Republicans Eye Backup Plan to confirm Gabbard

Senate Republicans are looking at a backup plan to get Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination to the floor if she can’t win over all nine of their intelligence committee members.

It wouldn’t be beautiful, but it could get her a floor vote – and potentially confirmation as President Donald Trump’s director of National Intelligence.

The Intelligence Committee, chairman of Senator Tom Cotton, R-sheet, has the power to send Gabbard’s nomination to the full Senate without a recommendation or an unfavorable recommendation that is less ideal-snarers than a favorable vote. With Gabbard’s nomination, which is facing serious headwinds on the panel, these could end up as Republicans’ best opportunities to have her confirmed if she can’t turn her fortunes.

“There are probably, perhaps creative ways,” to get Gabbard out of the committee, to Senate’s majority leader John Thune, Rs.d., Semaphor told. “But obviously, ideally, you will see a nominee coming out of the committee with an affirmative vote.”

When asked if he would consider using the back-up plan, Thune replied: “Will not go there.”

However, as Gabbard is preparing for a hearing of Thursday that could give or break her command to join Trump’s cabinet, however, there is quiet speech among Republicans about extracting her from the committee without a favorable recommendation. The former Hawaii -democratic congregation would not be the first Trump -nominated to take the rare route to confirm.

In 2017, Senate’s Homeland Security Committee is advanced Mick Mulvaney’s nomination to be Trump’s budget director at the White House on the floor without a recommendation in the middle of reservations from former Senator John McCain, R-Ariz, who was a panel member at the time. Mulvaney was eventually confirmed.

GOP leaders clearly prefer that the Senate confirms Gabbard via the usual process and reported her positively on the floor after her hearing. But the Republican majority of 53 seats have enough reservations about her nomination to put her whipping count in danger.

Head among Gabbard’s question: Her previous statements that some have seen as too warm to Vladimir Putin, her encounter with deposited Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and her view of American intelligence programs.

Cotton is Defense Gabbard on social media and “coordinated closely with Tulsi and her team for the hearing,” said a person who is familiar with the process, Semaphor. The intelligence chairman’s clear task is to get her out of the committee to the floor, where the majority of Thune and the Senate whip John Barrasso would work to make sure she has 50 votes.

The full Senate can also vote for discharge nominated from the committee if the panel is unable to bridge a majority together for something, but it may be subject to a threshold of 60 votes. An earlier agreement to bring bound committee votes to the floor expired by 50-50 Senate in 2022.

Republicans could also report other Trump -nominated to the Senate floor without favorable recommendations if they are tied up in the committee. An example: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is also facing Senate Committee this week.