WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is making a naughty listing and checking it twice.
That’s in keeping with one Republican senator who likened the general public strain the president-elect is placing on members of Congress to verify his Cupboard nominees subsequent 12 months to Santa Claus handing out lumps of coal to misbehaving youngsters.
“Everyone toe the road, all people line up,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) mentioned at a convention earlier this month, characterizing Trump’s method. “We received you right here, and if you wish to survive you higher be good. Don’t get on Santa’s naughty listing right here as a result of we are going to main you.”
Trump himself didn’t deny that he may search retribution in opposition to Republican senators who oppose his prime picks to guide federal companies whereas talking at a press convention in Florida.
“In the event that they’re unreasonable, in the event that they’re opposing any individual for political causes or silly causes… I might say they most likely can be primaried,” Trump mentioned of GOP senators this month.
One Republican senator, Joni Erst of Iowa, realized this the arduous manner. After the Iraq Warfare veteran and sexual assault survivor instructed she had considerations with Pete Hegseth, Trump’s anticipated nominee to guide the Division of Protection, who has been accused of sexual assault, Trump’s allies turned up the warmth in opposition to Ernst, launching vicious criticism at her and calling for the senator to face a main election problem in 2026.
Her colleagues have since gotten the message, avoiding any trace of disapproval of their statements about Trump’s nominees and as a substitute vowing to provide them a good listening to within the Senate subsequent month. It doesn’t imply they’re all secure, a couple of controversial picks are positive to face contentious affirmation hearings. However GOP senators aren’t wanting to attract Trump’s ire weeks earlier than they really need to forged a vote on his nominees on the Senate ground.
“No person must get on his naughty listing as a result of we’re just about invested in the identical issues he’s invested in,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a Trump ally, instructed HuffPost.
Nonetheless, different GOP senators could possibly be in Trump’s crosshairs, along with Ernst, together with Murkowski, Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Invoice Cassidy (La.), Susan Collins (Maine), Todd Younger (Ind.), Mike Rounds (S.D.) and John Curtin (Utah).
Lisa Murkowski
The Alaska senator is a uncommon phenomenon in at the moment’s Republican Get together: an independently-minded voice who isn’t afraid to name out Donald Trump. At a No Labels convention earlier this month, Murkowski known as herself “extra of a Ronald Reagan … Republican than I’m a Trump Republican,” including that she’d favor being often called somebody who seeks to “do proper by this state and the folks that I serve no matter social gathering.”
She doesn’t face reelection till 2028, and the final time she did, in 2022, she survived a Trump-backed challenger because of substantial help from independents in Alaska. She has expressed considerations with a number of of Trump’s nominees, together with Hegseth and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been tapped to guide the Well being and Human Providers Division.
Susan Collins
Collins is one other reasonable Republican who has expressed considerations with a few of Trump’s nominees. Like Murkowski, the Maine senator, she has been a critic of Trump and likewise voted to convict him over his involvement within the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol.
Requested by HuffPost if she apprehensive about retribution from Trump or his allies, Collins, who’s up for reelection in 2026, mentioned she deliberate to vet Trump’s nominees like each different president earlier than him.
“I’ve at all times approached the nominees, whether or not they’re Democratic or Republican presidents, in the identical method. I sit down with them and interview them, I have a look at the background examine, I monitor or take part within the public listening to, after which I do what I feel is true,” Collins mentioned. “I’ve at all times given a variety of deference to the president’s selections, as a result of I imagine usually, the president ought to be capable of assemble his personal crew, however I’ve voted in opposition to a couple of of them up to now, and we’ll see what occurs.”
Mitch McConnell
The 82-year-old Kentucky Republican stepped down as Senate GOP chief in December after almost 20 years on the job, and he could possibly be a wildcard throughout what is probably going the final two years of his Senate profession. Though he’s sometimes unwilling to criticize and even speak about Trump, he might really feel in a different way now that he’s out of management and freed from wider accountability.
Earlier this month, McConnell fired a warning shot at RFK Jr. for working with a lawyer who sought to revoke approval of the lifesaving polio vaccine for youngsters. The problem is a private one for McConnell: He struggled with polio as a toddler.
“Efforts to undermine public confidence in confirmed cures usually are not simply uninformed ― they’re harmful,” McConnell mentioned. “Anybody searching for the Senate’s consent to serve within the incoming administration would do nicely to keep away from even the looks of affiliation with such efforts.”
John Curtis
All eyes can be on Curtis, a low-profile Home Republican from Utah who was elected in 2024 to exchange retiring Sen. Mitt Romney within the higher chamber. Will he go the best way of Romney, a vocal critic of Trump? Or will he preserve his head down and fall consistent with the MAGA contingent in Congress?
“I’m not a rubber stamp,” Curtis told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “I feel me talking my thoughts and being upfront makes the president a greater president.”
“Anyone who desires to provide me warmth for doing my job, convey it on. That is my job. It’s my constitutional accountability,” he added.
Curtis expressed considerations with Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to guide the FBI, and he has not but backed Hegseth regardless of assembly with him earlier this month.
One early inform, at the least on fiscal issues: Curtis final week voted together with different deeply conservative members of the Home to reject a authorities funding invoice that included a hike within the statutory borrowing restrict, which Trump had demanded.
Mike Rounds
The amiable South Dakotan, who initially backed Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) over Trump within the 2024 GOP presidential race, has said that each one of Trump’s nominees ought to get “the advantage of the doubt” whereas beginning out ― feedback that Trump’s transition touted of their favor.
However Rounds has additionally expressed considerations with RFK Jr. and his views on vaccines. “I need to know what his actual considerations are and what he would need to do completely different. However I don’t need to lose our vaccine applications,” he instructed reporters this month.
Requested by HuffPost if he was excited about drawing a main challenger forward of his 2026 reelection marketing campaign, Rounds downplayed the chance and pressured he needed to play a constructive function in constructing out Trump’s crew.
“I’ve by no means had a time through which there weren’t strategies of, you understand, having primaries. Primaries are part of the method,” Rounds mentioned. “At this level, we’re simply all a part of the identical crew. And I feel that’s what we’re going to deal with is holding all people on the identical crew and getting these items achieved. So it’s crew constructing proper now. It’s not a destructive method, it’s a constructive method.”
Todd Younger
Younger, a former U.S. Marine recognized for working throughout the aisle, received a second time period in 2022 regardless of not having Trump’s endorsement after he mentioned the previous president bore accountability for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
In 2023, Younger upped the ante and introduced he wouldn’t help him within the 2024 presidential race. He’s been largely mum on Trump since then, however he’s had loads of constructive issues to say about most of his nominees. Nonetheless, Younger could possibly be a senator to look at ― notably on Hegseth’s anticipated nomination to guide the Pentagon.
When asked by CNN earlier this month concerning the allegations of sexual misconduct leveled in opposition to Hegseth, which the previous Fox Information host has denied, Younger said he had a “fulsome” dialog with Hegseth that “coated all the pieces on my thoughts,” however indicated he’s not able to again him but for the job.
