Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here.
Matt Gaetz has withdrawn from consideration for attorney general but many of Donald Trump’s other nominees continue to draw controversy. On Washington Week With The Atlantic, panelists joined Jeffrey Goldberg to discuss Trump’s other equally improbable Cabinet choices, and what could come next for these nominees.
With the announcement of Gaetz’s withdrawal, much attention has now turned to Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, who, like Gaetz, also faces allegations of sexual assault. “The senators to watch on this nomination are going to be not just the national-security hawks but female Republican senators like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who are always the wild cards, but also someone like Senator Joni Ernst,” Andrew Desiderio said last night. Although Ernst has been complimentary thus far about Hegseth’s nomination, Desiderio explained, she has also been open about her support for women in combat roles, something that Hegseth has spoken out against.
As for longtime Republican lawmakers, questions still remain over how their reactions to Trump’s Cabinet picks will play out in the confirmation process. Are we going to see Mitch McConnell “lead an insurgent faction now that he’s not going to be the Senate leader?” Goldberg asked panelists last night.
“There might be a story of what he does behind closed doors compared to what you see publicly,” Zolan Kanno-Youngs said. No longer serving as the leader of his party, “he now does not need to worry about managing the factions of the Senate” and, given his past criticism of Trump, McConnell “now has the leeway to be more outspoken.”
Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to discuss this and more: Laura Barrón-López, a White House correspondent for PBS NewsHour; Andrew Desiderio, a senior congressional reporter at Punchbowl News; Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent at The New York Times; and Ashley Parker, a senior national political correspondent for The Washington Post.
Watch the full episode here.
