Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he plans to treat President-elect Joseph R. Biden and his Cabinet picks “a hell of a lot better” than congressional Democrats treated President Trump.
That doesn’t mean all of Mr. Biden’s nominees will be approved, said the Kentucky Republican.
“[Biden’s nominees] aren’t all going to pass on a voice vote, and they aren’t all going to make it, but I will put them on the floor,” Mr. McConnell told Scott Jennings, a former adviser, in an interview published this week in the Louisville Courier-Journal.
Senate Republicans already signaled they’re likely to oppose Mr. Biden’s pick of Neera Tanden to lead the White House budget office and Xavier Becerra to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
Ms. Tanden is a longtime liberal activist and Twitter provocateur. Mr. Becerra, the California attorney general and former representative, has championed staunchly liberal positions on issues such as abortion and gun control.
Mr. Biden said Tuesday that he’s not expecting a “honeymoon” period to get things accomplished.
“I don’t think it’s a honeymoon at all — I think it’s a nightmare that everybody’s going through and they all say it’s got to end,” Mr. Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Delaware. “It’s not a honeymoon — they’re not doing me a favor.”
Still, Mr. McConnell said Mr. Biden can expect a warm reception compared to what Mr. Trump received when he entered office in 2017.
“Well, first of all, I am going to treat him a hell of a lot better than Chuck Schumer ever treated Donald Trump,” Mr. McConnell said.
Republicans controlled the Senate when Mr. Trump took office, but Senate Democrats used procedural maneuvers to delay votes on Mr. Trump’s personnel picks.
Mr. Jennings said Mr. Schumer, the Senate minority leader from New York, led filibusters against Trump appointees 128 times — many of which were for relatively noncontroversial, lower-ranking positions.
Mr. McConnell said he interpreted the 2020 election results as Americans calling for the two parties to operate “between the 40-yard lines.”
“I think the American people expect us to look for areas of agreement in a divided system while setting aside for debate the things we don’t agree on,” he said.
Mr. Biden delivered a similar message Tuesday.
“In this election, the American people made it clear: They want us to reach across the aisle and work together on matters of national concern,” he said.
Republicans currently hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate.
Two runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5 will determine which party controls the chamber in the new Congress next year.
“Winning in Georgia guarantees that the new president will be a moderate because he won’t have any choice,” Mr. McConnell recently said on Fox News.
Mr. McConnell didn’t answer last week when asked if Mr. Biden can expect to have his entire team in place and ready to go by Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
“Our first job here is to try to finish up this session with this administration and we’ll have plenty of time to talk about the way forward,” Mr. McConnell said. “The future will take care of itself.”
Mr. Trump resorted to naming “acting” officials and secretaries to their posts once it became clear that some of his picks were unlikely to make it through the Senate at all.
In November 2019, the president named Chad F. Wolf as acting secretary of Homeland Security — Mr. Trump’s fifth acting or confirmed DHS secretary since taking office.
A federal judge ordered DHS this month to restart the Obama-era DACA program, saying Mr. Wolf is not legally serving as DHS secretary.
The Government Accountability Office concluded in August that Mr. Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, the acting DHS deputy secretary, were holding their jobs illegally.
The controversy stemmed from Mr. Trump’s ouster of former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen from her job in spring 2019 and the ensuing moves on the chain of succession from DHS officials.
Chad Mizelle, the acting general counsel for DHS, dismissed the GAO report as a partisan hit job.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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