Vice President JD Vance urged Republican senators considering voting against President Donald Trump’s nominees to key agencies to defer to the Commander-in-Chief’s decision-making authority. Vance sat down with Fox News host Sean Hannity ahead of confirmation hearings for FBI Director nominee Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard, as well as Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Vance praised Senate Republicans for being “freethinking and independent,” but argued that the president gets to decide who he wants in his Cabinet, and the advice and consent power of the Senate should not be used to block people due to policy disagreements.
The former Ohio senator encouraged Republicans to look at Trump’s 2024 coalition, questioning whether they could have won in November had they not included people like Gabbard and Kennedy. He noted that Trump won a “different group of people” to vote Republican than had ever voted Republican, and that “we have to give those parts of the coalition some wins, too.”
Trump has eight Cabinet members confirmed, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin. The next steps for Patel, Gabbard, and Kennedy will be committee markup votes.