SCOOP: Pressure on Senate to stay in session to confirm Mike Waltz
Jason Miller explains why the Senate needs to confirm Mike Waltz immediately.
The United Nations General Assembly will convene next week, and America is all but certain to have no full-time Ambassador to the United Nations, due in part to historic obstruction from Senate Democrats.
Without immediate action from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D), President Donald Trump’s nominee to represent America at the United Nations won’t be confirmed in time.
While Mike Waltz has repeatedly been voted favorably out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) on a bipartisan basis, he still awaits a full vote on the Senate floor — and Jason Miller, a former Senior Advisor to Trump and the Trump Transition team, says that’s time to change.
“Schumer and the Democrats have intentionally obstructed Senate action on the president’s nominees,” Miller told the Washington Reporter. But, he noted, “the Majority Leader has the power to keep the Senate in session to assure that Mike Waltz and the president’s team is seated at the UN ahead of next week’s meeting of the General Assembly — and he should do so.”
Sen. Jim Risch (R., Idaho), the chairman of SFRC, said that “Senate Democrats’ extension of their blockade on President Trump’s nominations is a deterrent to bipartisan committee work and has hurt America’s standing on the world stage.”
Risch added that, while he expected that “Waltz will be in place in the coming weeks,” that would still leave America without its full-time ambassador next week.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has mounted historic — and historically unsuccessful — obstruction against many of President Donald Trump’s cabinet leaders, but his delay of Waltz’s confirmation comes at a particularly critical time, with Trump scoring both trade and peace deals across the world at a record clip.