Senate Democrats want to question Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson about his views on President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration before holding a vote that would bring the former ExxonMobil CEO closer to confirmation.
Democrats are expected to appear on the floor ahead of Monday’s scheduled procedural vote to demand that it be delayed until they can hear from Tillerson on the controversial ban, a senior Senate Democratic aide told CNN.
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer announced in a Facebook post that he would oppose all nominees who back Trump’s executive order.
“I’ve made it very clear I will vote NO on nominees (Betsy) DeVos (education), Tillerson (state) and (Jeff) Sessions (attorney general),” he wrote. “Nothing will change that, and while I will continue to demand that each nominee issue a public statement on his or her views of President Trump’s Muslim Ban, I will vote against nominees who will be the very worst of this anti-immigrant, anti-middle-class, billionaires’ club cabinet.”
Schumer also called for a vote on a proposal to repeal the controversial immigration executive order that bars citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for the next 90 days and suspends the admission of all refugees for 120 days.
The vote to cut off a Democratic filibuster on Tillerson’s confirmation is scheduled for Monday at 5:30 p.m., and a final confirmation vote could happen Wednesday.
Republicans who control the Senate will almost certainly reject the Democratic request to delay the vote but Democrats said they intend to question all pending Trump nominees on whether they support the executive order in the wake of criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle since its implementation.
Last week, Tillerson won the backing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be secretary of state when it voted 11-10 along party lines to send his nomination to the full Senate.
The former oil CEO’s path to being confirmed as the chief US diplomat hasn’t all been smooth sailing.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was a long hold-out and potential “no” vote after he raised concerns about Tillerson’s views toward Russia and human rights. But the Florida Republican announced the day of the committee vote that he would support the nomination. If Rubio had voted no, it could have stalled Tillerson, although GOP leaders planned to move his nomination to the floor regardless.
Democrats have catalogued a series of concerns about Tillerson, including his stance on Russia and relationship with President Vladimir Putin, human rights, how long he would recuse himself from decisions that could affect ExxonMobil, and the oil company’s track record of doing business with despots.