John Cornyn said he will withhold support for Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano unless the Trump administration releases PEPFAR money. The Texas Republican said he would oppose committee action on both ambassadorial picks before the Foreign Relations Committee vote on Wednesday.
Cornyn said he conveyed the warning to Senate Foreign Relations Chair Jim Risch and said he would also vote against both nominees on the Senate floor if they advance without the funding dispute being resolved. He estimated that about $1.3 billion is ready to be released immediately, and said he wants more details on roughly $10 billion lawmakers have appropriated for the program over the past two years.
John Cornyn and Jim Risch
Cornyn tied the nomination fight to money Congress already set aside. “The only way it seems like you can get the administration’s attention on some of these funding issues is by using the leverage to withhold votes on nominees,” he said in an interview with Semafor. “We are going to use the committee vote tomorrow as a way to … get the money distributed the way Congress appropriated it.”
He also said, “I will not be alone,” as he described his position on the nominations. The committee has 12 Republican members and 10 Democratic members, and all Democrats are planning to vote no, which leaves the Republican side with little room if Cornyn holds firm.
PEPFAR and Africa
PEPFAR stands for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and Cornyn said he saw its benefits firsthand during a trip to Africa last year. He also said, “President Trump doesn’t have a lot of affection for President Bush, either father or son.”
Republicans shielded PEPFAR from cuts in last year’s rescissions package. Cornyn’s warning now uses two ambassador nominations as leverage while he says the issue is getting Congress-appropriated money distributed. That puts Lake’s nomination to be ambassador to Jamaica and Mastriano’s bid to become ambassador to Slovakia on the same path: if the money is not released before Wednesday’s committee action, both could stall in the Senate, and Cornyn said he would keep opposing them if they move forward anyway.
Wednesday committee vote
The Foreign Relations Committee is set to take up Lake’s nomination on Wednesday, and Mastriano is likely to be added to the slate that day. Cornyn said his stand is meant to force a release of the money before the vote, making the committee meeting the first test of whether the administration moves on the funding or the nominations slow down.
