Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) affirmed on Thursday that he will vote in favor of President-elect Donald Trump‘s nominees for cabinet and other senior positions that require Senate confirmation.
In a post on X, the South Carolina Republican said he generally “vote[s] for confirmation regardless of party or personal feelings” because he views that as his “constitutional role as a senator.” Graham added, “I will do the same for President Trump’s nominees.”
Graham indeed has largely voted to confirm both Democratic and Republican nominees, but that hasn’t always been the case. Trump’s unconventional appointments will serve as loyalty tests for Graham and other Senate Republicans.
Trump’s Controversial Nominees
The initial set of Trump nominees was dominated by faces acceptable to the Republican Party‘s old guard. They included Graham’s Senate colleague Marco Rubio (R-FL) as secretary of state, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) as ambassador to the UN, and former New York Republican congressman Lee Zeldin as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Then, on Wednesday, Trump pivoted toward more eccentric and controversial characters from the Trump world. These include:
- Matt Gaetz, the now-retired Florida congressman accused of serious sex offenses, nominated for attorney general.
- Pete Hegseth, the Fox News personality with no major executive leadership experience, nominated to lead the Department of Defense, which has around three million employees.
- Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman accused of pro-Russia sympathies, nominated for director of national intelligence.
- Robert. F Kennedy Jr., the Kennedy family black sheep with a history of drug abuse and anti-science views, including on vaccines, nominated for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Lindsey Graham’s Voting Record
While Graham has exhibited bipartisanship on past Senate confirmation votes, there have been exceptions.
In 2022, Graham voted against President Joe Biden’s nomination of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, despite voting for her nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit just a year earlier.
Graham justified his “no” vote, citing what he described as a “record of judicial activism” and a belief that Jackson would “not be deterred by the plain meaning of law when it comes to liberal causes.”
He also criticized Jackson for her alleged “flawed sentencing methodology regarding child pornography cases.” Yet, he has now committed to vote to confirm Gaetz as the senior-most U.S. law enforcement official, despite accusations that he was investigated for child sex trafficking.
In an appearance on Fox News’s “Hannity” on Wednesday night, Graham called on his fellow Republicans to “give Matt a chance.”
Additionally, in 2020, Graham violated his commitment to not allow Supreme Court confirmations in election years, when he voted to confirm the Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In 2016, Graham blocked President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court pick Merrick Garland.
A Loyalty Test for Senate Republicans
The confirmation votes, which are set to begin in January, will be an early test for the incoming Republican Senate majority leader, John Thune (R-SD). The Republicans will have a narrow majority in the incoming Senate and Thune will have to demonstrate his ability to muster the votes to approve Trump nominees.
In his first term as president, Trump clashed often with Thune’s predecessor, Sen. Mitch McConnell, sometimes criticizing him publicly. Trump blasted McConnell on social media in 2017 for failing to push through a vote repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
On Friday, the fresh-from-prison far-right ideologue Steve Bannon called the upcoming Senate confirmation votes a “march or die” moment for Senate Republicans.
Right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk, Bannon said, called for Senate Republicans who vote against Trump’s nominees to be “primaried.”
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