Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) says he expects former Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to vote with Senate Republicans on the “big stuff ahead of us,” after McConnell voted against three of President Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominees.
“He’s got views on some of these nominees that maybe don’t track exactly with where I or other Republicans have come down, but we respect his positions on these, some of these noms, and I know that on a lot of big stuff ahead of us, he’s going to be with us. He’s a team player,” Thune told Fox News Digital.
Thune made his comments after McConnell voted against Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Trump’s choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
McConnell, who survived polio as a young boy, said he voted against Kennedy because of his skepticism of “proven cures” such as the polio vaccine.
“In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles,” McConnell said in a statement after voting against Kennedy.
McConnell also voted against Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard, whom Trump nominated to lead the Pentagon and the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, respectively. All three were confirmed by majority Republican votes.
McConnell, who served a record 18 years as Senate Republican leader, also took a shot recently at Trump’s plan to impose steep tariffs on trading partners.
“It will drive the cost of everything up. In other words, it will be paid for by American consumers. I mean, why would you want to get into a fight with your allies over this?” McConnell told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” in a recent interview.
The senior Kentucky lawmaker wrote in a recent op-ed for The Courier Journal that Trump’s “aggressive” tariff threats “leave big, lingering concerns for American industry and workers.”
Thune told Fox that McConnell remains influential in the Senate GOP conference, especially on national security-related issues.
“So when it comes to those issues, he has outsized influence and a voice that we all pay attention to,” he said.
