Stephen Boyd’s Capitol Hill briefing for Alabama’s business, financial, defense and government affairs executives.
As Washington Waits for “47,” the Senate gets a Jump Start on Confirming Trump’s Top Cabinet Picks
The formalities are nearly complete: The 119th Congress has been sworn-in, most committee assignments have been announced, and the January 6th counting of electoral votes passed in purely ceremonial fashion—as intended. All that remains is next Monday’s inauguration of President Trump in what promises to be a very cold (high 31, low 12) outdoor ceremony on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol.
Since the election, Trump’s transition team has been making steady progress on the colossal task of putting together a new administration. Presumptive White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles reportedly has an aggressive goal of locking down many more political appointments by Inauguration Day than the previous Trump Administration. Nonetheless, it’ll only be a fraction of what’s needed.
Trump’s highest profile nominees take center stage this week as the Senate cranks up the most visible aspect of its constitutional “advise and consent” responsibilities: public confirmation hearings for the President-elect’s cabinet picks.
Getting his cabinet confirmed is a top priority for Trump and therefore it’s at the top of the to-do list for the Senate’s GOP leaders. To make swift headway, they’ve scheduled to be in session for an unusual run of 12 of the next 13 weeks, and it kicks off this week with a full slate of hearings:
- Tuesday: Doug Collins to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense, and Doug Burgum to be Secretary of the Interior;
- Wednesday: Kristi Noem to be Secretary of Homeland Security, Pam Bondi to be Attorney General; Marco Rubio to be Secretary of State, John Ratcliffe to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Sean Duffy to be Secretary of Transportation, Chris Wright to be Secretary of Energy, and Russ Vought to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Hearings will drive media coverage of the new administration for the next few weeks, but the public questioning is really just one part in a lengthy and sometimes intrusive confirmation process—the same I went through as a Senate-confirmed senior official in Trump’s first administration.
To put this week’s action in context, here’s a brief explainer of how a new president installs the top leaders of the government’s biggest departments.
Types of Nominees
The nominees appearing at Senate hearings this week are in the highest echelon of appointments called Presidential Appointments with Senate Confirmation, which are the most senior leaders in government—typically secretaries, deputy secretaries, and assistant secretaries. At the end of Trump’s first year in office, his administration had just 320 Senate-confirmed leaders to run a government with nearly 3 million employees.
Many other appointments to subordinate offices don’t require Senate confirmation. For example, Presidential Appointments without Senate Confirmation fill about 450 political posts. non-career appointments to the Senior Executive Service—the government’s class of high-level managers—play key roles in policy and operations, and about 1,500 lower Schedule C positions make up the bulk of appointments.
Selection
Individuals are identified for nomination through a variety of avenues that include pre-existing relationships with the president-elect or his close advisors, advice from friendly members of Congress, or service during the campaign. There’s no formal application process; if you’re asking where to send a resume you probably aren’t getting the job.
Traditionally, the transition team conducts an evaluation of a candidate’s background, experience, and political views, but also takes the temperature of key senators before making a recommendation to the president-elect. I’ve heard from people interviewing at Mar-a-Lago that the process in south Florida is a bit more freewheeling. There’s one constant though: An emphasis on loyalty to Trump and the MAGA agenda.
At DOJ, part of my team’s job was to guide other top nominees through confirmation. One thing I learned is that just as no human being is perfect, nearly every nominee brings with him or her an issue of one sort or another—an old tax problem, an article they wish they hadn’t written, or a professional complaint. A good rule of thumb is that nominees can usually overcome a single issue, but it gets more complicated when multiple lines of criticism intersect.
Once announced, nominees are typically instructed to avoid public comment. It’s a prudent step to prevent nomination-damaging mistakes, but it sometimes makes nominees feel at a disadvantage. When the media digs into your background, they don’t care if you’re not allowed to respond.
Nominee Strategy in 2025
Once an individual is selected, the nomination is transmitted to the Senate for consideration. At that point, success in this process—like everything else on Capitol Hill—eventually comes down to voting math. Prior to November 2013, executive nominees needed support from three-fifths of the Senate, or 60 votes, to be confirmed. That changed when the Senate reinterpreted its rules—a mistake, in my view—to allow executive confirmations to proceed on a simple majority vote.
When, like now, the Senate is controlled by the same party as the President, nominee selection and confirmation strategies focus less on appearing reasonable enough to win support from the minority and more on appearing strong enough to maintain support of the majority. That’ll certainly be in the back of the minds of Trump’s nominees as they answer questions this week.
Background Investigations
If a PAS nominee has an unsettling feeling that strangers are nosing around in his or her personal life, it’s because they are.
An agreement between the transition team and the DOJ allows the FBI to conduct thorough background checks of incoming personnel. For national security positions, the scrutiny is heightened further.
The FBI pays special attention to communications with foreign nationals, or to anything that opens the door to blackmail or influence—substance abuse, personal relationships, or financial problems. Importantly, the FBI doesn’t pass judgement, but instead provides its detailed findings to the transition team and the chair and ranking member of the relevant committee. These sensitive reports can substantiate or mitigate concerns.
Meanwhile, the Office of Government Ethics, a scourge in the eye of many nominees, requires PAS candidates to complete a detailed public financial disclosure for inspection, followed by rounds of questioning on personal financial matters. As conflicts of interest come up, OGE works with nominees to find solutions that range from divesting assets to recusing from certain matters. Only then will OGE greenlight the nomination and transmit the necessary paperwork to the Senate.
The Senate Perspective
On top of all that, individual Senate committees have their own process for collecting and evaluating information, which may include a lengthy questionnaire, interviews, and an extensive review of a nominee’s writings and statements. At any point, whistleblowers can contact Senate offices with information regarding a nominee’s fitness for office.
Despite the Senate’s long history of evaluating nominees, there isn’t an agreed upon standard for what merits a “yes” vote. Each Senator approaches the process a little differently, but a common view is that—absent a moral defect or striking lack of qualification in a nominee—a newly elected president is entitled to have the people he wants. That’ll be an oft-repeated refrain from MAGA-aligned senators likely to support each of Trump’s cabinet picks. (Blanket opposition by some Democratic senators is also expected.)
What happens in the middle is the interesting part. Keep an eye on Republicans Lisa Murkowski (Ark.), Susan Collins (Maine), and Mitch McConnell (Ken.) and Democrat John Fetterman (Penn.). They’re the senators considered most likely to break rank for or against nominees, but even then, only in isolated instances.
Senate “Courtesy” Visits
In the weeks prior to their Senate hearing, nominees typically make private visits with Senators. It’s a strategic opportunity for both nominee and Senator.
For the nominee, the closed-door conversation is an opportunity to build rapport, privately address issues of concern, and discern lines of questioning that may come at the hearing. Handled correctly, private conversation can ease the concerns of Senators on the fence, as has been the case with several of Trump’s picks.
On the other hand, the most effective senators never miss an occasion to advance their agenda. With the leverage of looming vote, senators will privately raise issues of importance or seek commitments for help on a pet project back home.
Hearing
Confirmation hearings for top cabinet positions are grueling affairs that sometimes last multiple days. The nominee first outlines his or her priorities for the department in a carefully drafted opening statement, key points to which the nominee wants to return throughout the day. After that, it’s an inherently adversarial environment as opposing senators have free rein to ask any question to test a nominee’s qualifications and understanding of relevant policies, programs, or laws. Providing crisp responses without making commitments and while staying inside the contours of the new administration’s nascent policies is a real challenge. An experienced team around a nominee can forecast many of the questions, but there are always surprises.
Two-time tested bits of advice for nominees: First, as one senator advised me, be “as boring as possible.” You’re already the nominee, and trying to be the smartest person in the room gets you nothing. Second, if a senator wants to give a stump speech rather than ask a question, don’t interrupt. The clock is ticking; the less questions, the better.
From the White House’s perspective, a dull hearing is a successful hearing.
Committee & Votes
Expect committees to meet within a week or two after the hearing to vote to report the nomination favorable, unfavorably, or without recommendation. As a practical matter, if a Republican chairman is calling for a vote, it’s safe to assume Trump’s nominee has the requisite support. Close observers, however, will note when committee votes are inexplicably delayed in the opening months of the administration, a sign of a potential problem.
There’ll be exceptions, but Senate floor consideration of nominees in the modern era is typically an anti-climactic exercise focused on creating a record for or against the nominee or the administration. Senate leaders won’t bring up a nominee until they are confident about winning the vote, and the White House is likely to withdraw nominees with real problems rather than suffer an embarrassing loss.
Appointment
Finally, Senate-confirmed nominees are presented with a presidentially-signed commission and are quickly sworn in by the president or other high ranking administration official, thus granting the individual the full legal authorities of office.
Despite initial bewilderment about some of Trump’s more unorthodox picks, I suspect nearly all of them will be confirmed—Trump’s grasp on the party and Republicans 53-seat majority in the Senate nearly guarantees it. And, those nominees’ first job at their new Departments? Identify top lieutenants and help get them moving through the same confirmation gauntlet.
Stephen E. Boyd is a Partner at Horizons Global Solutions. Previously, he served as a Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, Chief of Staff for Alabama members in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, and as a Communications Director of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He resides in the Washington, D.C. area. Opinions expressed herein are his own. Contact Stephen at [email protected] or via X at @SEBOYD79 or via LinkedIn.