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<p>Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch said he got the notice Thursday afternoon.</p><p>The chamber makeup is now 218 Republicans and 213 Democrats.</p><p>Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, whose panel holds nominee confirmation hearings for the post, said he got a call from the White House about the matter Thursday afternoon.</p>

The White House is pulling the nomination of Dave Weldon for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, Fox News Digital has confirmed. Weldon was expected to have his confirmation hearing on Thursday. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee announced that it canceled its hearing in a statement on Thursday morning. However, it confirmed that lawmakers would still vote on the nominations of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya for National Institutes of Health (NIH) director and Dr. Marty Makary for Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "It became clear that the votes weren't there in the Senate...

Senate Intel Chair Tom Cotton found a surprise ally in former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) to help resuscitate Tulsi Gabbard's nomination. The former Democratic senator approached Cotton and was deployed to help sway Sens. Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) into "yes" votes today, sources tell Axios. Why it matters: Cotton, the hawkish Arkansan who is No. 3 in GOP leadership, worked all the angles on Gabbard. He worked with Vice President Vance — who's been a crucial influence on undecided senators — Trump adviser Jason Miller and others on Gabbard's team. Cotton told Trump last year he could...

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) signaled Thursday that former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence could be in jeopardy after her past defense of alleged traitors, adding to the list of skeptics. “I’m worried by what I hear from some of my Republican colleagues. I’m worried that her nomination may be in jeopardy,” Hawley said during a Thursday Fox News appearance on “Jesse Watters Primetime.” “And I’m just worried about what that will mean,” he added. Gabbard, who was tapped by President Trump to helm the intelligence community, was widely criticized for meeting with former Syria leader...

WASHINGTON — Senators received an affidavit Tuesday from the former sister-in-law of defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth in which she says his behavior caused his second wife to fear for her safety. The receipt of the affidavit comes after Senate Armed Services Committee staffers were in contact with her for several days. The former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth, submitted the affidavit in response to a January 18th letter from Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., seeking “a statement attesting to your personal knowledge about Mr. Hegseth’s fitness to occupy this important position.” Reed asked Danielle Hegseth to detail what she knew of “instances...

The open letter still soliciting signatures is endorsed by 331 names as of Friday morning, but it lists no organization behind the effort.More than 300 scientists and physicians signed a letter in support for President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.“The cornerstone of scientific progress has always been the fearless pursuit of truth through rigorous inquiry and open debate,” the letter reads. “We want the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services to champion people with concerns about their health, chronic diseases, health policies, and environmental...

🚨 NEW TODAY: Group launches major ad campaign in Iowa to support @PeteHegseth 's confirmation as Secretary Defense. This is airing on national TV along with digital platforms in Iowa - home to a potential holdout vote, Senator Joni Ernst.

WASHINGTON—Donald Trump’s pick to run the Drug Enforcement Administration withdrew and his selection for defense secretary faced growing skepticism from some GOP senators, marking the latest challenges to the president-elect’s efforts to staff his second term’s top positions. On Tuesday, the DEA pick, Chad Chronister, a Florida county sheriff, said that the “gravity of this very important responsibility set in” and that he concluded he should pull his name. He had come under attack from conservatives for a 2020 arrest of a pastor who defied Covid-19 restrictions and held a large church service. Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to run...

For more than four decades before Donald Trump assumed the presidency, the FBI director was a position above politics. A new president might choose a political ally as attorney general, but the FBI director was different. An FBI director appointed by Richard Nixon also served under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Carter’s choice remained on the job deep into Reagan’s second term, when Reagan moved him to head the CIA. Reagan’s FBI appointee served through the George H. W. Bush presidency and into the Bill Clinton administration. Clinton fired the inherited official—the first time a president ever fired an...

President-elect Donald Trump wasted little time selecting another candidate for attorney general after Matt Gaetz dropped his bid amid sexual misconduct allegations. Pam Bondi, Florida's attorney general for eight years, was part of Trump's defense team during his first impeachment trial and supported his false claims of fraud following the 2020 election. She's remained in Trump's orbit since then, continuing to advise him on legal matters. Despite the shake-up, Bondi seems easily positioned to pick up the mantle on Trump's goal of overhauling the Justice Department and his pledge for retribution against political opponents. "For too long, the partisan Department...

WASHINGTON—During his first term, Donald Trump would sometimes interrupt meetings on military or veterans’ issues to call Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host who impressed the president with a blunt style that mirrored his own. Hegseth railed against Pentagon leaders on television and pushed pardons for soldiers convicted of war crimes, a contrast to the cautious career officials who frustrated Trump. For his second administration, the president-elect has nominated the telegenic 44-year-old Army veteran to be his defense secretary, despite—or because of—a résumé thin on government experience. “President-elect Trump might look at Pete Hegseth as someone who will carry out...

Matt Gaetz, the former Florida representative and President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, announced Thursday that he is withdrawing as Trump's pick for the top prosecutor. Who is in consideration now for the top spot?

A report by CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid indicates journalists were spotted consoling each other in the hallways after learning that President-elect Donald Trump had nominated Matt Gaetz as his Attorney General. Reid provided the insight during a segment on "The Situation Room" With Wolf Blitzer. Blitzer inquired as to the panel's thoughts on what the nomination would mean for the Justice Department. Reid chimed in and pointed out that Gaetz's pick is controversial due to his ongoing investigations. "But just because you‘ve been investigated, right, Hillary Clinton has also been criminally investigated, but not charged, it doesn‘t...

ASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.as health and human services secretary continued to reverberate through the pharmaceutical industry Friday. Shares in vaccine maker Moderna fell 2.0% in premarket trading Friday, while Pfizer was down 0.5%. In Thursday trading, shares in the companies dropped 5.6% and 2.6%, respectively. In Europe, shares in Danish Mpox vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic fell more than 15% Friday, while pharma heavyweights AstraZeneca, GSK and Sanofi dropped 2.5% or more. Kennedy has promised sweeping changes to food-and-drug regulation and government-funded scientific research, in recent days saying the Food and...

President-elect Donald Trump's surprise nomination of Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz took the internet by storm Wednesday. The predominant thought from both sides of the political and ideological aisles was, "What the hell was Trump thinking?" There are several possible explanations for the choice: Donald Trump values loyalty above all other traits in those he would choose to help him govern. Matt Gaetz has been as loyal as anyone other than Trump's direct family. His dedication to reining in Merrick Garland’s DoJ lawfare and other extracurricular hijinks places him high on any list of loyalists. Despite Democrat ravings, this is the...

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) signals to Senate Democrats to confirm as many judges as they can before they are out of power. Warren said, “Donald Trump is telling us what the criteria is for every one of these jobs and its complete loyalty to Donald Trump, not experience, not qualifications we would ordinarily consider, not how good you would be at this work, not loyalty to the people of United States or the Constitution. It’s absolute loyalty to Donald Trump. He’s making this clear...

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) criticized President-elect Trump’s decision to elevate former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to attorney general, calling it a “middle finger” to Democrats and “sane” Republicans. Swalwell, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, joined CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday after the nomination sent shockwaves through Capitol Hill. She asked him what he thought of Trump’s move. “Well, to the president, I say, ‘No seriously, who is your pick for attorney general?’” Swalwell said. “Because this pick is a middle finger to Democrats and sane Republicans.” The California Democrat argued his Republican friends are “clowning this pick” both...

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman described GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz’s attorney general nomination as a “god-tier” level of trolling from President-elect Donald Trump to “own the libs in perpetuity.” Trump, 78, selected Gaetz (R-Fla.) to lead the US Department of Justice on Wednesday, in a move that stunned lawmakers in his own party. When asked about the eyebrow-raising pick, Fetterman (D-Pa.) quipped that it was a master chess move by the former president. “I mean, I would describe it as god-tier level trolling, that has triggered a full-on China syndrome to own the libs in perpetuity,” Fetterman told an NBC reporter...

Former national security adviser John Bolton ripped the nomination of Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general as the worst “in American history” — while ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is adamant that “everybody knows” Gaetz “won’t get confirmed.” “Well, it must be the worst nomination for a Cabinet position in American history,” Bolton, a key adviser to President-elect Donald Trump during his first term in office, told NBC’s “Meet The Press NOW” Wednesday. “Gaetz is not only totally incompetent for this job, he doesn’t have the character,” Bolton added. “He is a person of moral turpitude, and notwithstanding how difficult it...

CNN anchor Jake Tapper could not contain his bewilderment after President-elect Donald Trump announced his shocking nomination of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to serve as his attorney general. “Welcome to ‘The Lead,’ I’m Jake Tapper. And let me begin the show by uttering some words that I never contemplated using together before. And those words are ‘US Attorney General Matt Gaetz,’” the host opened his show on Wednesday night. “Because if you were wondering what Trump without the guardrails looks like, well, we’re getting an idea beyond the theoretical,” he added. *** The 42-year-old Republican firebrand, known for his fierce...