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McConnell Says He Will Allow Biden’s Cabinet Nominees a Hearing

McConnell Says He Will Allow Biden’s Cabinet Nominees a Hearing

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he will allow President-elect Joe Biden’s cabinet nominees to get consideration by the upper chamber.

Biden’s nominees “aren’t all going to pass on a voice vote, and they aren’t all going to make it, but I will put them on the floor,” McConnell said in an interview with Scott Jennings, a conservative commentator, published Monday in the Louisville Courier-Journal in McConnell’s home state of Kentucky.

McConnell Says He Will Allow Biden’s Cabinet Nominees a Hearing

In the interview conducted last week, McConnell said he didn’t intend to “bring the administration to its knees” the way he said that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer did by requiring cloture votes for many of President Donald Trump’s nominees to overcome filibusters.

“I am going to treat him a hell of a lot better than Chuck Schumer ever treated Donald Trump,” McConnell said of Biden. McConnell, as Republican leader, maintained an adversarial approach toward President Barack Obama, blocking his nominees and vowing to make him a one-term president.

Still, some of Biden’s nominees could face a confirmation fight in the Senate, including Neera Tanden, who has been tapped as director of the Office of Management and Budget and who has been criticized by Republicans as too partisan.

McConnell said the election was a message from Americans for the two parties to operate “between the 40-yard lines.” He said Democrats and Republicans could cooperate on infrastructure spending, a priority of Biden’s.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.