Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – assuming Republicans retain the Senate, as looks likely right now – plans to block any of Joe Biden’s cabinet nominees he thinks are “radical progressives” from being confirmed.
Traditionally, an incoming president’s nominees are almost always confirmed. McConnell, who blocked more than one hundred of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees, most infamously Merrick Garland – and then laughed and bragged about it on national television – is planning on tightly controlling Biden.
“A source close to McConnell tells Axios a Republican Senate would work with Biden on centrist nominees but no ‘radical progressives’ or ones who are controversial with conservatives,” Axios reports.
“The Biden agenda would be severely restricted by GOP control, the source added: ‘It’s going to be armed camps.'”
McConnell likely would block Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) from becoming Treasury Secretary, a role she is rumored to want.
Axios also frames the issue as one where Biden would have to give in to McConnell, rather than fight, something President Donald Trump has been allowed to do at every turn.
“This political reality could result in Biden having a more centrist Cabinet,” Axios wrongly assumes.
Here’s McConnell in 2019 laughing about blocking Obama’s nominees: