Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) offered tacit praise for Kash Patel ‘s nomination as FBI director, though he stopped short of saying he would support him.
In an interview with NBC News’s Meet the Press , Thune was pressed on some senators’ concerns about certain Cabinet nominations, particularly Patel. Thune said he had met Patel and had productive discussions, but he wouldn’t commit to endorsing him.
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“Well, that’s a process … what I’ve promised them is a fair process,” he responded when asked if he would commit to approving all of Trump’s nominees. “And so these nominees are gonna go through a committee where they get a lot … they’re gonna have to answer questions. There will be some hard questions posed. We’re gonna do everything we can to ensure that he has the people he wants in place.”
“I think you give great deference and latitude to a president when it comes to people he wants to put into key positions, and national security ones are especially important,” Thune continued. “But the Senate has a role, advice and consent, and … a lot of our senators … take that role very seriously.”