Senate Majority Chief John Thune (R-S.D.) says that Senate Republicans will conduct thorough oversight of President Trump’s use of govt energy and predicted there may very well be further “explosive” Senate hearings with senior Cupboard officers, much like the fiery exchanges between senators and Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this month.
Thune mentioned Wednesday that Republicans senators “have a responsibility as an independent, coequal branch of the government to make sure that we’re doing appropriate oversight of these decisions.”
He pointed to what he known as the “explosive” Senate Finance Committee oversight listening to with Kennedy earlier this month, and predicted that his GOP colleagues wouldn’t draw back from asking senior Trump administration officers robust questions at future hearings.
“There was a very, rather, I would say argumentative, explosive hearing a few weeks ago in front of the Senate Finance Committee,” he mentioned. “I expect that will continue.”
Thune made his feedback throughout an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, who pressed the Republican chief about Senate committee chairs not doing extra to push again on President Trump’s threats to revoke the printed licenses of tv networks that criticize him or the president’s exhortation that Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi prosecute his political opponents.
Bash learn off a litany of Trump’s most controversial current actions, together with firing the heads and board members of impartial businesses such because the Federal Commerce Fee and the Federal Reserve, and the strain on Bondi to prosecute New York Lawyer Normal Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. She requested whether or not Individuals ought to take the “silence” of GOP senators as assist for these actions.
Thune laughed barely and mentioned “there’s a lot of rhetoric” however Republican senators will wait and see what actions Trump and his administration will take within the wake of the president’s bombshell statements.
Thune mentioned he has “every confidence” that Bondi “is going to make good decisions with respect to how she uses her prosecutorial powers,” and he pushed again on Trump’s efforts to strain Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to decrease rates of interest.
“I think we ought to have an independent Fed. I’ve said that, I’ve made that abundantly clear,” he mentioned.
The South Dakota senator argued it’s common for presidents and members of their occasion to conflict every so often on the scope of govt department energy.
“I’ve been around several administrations, several presidents. Every one of them tries to assert as much executive power as they possibly can. And sometimes that gets tested in courts and obviously sometimes there’s oversight that happens through the Congress, through the power of the purse,” Thune mentioned, referring to Congress’s energy beneath the Structure to boost revenues and spend federal funding, one thing that Trump has challenged by making an attempt to claw again billions in already appropriated {dollars}.
