Rex Tillerson's secretary of state nomination clears key committee vote
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Monday voted to advance ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson’s nomination for secretary of state, a key step toward Tillerson’s confirmation in the full Senate.
Eleven members of the 21-member committee voted for Tillerson’s nomination, compared with ten who voted against it. The votes came down along party lines: all Republicans voted for Tillerson, while all Democrats on the committee voted against him.
His nomination will now go to a vote by the full Senate, where he needs just a simple majority of 50 votes to be confirmed to the post.
Tillerson’s success in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote Monday afternoon is in large part due to announcements from three GOP senators who had initially expressed concerns about Tillerson.
On Sunday, Sens. John McCain (R-Arizona) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), two lawmakers who had been critical of Tillerson’s close ties to Russia, issued a joint statement saying they planned to support Tillerson. Neither is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but they are influential within the Senate and their support helps ensure Tillerson will get a majority on the Senate floor.
And on Monday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) announced on his Facebook page that he too would be supporting Tillerson’s nomination despite his reservations -- a move that all but ensured Tillerson’s vote would be
“Given the uncertainty that exists both at home and abroad about the direction of our foreign policy, it would be against our national interests to have this confirmation unnecessarily delayed or embroiled in controversy. Therefore, despite my reservations, I will support Mr. Tillerson’s nomination in committee and in the full Senate,” Rubio wrote in a lengthy Facebook post.
Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, grilled Tillerson during his hearing on issues ranging from whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “war criminal” to extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.
Thus far, just two of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet secretaries have been confirmed: Defense Secretary James Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.