges did not occur in a political vacuum. The whirlwind day — Day 10 of the new White House — all unfolded as Trump himself was ranting about how diversity hiring caused the tragic airplane-and-helicopter crash outside Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport.
And it capped a tumultuous week after the White House abruptly halted federal funding for programs Americans rely on nationwide, under guidance from Trump’s budget pick Russ Vought, only to reverse course amid a public revolt.
“The American people did not vote for this kind of senseless chaos,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., earlier.
It was all challenging even the most loyal Republicans who are being asked to confirm Trump’s Cabinet or face recriminations from an army of online foot-soldiers aggressively promoting the White House agenda. A majority vote in the Senate, which is led by Republicans 53-47, is needed for confirmation, leaving little room for dissent.
Here are some takeaways from the day:
Tulsi Gabbard defends her loyalty — and makes some inroads
Gabbard is seen as the most endangered of Trump’s picks, potentially lacking the votes even from Trump’s party for confirmation for Director of National Intelligence. But her hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee offered a roadmap toward confirmation.
It opened with the chairman, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., swatting back claims that Gabbard is a foreign “asset,” undercover for some other nation, presumably Russia. He said he reviewed some 300 pages of multiple FBI background checks and she’s “clean as a whistle.”
But Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the panel, questioned whether she could build the trust needed, at home and abroad, to do the job.
Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, defended her loyalty to the U.S. She dismissed Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, when he asked whether Russia would “get a pass” from her.
“Senator, I’m offended by the question,” Gabbard responded.
Pressed on her secret 2017 trip to meet with then-Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has since been toppled by rebels and fled to Russia, she defended her work as diplomacy.
Gabbard may have made some inroads with one potentially skeptical Republican. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine asked whether Gabbard would recommend a pardon for Edward Snowden. The former government contractor was charged with espionage after leaking a trove of sensitive intelligence material, and fled to residency in Russia.
Gabbard, who has called Snowden a brave whistleblower, said it would not be her responsibility to “advocate for any actions related to Snowden.”
Picking up one notable endorsement, Gabbard was introduced by an influential voice on intelligence matters — former Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican who was chairman of the Intelligence Committee.
