“The Situation Room” host Wolf Blitzer and some of his fellow CNN correspondents reacted Wednesday to Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche‘s Judiciary Committee hearing, insisting that his attorney general nomination is still not a “sure thing.”
“This is going to be a huge math problem potentially for Todd Blanche as he seeks to get this job,” correspondent Lauren Fox told Blitzer, while reflecting on Blanche’s hearing. “Most Democrats going into that meeting that we talked to, their minds were already made up. They do not plan to support his nomination.”
Fox went on to point specifically to Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn as two Republicans who could end up going against their party and voting against Blanche’s nomination. She suggested that Cornyn’s questioning of Blanche regarding President Trump’s seemingly abandoned $1.8 billion political weaponization fund may reveal where the Texas senator’s concerns lie.
“Cornyn made clear that he wants assurances that this weaponization fund is completely dead, and I’m really unclear right now whether or not those assurances were clear enough for him to warrant his support,” Fox said, adding, “[Blanche] cannot lose Sen. Cornyn or Sen. Tillis on this committee in order to get through this committee. So that is a huge question mark.”
“There’s still a lot of work to do,” Fox concluded. “This is not a nomination that, at this point, is a sure thing.” You can watch the full CNN segment yourself in the video below.
CNN Senior White House reporter Kevin Liptak echoed Fox, noting that the Trump administration is paying close attention to Cornyn and Tillis, both of whom are currently on deck to lose their senate seats in this year’s fall midterms.
“They don’t have this loyalty obligation to President Trump that some of these other Republicans have,” Liptak explained. “Both of these men, I think, do not feel the obligation to vote for Todd Blanche in the way that some of these other Republicans will.”
Liptak went on to spotlight one specific moment from Wednesday’s hearing when Blanche was being questioned by Louisiana Sen. John N. Kennedy.
“When he asked Todd Blanche whether he was President Trump’s friend, Blanche seemed to have a slip up,” Liptak noted. “He said, ‘I am President Trump’s lawyer,’ before correcting himself and saying, ‘I was President Trump’s lawyer.’”
“I think you will see that moment played again and again as evidence of just how close Todd Blanche is to President Trump,” Liptak argued, “[Especially] at a moment when I think he’s trying to show senators that he isn’t necessarily a Yes Man for everything that the president is doing.”
