"The Senate confirmed Colin Kahl to be the undersecretary of defense for policy in a 49-45 party-line vote Tuesday....
Senate Republicans have been unified in their opposition to Kahl, who was a vocal supporter of the hot-button Iran nuclear deal. They seized on his history of tweets attacking Republican lawmakers to argue he lacks the judgment and temperament for the job....
“I can’t recall a single nominee for the top DoD position in the past 40 years who didn’t garner at least one vote from the other party,” [Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.] said. “We need nominees who will work with members on both sides of the aisle; those members have to trust that person in return.”
But Democrats accused Republicans of waging a partisan proxy fight over the deal and Biden’s plan to rejoin it. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., has said Kahl was subjected to a “smear campaign.”
Six Republicans and one Democrat missed that vote.
Absent for the confirmation vote were Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, and Republican Sens. Roy Blunt, Rand Paul and Mike Rounds ― with Cramer and Shelby.
Earlier in the day, the National Republican Senatorial Committee painted Kahl as “just another product of Joe Biden’s conveyor belt of radical, unqualified nominees.” Senate Armed Services Committee member Rick Scott, R-Fla., chairs the NRSC.
In the Obama administration, Kahl was directly involved in negotiating the Iran Nuclear Deal, as well as publicly advocating for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Kahl