President Donald Trump has a number of Cabinet vacancies to fill as time is running short on Capitol Hill where lawmakers are bogged down ahead of the November midterm elections.
Currently, Trump has two Cabinet vacancies to fill, attorney general and labor secretary, but he’ll also have to contend with finding a new director of National Intelligence once Tulsi Gabbard formally exits her post on June 30.
White House officials declined to say when the president plans to submit new nominations for the Cabinet vacancies to the Senate.
“President Trump has the most talented Cabinet in American history, all of whom are working around the clock to implement the President’s agenda on behalf of the American people,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told the Washington Examiner on Friday. “The Trump Administration’s mission to put America First and Make America Great Again will never change.”
Trump has already been forced to swap out one of his second-term Cabinet members after moving Kristi Noem out of the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year. She was replaced by DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, himself formerly a Republican senator from Oklahoma, whose confirmation took a remarkably quick 18 days.
However, there are just over 20 days remaining on the legislative calendar before the August recess, and a lengthy list of legislative priorities Trump is hoping to have passed before November could make it increasingly difficult to get nominations through the Senate.
Trump’s biggest hurdle to clear is at the Department of Justice. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche took over the department from Pam Bondi in April, but he’s limited by federal statute to only lead DOJ for 210 days before the president must submit a new nominee to the Senate. Blanche’s 210-day acting window will close just six days before Election Day in November.
Furthermore, Trump has at least one, if not two, outright Republican enemies serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee: Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and John Cornyn (R-TX).
Tillis is not running for reelection and has already shown a willingness to hold up past Trump nominees. He has not indicated he would block Blanche from being confirmed but told reporters earlier this month that he would aggressively “scrub” Blanche’s record should the president nominate him to be full-time attorney general. Cornyn just lost his reelection bid in a primary runoff against the Trump-endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
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Cornyn also serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee alongside Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who herself is facing a difficult reelection bid and seems unlikely to vote in favor of any controversial nominee the president files to replace Gabbard as intelligence chief.
Trump does see some reprieve when it comes to the Department of Labor. Though Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who, like Cornyn, was also forced out of a primary runoff by a Trump-backed challenger, and chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, federal statute does not limit the term that an acting Labor secretary can run the department, unlike other federal department heads.
David Sivak and Ramsey Touchberry contributed to this report.
