Vice president-elect JD Vance, fresh off his tour as Donald Trump’s go-to cleanup man, has apparently been charged with a new and equally unenviable task: shepherding Trump’s most divisive nominees into the US Senate. This week, Vance is scheduled to introduce former Representative Matt Gaetz and Fox News host Pete Hegseth to a series of key senators, some of whom have expressed concern over Trump’s respective picks to lead the Justice and Defense departments. A spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition team told The Hill that they hoped to get their nominees confirmed as “quickly as possible next year”—hence the rush to tour Gaetz and Hegseth around Capitol Hill, even before President Joe Biden’s term ends.
But Vance’s unofficial transition duties appear to be conflicting with the work voters initially elected him to do. While Vance is still a serving Ohio Senator, he missed a Senate vote on Monday in which Democrats pushed through the lifetime appointment of appellate judge Embry Kidd, part of a lame-duck judicial confirmation spree they hope to complete before Trump takes office. Senators Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Mike Braun of Indiana and Steve Daines of Montana, and Marco Rubio of Florida (who Trump nominated to head up the State Department) skipped the same Monday vote. Hagerty, for his part, was in Texas on Tuesday watching a SpaceX launch with Trump and Elon Musk.
Vance’s presence alone likely wouldn’t have changed the ultimate outcome of that vote; after all, Democrats handily confirmed another nominee on Tuesday, despite his “nay” vote. But the GOP senators' collective absence incensed Republican lawmakers and commentators. “You guys better show up and do your one fricken job!!” the right-wing media executive Grace Chong wrote on X Tuesday, tagging Vance and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. “Grace Chong is a mouth breathing imbecile who attacks those of us in the fight rather than make herself useful,” Vance fired back. (Vance and Chong have since deleted their posts, though a similar message from Trump himself—“Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line—No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!”—remains up on Truth Social.) In his now-deleted post, Vance claimed he’d missed the votes in order to meet with Trump and potential candidates for the FBI directorship, a position that Republicans are eager to fill with one of their own.
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