According to MSNBC contributor Katty Kay, incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is working behind the scenes with his GOP colleagues to cripple the nominations of at least four of Donald Trump's nominees to his cabinet.
With Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) already having withdrawn his name for consideration to be the next attorney general, Kay reported to the "Morning Joe" panel that there is a great amount of consternation among Republicans about several of the president-elect's other Cabinet picks, and noted that former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, slated to head the Department of National Intelligence, appears to be at the top of the list.
"I had a chance on Sunday night to be at an event here in Washington, there were a lot of senators there and I asked a couple of them what they thought of Tulsi Gabbard's pick, given what had happened in Syria over the weekend, hours beforehand and they kind of rolled their eyes and shook their heads in some kind of dismay," she reported. "There were Democrats amongst them, this is going to be a challenge for them."
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She then pointed out that Thune is working to give them cover should they go against Donald Trump's wishes.
"My understanding is that John Thune, the senator from North Dakota [editor's note: Thune represents South Dakota] has to think, 'How can I protect some of my senators?'"
"You can't have all of the same senators go out and say, 'No,' against all the picks," she elaborated. "So he's coming out with some kind of a rotation scheme; maybe its [North Carolina Senator] Thom Tillis votes against one of them, maybe if [Iowa Republican] Joni Ernst votes against another –– maybe if somebody votes against one of them the thinking is that they could probably get rid of four and that includes Matt Gaetz."
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