President-elect Joe Biden’s foreign policy team is dominated by exactly the wrong kind of overachiever, according to Sen. Marco Rubio.
“Biden’s cabinet picks went to Ivy League schools, have strong resumes, attend all the right conferences & will be polite & orderly caretakers of America’s decline,” the Florida Republican tweeted Tuesday.
That’s an opening salvo in what is likely to be a frosty confirmation process following years of party-line votes on President Trump’s nominees. Biden’s initial round of hires disappointed some of the most ardent liberals, but Rubio’s acerbic reaction underscores the downsides of conventionality.
“I support American greatness,” he added. “And I have no interest in returning to the ‘normal’ that left us dependent on China.”
Biden’s cabinet picks went to Ivy League schools,have strong resumes,attend all the right conferences & will be polite & orderly caretakers of America’s decline
I support American greatness
And I have no interest in returning to the “normal” that left us dependent on China
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 24, 2020
Biden is leaning on a raft of trusted insiders, such as former Senate staffer-turned-Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is slated to replace Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Longtime Hillary Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan has been chosen as the next White House national security adviser. Familiarity won’t breed a convivial confirmation process, though.
“Given what’s occurred in the Senate over the last four years under President Trump, there’ll be a lot less deference given to presidential appointments because there was zero deference given to President Trump’s appointments,” Rubio told conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt during a recent interview. “There’s no way that Biden nominations are going to be treated like they traditionally have been treated under previous presidents simply because the atmosphere in the Senate has changed and frankly because of the way the Democrats have just been so unfair during the Trump years on some of these nominees that they simply oppose them because the president is for them.”
Blinken’s nomination eschewed one of the most controversial State Department hopefuls — Susan Rice, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who became a lightning rod following her inaccurate account of the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks. And Rubio didn’t mention any of the opening slate when musing about the hypothetical nominees he “could never support” due to major disagreements.
“I do believe presidents do deserve some deference in who they nominate,” he said in the Nov. 18 radio interview.
