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Read Live Updates From The Confirmation Hearings Of Several Trump Cabinet Picks


More of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks are set to face questioning on Thursday in hearings on Capitol Hill.
Confirmation hearings are scheduled for Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), Trump’s pick to lead the CIA; former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, whom Trump has chosen for secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, the president-elect’s pick for secretary of defense.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly and former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao faced questioning earlier this week.
Read the latest updates below:
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Senate Armed Services Committee Votes To Approve Mattis Waiver
The Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday voted to approve a waiver that would allow Mattis to serve as defense secretary. Under federal law, military officers must wait seven years after retirement before they are eligible to serve as defense secretary. Mattis retired in 2013.
The committee vote was 24-3. Three Democrats opposed the waiver: Kristen Gillibrand of New York, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
― Igor Bobic
Senator Reminds Carson He Was An Odd Choice To Lead HUD
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) opened her questioning of Carson with a reminder of how surprised people were to hear that Trump picked him, a retired neurosurgeon, to lead the nation’s housing policy.
“There’s a lot of people who kind of scratched their head when you were nominated, thinking, ‘What does he know about housing? And how is he going to manage this agency?’” Heitkamp said.
Even a Carson spokesman said in November that the GOP presidential primary candidate wasn’t interested in a Cabinet post because he’s never worked in government and has never run a federal agency.
Alas, Carson is game for being HUD secretary now, and Heitkamp seems ready to give him a pass on his lack of experience.
“We aren’t in the housing business,” she told him. “We’re really in the people business.”
― Jennifer Bendery
Jon Tester: ‘I Can Almost See Canada From My Doorstep’
A brief moment of levity in Carson’s confirmation hearing: During a back-and-forth with Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) involving America’s neighbors to the north, Tester quipped, “I can almost see Canada from my doorstep.”
The room laughed at the reference to Sarah Palin’s silly 2008 comment about seeing Russia from Alaska.
― Zach Carter
Top Democrats Come Out Against Sessions For Attorney General
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will not support Sessions for attorney general, he announced on Thursday.
Other Democrats in the Senate have spoken out against Sessions, including Cory Booker (D-N.J.), but Schumer is the highest ranking one to do so.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) also came out against the nomination Thursday.
Read more here.
― Alana Horowitz Satlin
Alabama Congressman: Democrats’ ‘War On Whites’ Behind Jeff Sessions Criticism
U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks said Democrats criticizing Sessions were lying to advance their political agenda as part of their “war on whites.”
Brooks defended President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general in an interview Tuesday ahead of Sessions’ Senate confirmation hearing. Sessions has been accused of racism in his past and been condemned by civil rights leaders for his anti-immigration views and disagreement with the Voting Rights Act.  
Brooks dismissed Democrats’ objections to Sessions’ nomination as a solely political move.
Read more here.
― Kate Abbey-Lambertz
 
Meanwhile...
CNN’s Dan Merica tweeted that Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) brushed off Trump’s recent Nazi comparisons as humorous. Trump asked if Americans are “living in Nazi Germany” after information about a document used in an intelligence briefing was published on Tuesday.

― Paige Lavender
Pompeo Says He Would ‘Absolutely Not’ Bring Back Enhanced Interrogation
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) the driving force behind the Senate’s torture report, asked Pompeo if he would restart the CIA’s defunct enhanced interrogation program if asked to by Trump.
“Absolutely not,” Pompeo said. “Moreover, I can’t imagine that I would be asked that by [Trump].”
During the campaign, Trump repeatedly said he would bring back waterboarding “and worse.” Mattis, the defense secretary nominee, has reportedly convinced the president-elect that torture is not a useful interrogation technique.
Pompeo was highly critical of senators who supported declassifying the executive summary of the torture report.
“The sad conclusion left open is that her release of the report is the result of a narcissistic self-cleansing that is quintessentially at odds with her duty to the country,” Pompeo said of Feinstein in 2014.
— Jessica Schulberg
Trump Spokesman Shrugs Off Differing Opinions Among Cabinet Nominees And The President-Elect
Incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said he was nonplussed about Cabinet nominees who break with Trump on key issues, making clear that taking the job ultimately means serving the president.
“At the end of the day, each one of them will pursue a Trump agenda,” Spicer said during a daily call with reporters.
“They’re being asked their personal views, they’re giving them,” he continued, adding that Trump was “not asking for clones.”
A number of Trump nominees expressed their disagreement with Trump at their confirmation hearings this week. Secretary of state nominee Tillerson and defense secretary nominee Mattis, for example, took a stronger stand against Russia than the president-elect has.
― Igor Bobic
Carson Refuses To Pledge HUD Money Won’t Flow To Trump
Pressed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Carson repeatedly refused to guarantee that HUD resources are not committed to activities that benefit Trump or his family.
“I can assure you that the things that I do are driven by a sense of morals and values,” Carson said. “And therefore I will absolutely not play favorites for anyone.”
When Warren asked again whether any HUD money would go to Trump, Carson again insisted on his own personal neutrality, instead of agreeing to avoid sending money to the president and his family.
“It will not be my intention to do anything to benefit any American, particularly, it’s for all Americans, everything that we do,” Carson said.
“If there happens to be an extraordinarily good program that works for millions of people and it turns out that someone that you’re targeting is going to make $10 from it,” Carson said, he wouldn’t make a big fuss over the $10.
“The problem is you can’t assure us that HUD money ― not of $10 varieties but of multimillion-dollar varieties ― don’t end up in the president-elect’s pocket,” Warren said, because Trump has refused to divest his businesses or place them in a blind trust. Because Trump’s businesses are private, “he can divert taxpayer money into his own pockets without anyone knowing about it.”
― Zach Carter
Mattis Refuses To Say If Women, LGBTQ Soldiers Harm Military
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who has spent years pushing for a more inclusive military, wanted to hear from defense secretary nominee Mattis whether he thought women and LGBTQ members of the military weakened the country’s fighting forces.
Mattis has professed such opinions as recently as 2015.
Mattis never answered her question, saying only that he thinks the U.S. military is the toughest out there.
He did offer that he would not take the job leading the armed forces with the intention of rolling back gains. But he also said he’d look at any “problems” that are brought to him.
Unable to get a clear answer and with her questioning time running out, Gillibrand said she’d settle for it in writing.
― Michael McAuliff
Pompeo Leaves Door Open To Remaining In Iran Deal
Pompeo was one of the most outspoken critics of the Iran nuclear deal in his role as a congressman. Thursday, he acknowledged that, if confirmed, “my role will change.”
Pomepo, like several of Trump’s close advisers, appears to be indicating that the administration’s policy on the Iran deal will be to strictly enforce it rather than scrap it.
— Jessica Schulberg
Carson On The Minimum Wage
Carson appeared to reject the very idea of a federal minimum wage, when Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), asked about it.
Carson replied that he opposed “artificially trying to change” wages. Pressed further by Brown, Carson said the minimum wage was not “artificial.”
Carson has been put forward to run HUD, a department tasked with providing housing aid to low-income families.
― Zach Carter
Carson Revives Paul Ryan’s Theory Of Poverty
At his hearing, Carson presented House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) theory of poverty, in which individual will and effort, rather than structural problems or discrimination, are the driving factors of low-income status.
He opened his testimony with a story about his mother bringing him as a child to big houses she was paid to clean. The houses were much nicer than the “rats and roaches” den Carson said his family lived in. “The person who has the most to do with where you live is you,” Carson quoted his mother as saying. “It’s not someone else.”
“All too often, people who seemingly mean well have promoted things that do not encourage the development of innate talent in people,” Carson said. “And hence we have generation after generation of dependent people … I see each individual as human capital that can be developed to become part of the engine that drives our nation, or if not developed, becomes part of the load.”
Carson was reviving Ryan’s worry that “the safety net” has become “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives.”
Carson also said he wanted to go on a listening tour to hear from people who receive federal housing benefits ― something Ryan did in 2013 and 2014. Ryan ultimately channeled his poverty tour publicity to promote budget blueprints that would cap safety net spending and give more authority to local and state authorities.
“We have people sitting around a desk in Washington, D.C., deciding how things should be done,” Carson said.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), the ranking Democrat on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee handling the hearing, pressed Carson about previous comments he had made about the Fair Housing Act, a piece of civil rights legislation HUD is partially responsible for enforcing. Brown noted Carson had previously described it as a “failed socialist experiment.” Carson said he was merely “opposed to central dictation of peoples’ lives,” and wanted more local control over antipoverty programs rather than control from bureaucrats in Washington.
― Zach Carter & Arthur Delaney
Sessions Blames Bad Apples For Police Abuse. He Should Read These DOJ Reports.
Sessions, who will very likely be confirmed as the 84th attorney general of the United States, expressed skepticism this week about the ways the Obama administration has forced reform in troubled police departments.
Under a law passed in 1994 in the wake of the videotaped beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles Police Department officers, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division opened 25 “pattern-or-practice” investigations of law enforcement agencies during the Obama administration to determine whether the departments were systemically engaged in unconstitutional conduct. 
But Sessions suggested during his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that his Justice Department could take another path and that agencies investigated by DOJ had been unfairly maligned.
Read more here.
― Ryan J. Reilly
Mattis In Disagreement With Trump On A Number Of Issues
Trump’s nominee to lead the Pentagon broke with the president-elect on a number of key issues Thursday.
Mattis said Russian President Vladimir Putin is “trying to break” the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, describing the current world order as “under the biggest attack since World War II.” Trump has expressed his admiration for Putin, and has repeatedly declined to criticize his meddling in the U.S. election.
The retired general said the U.S. must abide by the Iran nuclear deal, despite what he called its imperfections, because America must abide by its word. Trump has promised to rescind the deal.
And the defense secretary nominee expressed a “very, very high degree of confidence in our intelligence community.” Trump has criticized the intelligence community as “politicized” in recent days.
― Igor Bobic
Pompeo Hearing Recessed Until Power Returns
The Senate Select Intelligence Committee recessed Pompeo's confirmation hearing while waiting for power return.
— Jessica Schulberg

CORRECTION: An earlier entry incorrectly said the power had returned for the hearing. It had not yet.
Mattis Emphasizes ‘Civilian Leadership’ Of Military
Mattis emphasized the importance of civilian control of the nation’s armed forces.
“Civilian control of the military is a fundamental tenet of the American military tradition,” Mattis said at his confirmation hearing, adding he would “provide strong civilian leadership” if confirmed to the post.
The Senate is expected to approve a waiver for Mattis to exempt him from rules requiring a seven-year cooling-off period before he can lead the Pentagon.
― Igor Bobic
McCain Kicks Things Off In Mattis Hearing
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) gave opening statements at Mattis’ hearing, speaking on Russia and the current administration’s policies.

― Paige Lavender
Mattis Questioned
One of the first hearings Thursday is for former Marine Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s pick for defense secretary.
― Paige Lavender
Tillerson Takes A Stand Against Ending Subsidies To Fossil Fuels
Tillerson denied that tax breaks to fossil fuel companies amounted to subsidies during his hearing Wednesday.
The former Exxon Mobil Corp. chief executive argued that he would have little influence over tax policy as secretary of state, but, in response to questions from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said: “I’m not aware of anything the fossil fuel industry gets that I would characterize as a subsidy, simply an application of the tax code that applies broadly to any industry.”
Curtailing those incentives would mean “eliminating whole sections of the tax code.” To do so could hurt U.S. oil and gas companies ― of which Exxon Mobil is by far the largest. That would run amok of the “economic nationalism” espoused by Trump during the election, he said.
“The president-elect’s made clear in his views and his whole objective of his campaign of putting America first is he’s not going to support anything that puts the U.S. industry in any particular sector in any disadvantage,” he said, “whether it’s automobile manufacturing, the steel sector or the oil and gas industry.”
― Alexander C. Kaufman
Tillerson Downplays National Security Risks Of Climate Change
Tillerson downplayed whether global warming contributes to national security risks.
“I don’t see it as the imminent national security threat that perhaps others do,” Trump’s pick for secretary of state said.
The 64-year-old former Exxon Mobil Corp. chief executive acknowledged that a severe drought, which drove Syrian farmers to abandon their fields and flock to cities, helped spark the bloody civil war in that country. But he dismissed studies that blame climate change for worsening the drought.
“Facts on the ground are indisputable in terms of what are happening with drought, disease, insect population,” Tillerson said. “The science behind the clear connection is not conclusive. There are many reports out there that we are unable yet to connect specific events to climate change alone.”
Tillerson then parroted a line frequently used by the sort of climate science deniers Exxon Mobil funds, placing equal value on both sides of the debate.
“There’s some literature out there that suggests that,” Tillerson said. “There’s other literature that says it’s inconclusive.”
― Alexander C. Kaufman
Tillerson Doesn’t Support Muslim Ban, But Dodges On Muslim Registry
Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s pick to serve as secretary of state, said on Wednesday that he did not believe the United States should implement a blanket ban against Muslims.
“I think what’s important [is] that we are able to make a judgment about the people that are coming into the country and so I do not support a blanket-type rejection of any particular group of people,” the former Exxon Mobil CEO said during his confirmation hearing.
Read more here.
― Sam Levine
Tillerson Says Exxon Mobil Didn’t Lobby Against Sanctions. Public Records Suggest Otherwise.
Former Exxon Mobil chief executive Rex Tillerson testified under oath during his secretary of state confirmation hearing Wednesday that he had no knowledge of his company lobbying lawmakers against sanctions.
But public records show that between 2006 and 2014, while Tillerson was leading the oil giant, firms representing Exxon Mobil repeatedly lobbied members of Congress on sanctions legislation targeting Iran and Russia that could hurt the company’s business.
Read more here.
― Jessica Schulberg
Black Dem: Testifying Last In Sessions’ Hearing Is Like Being Sent To ‘Back Of The Bus’
WASHINGTON ― The chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus slammed Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Wednesday for making black lawmakers wait until the end of a hearing to testify against U.S. attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions, comparing it to “being made to go to the back of the bus.”
Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), who leads the 49-member caucus, joined Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights icon, on the final panel in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Sessions’ nomination. Committee chairmen often let lawmakers testify first in hearings, as a courtesy, before members of the public. In this case, Grassley opted not to do so. That meant lawmakers had to wait to lodge their opposition after public testimony was heard. This didn’t sit well with Richmond.
Read more here. 
― Jennifer Bendery 
Black Lawmakers: America ‘Cannot Count’ On Jeff Sessions
WASHINGTON ― In a history-making testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said Wednesday that the American people “cannot count” on fellow senator Jeff Sessions to bring justice to the justice system if confirmed as attorney general.
Booker sat alongside civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) as he delivered his remarks. All three lawmakers were scheduled to go at the end of Sessions’ confirmation hearing. All three eviscerated Sessions’ record, one by one. 
“I know that some of my colleagues are unhappy that I’m breaking with Senate tradition to testify against the nomination of one of my colleagues,” Booker said. “But I believe, like perhaps all of my colleagues, that in the choice between standing with Senate norms or standing up for what my conscience tells me is best for our country, I will always choose conscience and country.”
Read more here. 
― Laura Barron-Lopez
Civil Rights Leader John Lewis Warns Against Sessions As Attorney General
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said Wednesday that he fears Trump’s attorney general pick will roll back civil rights.
Speaking at Sessions’ confirmation hearing, Lewis said that there are people who want to take back some of the gains of the civil rights movements he fought so hard for, and that Sessions wouldn’t stop them.
Lewis mostly skipped over talking about the senator’s record ― which was dissected over the course of the two-day hearing on Tuesday and Wednesday ― and focused on his concerns that Sessions won’t look out for all Americans.
Read more here.
― Elise Foley
Mattis Canceled His House Hearing Regarding Defense Secretary Nomination
Trump’s defense secretary nominee, retired Gen. James Mattis, has reportedly canceled a hearing in the House related to his confirmation.
The Military Times says the nominee abruptly backed out of the House hearing scheduled for Thursday, potentially complicating his confirmation. Mattis is well-regarded, but Congress also has to waive a legal restriction on recent military retirees such as Mattis serving as a civilian secretary of defense. The House was set to look into that, while the Senate took up the confirmation itself.
Spokesmen for the Senate Armed Services Committee said Mattis would still be appearing in their chamber as scheduled.
— Michael McAuliff
Tillerson Breaks With Trump On Divesting From Business Interests
Tillerson once again broke with Trump during his confirmation hearing. This time, it was on conflicts of interest with his personal investments. The former Exxon Mobil Corp. chief said he hired a lawyer soon after being selected to be secretary of state, and worked with the company’s board to cut financial ties to the oil giant.
“The only advice I gave them is that I must have a clean, clear break,” he said. “I told people, I don’t even want the appearance that there’s any connection to myself and the future fortunes, up or down, of the Exxon Mobil Corporation.”
Trump struck a notably different tone during a press conference earlier in the day. The president-elect refused to divest of his business interests or place his Trump Organization in a blind trust. Instead, he appointed his two adult sons to lead the company and said the real estate firm would not pursue new deals in foreign countries during his presidency.
― Alexander C. Kaufman
Tillerson Isn’t Sure Whether Exxon Mobil Lobbied For Or Against Energy Sanctions
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) confronted Tillerson with lobbying reports containing lobbying disclosures by Exxon Mobil after Tillerson said the company never lobbied against Russian sanctions.
“I haven’t seen the form that you’re holding in your hand,” the secretary of state nominee said. “I don’t know whether it indicates were we lobbying for the sanctions or were we lobbying against the sanctions.”
“I know you weren’t lobbying for the sanctions,” Menendez responded. “It says specifically for example here: specific lobbying issues Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014, provisions related to energy. You weren’t lobbying for sanctions on energy, were you?”
“I think that’s a description of the subject that was discussed. And I haven’t seen the form, senator, so I don’t want to be presumptuous here,” Tillerson said.
“Let me just edify for the future,” the senator replied. “You don’t need a lobbying disclosure form to simply seek and clarify information about a bill. That’s not lobbying. Lobbying specifically is to promote a view a position and whatnot ... there was lobbying here.”
― Sam Levine
Tillerson Pleads Complete Ignorance On Bloody Drug War In Philippines
Tillerson said he didn’t understand enough about Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody drug war to decide whether the campaign amounts to human rights violations. Pressed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the former Exxon Mobil CEO said he did not receive the same classified intelligence briefings afforded to senators.
“It’s from the LA Times,” Rubio responded, referring to reports of the roughly 5,000 people killed since Duterte started his drug war.
“I’m not going to rely on solely what I read in the newspaper,” he said.
― Alexander C. Kaufman
Kamala Harris Calls Tillerson’s Russia Ties ‘Alarming’
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) kicked off the second session of Tillerson’s secretary of state confirmation hearing by raising concerns over the former Exxon Mobil Corp. chief’s close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

― Alexander C. Kaufman
Protesters Interrupt Sessions’ Hearing
Protesters began shouting during Jeff Sessions’ attorney general hearing Wednesday afternoon. Tuesday, the first day of his hearing, was also filled with protesters, including a few dressed like Ku Klux Klan members.
― Paige Lavender
Lewis Asks For Someone Who Will Speak Up
“It doesn’t matter how Sen. Sessions may smile, how friendly he may be, how he may speak to you. But we need someone who will stand up, speak up,” Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said.
Powerful Lewis Rebuke
“We need someone as attorney general who’s going to look out for all of us, not just some of us,” Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said.
Booker Makes Historic Testimony Against Senate Colleague


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