WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate confirmed two prominent anti-Trump Republicans to serve in the Biden administration on Tuesday with former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona approved to serve as the ambassador to Turkey and Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Sen. John McCain, approved to serve as the ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture.
The Senate also voted to confirm former Democratic Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico to serve as ambassador to New Zealand and Victoria Reggie Kennedy of Massachusetts, the widow of former Sen. Ted Kennedy, to serve as ambassador to Austria.
The nominations were approved through voice vote, a process taking only minutes that can be used so long as no senators object. Republicans, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, are requiring the vast majority of Biden’s other State Department nominees to go through a much more extensive and time-consuming process.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., thanked senators for acting quickly on the four nominations, but said he remains concerned about the overall pace of confirmations for the president’s diplomatic corps.
“There are dozens of countries where there is no confirmed American ambassador, and I hope that this moment of progress will be a predictor of other progress to come soon,” Coons said.
Flake was a rare critic of former President Donald Trump among Senate Republicans. He served just one term in the Senate, opting not to seek reelection in the face of what was certain to be a difficult GOP primary.
McCain endorsed Biden in the presidential election, which at the time was viewed as possibly helping Biden broaden his appeal to Republicans and independents in Arizona, a crucial swing state that her husband had represented in Congress for 35 years.
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Such deserving people ! Thumbs Down V
At least one should have been awarded the ambassadorship to Afghanistan, where betrayl and back stabbing is a national pastime.
That one should exclusively be for John Kerry !
Pity we can’t send ALL Of those rinos PERMANENTLY TO Afganistan!!
If an anti-american can be bought you can bet your a88 be it republican in dems cloths or out and out democrat, they will be bought and then owned.
jeff spicolli from ridgemount high school all grown up.
If legitimate Republicans, they will merely be figureheads.
Sure sounds like a QUID PRO QUO (“this for that”).
You know, something the Democrats accused Trump of (part of his impeachment)!
DEMS always accuse others of what THEY THEMSELVES are guilty of.
John McCain wasn’t a conservative. In a pinch he always sided with the Democrats. He was one of the reason the Republicans always lost. The straight talk express was always off the tracks. If the media likes you, you know somethings wrong. I have not agreed with or believed anything the MEDIA has said, not said or done for the last forty years. Flake was a Flake and a Fake.
Disgraceful traitors…
They have their thirty pieces of silver for their betrayal of their party’s voters only it was in the form of sitting among the seats of the Democrats!