STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The new Republican Senate majority faces a basic test - how will they play their constitutional role that calls on them to advise and consent and sometimes check the president? Scott Jennings knows a lot about that role. He's close to Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, the former Republican leader we just heard about. Scott, good morning.
SCOTT JENNINGS: Hey. Good morning.
INSKEEP: OK, so this is maybe not the most sexy topic, but it strikes me as really important. The president-elect has made a demand - do without confirmation hearings. He says, just go into recess, senators, which would allow the president to make recess appointments naming whoever he wants to cabinet posts and other posts for a year or so. Do you think that senators would be eager to do that?
JENNINGS: Probably not eager to do it. After all, it is an enumerated power in the Constitution, and asking politicians to give up power is a hard thing to do. And I think most of Trump's nominees so far are going to sail. Most of these picks will have widespread support in the Senate. A couple of them are going to be more controversial. Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard are the two, although I put Gaetz in a special case. I think Gabbard - just my handicapping of it is probably starts at a 50/50 chance. Gaetz is under the line, and you can probably count the five or six senators that will never go along for this. It does call into question whether they want to go down this road of recess and, you know, abdicate some of their power. Trump's setting up an interesting test here, Steve, which is, is he the most powerful Republican, and can he bend even the United States Senate to his will? It'll be fascinating to watch.
INSKEEP: Is that what is happening here? Trump is testing the limits to find out how far he can push people in his own party.
JENNINGS: Absolutely. I think he has - believes he's won a mandate from the American people to not just shake up Washington but to break up Washington, to smash Washington. And a pick like Gaetz is - you know, when everybody in Washington is mad at what you've done, you know, Trump might say, well, that's a good thing. You know, that's what I was elected to do - make the people in Washington mad. But given the Republican resistance to this, it may be a bridge too far. I think the senators are really eager to support virtually everything he's done so far and will want to support his policy agenda. But this one may be on the other side of the ledger. We'll see.
INSKEEP: I'm curious, yeah, about this and a couple of the other choices. Entirely aside from Gaetz's record - the investigations, the serving as a chaos agent, as we heard - I think about something else. I mean, do you think that a cabinet official needs to be somebody who understands the department that he runs, that he has some relevant experience and commands some respect there in order to be able to run a giant department?
JENNINGS: Well, I think that it often helps to have those qualifications, but Donald Trump, you know, is the kind of a politician who's running against Washington. He's running against what you would expect the Washington establishment would want you to do. So from his perspective, you know, he wouldn't necessarily be inclined to just go along to get along or to choose the kind of people that you just described. He may believe that he has a mandate from his base to go in and throw people into the mix who are really the exact opposite of what the establishment of an agency would want. That's certainly what he has done with Gaetz. Now, he did not do that with the State Department. Choosing Marco Rubio for secretary of state is a more conventional pick that Washington has cheered. So he's played it both ways so far.
INSKEEP: We heard commentary elsewhere in the program about Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host and veteran, who is the choice for secretary of defense. And the other analyst said, well, I'm not - he didn't want to comment on whether Hegseth was qualified but said, he is not prepared. He's the least-prepared candidate in a long time to run a department with 3 million people. You've defended him. Why?
JENNINGS: Because I think he deserves a chance. I think he is a decorated veteran - two Bronze Stars, tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, a fierce supporter of the veterans community. And, yes, he'll have to go to confirmation and explain why he's qualified to be in a management role of such a large agency. But I've been defensive of him because I think he's earned a chance. I mean, this man is a hero. He has served our country. And he's obviously a strong supporter of the president's agenda.
And I think most Republicans may not be all that happy with the institutional leadership of the Pentagon right now, and they see during the Biden administration a number of debacles that would call into question whether we don't need some fresh eyes - an outsider like Hegseth. So I think he deserves a chance. He'll have to go to confirmation like everyone else.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
JENNINGS: But I think he has a more than fighting chance to be confirmed.
INSKEEP: In about 20 seconds, do you see these choices, particularly defense and the Department of Justice, as people who could stand up to the president and tell him no if told to do something illegal or unconstitutional?
JENNINGS: I think that these people will be mostly loyal to the president. But I think if they are confirmed, they will have a constitutional duty to tell the president the truth about anything they're asked to do. But obviously, these folks are not here to go along to get along. They're here to implement Donald Trump's vision for how to run the federal government, which may not be in line with what the careers and the agencies want.
INSKEEP: Scott Jennings, thanks.
JENNINGS: Yep. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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