White House director of legislative affairs Marc Short voiced his doubts Monday morning about secretary of state nominee Mike Pompeo’s chances of earning a positive recommendation from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which would be an unprecedented snub for such a high-profile cabinet position.
“I’m not giving up on the committee vote, but I think your information is well-sourced and I think that it looks iffy for this afternoon, but we still think that we’re going to get the votes when we get to the full floor of the Senate,” he told MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson.
The committee’s narrow Republican majority of 11 seats to the Democrats’ 10 was nullified when Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) announced that he would join the Democratic bloc in their opposition.
Senate Republicans will still hold a full Senate vote this week when Pompeo will likely be confirmed due to Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s (D-ND) defection to the Republican side, though without a positive recommendation from the committee and by a likely historically low margin.
Watch below:
Marc Short on Pompeo’s committee vote: “It looks iffy for this afternoon” pic.twitter.com/RexaZbyX2H
— Kate Riga (@Kate_Riga24) April 23, 2018