Two diplomat nominees opposed by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) will get a confirmation vote on the Senate floor after the Trump administration provided him “assurances” on delayed AIDS funding.
Cornyn allowed the nominations of Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano, two close allies of President Donald Trump, to advance out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, teeing up a vote before the full chamber. Lake has been nominated to be ambassador to Jamaica, while Mastriano was tapped by Trump for a post in the Slovak Republic.
Cornyn announced a day earlier that he would block their nominations, citing a delay in funding for PEPFAR, or the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The Bush-era program enjoys wide bipartisan support and was preserved from Trump’s foreign aid cuts last year.
The senator, who is retiring after his primary loss in May, has increasingly become a wild card for Senate Republicans and had leverage over their nominations due to the committee’s 12-10 partisan split.
He relented after conversations with the State Department, telling committee members on Wednesday that his concerns had been addressed. A Cornyn spokesperson later clarified that he received spending plans for the 2025 and 2026 funding, “including a timeframe for future awards to faith-based organizations.”
His office said the State Department also gave a commitment that funds expiring in September will be “obligated as expeditiously as possible and include appropriate notification to Congress.”
“He will be closely watching future action on PEPFAR to ensure they make good on these assurances ahead of a floor vote on these nominations,” said a Cornyn spokesperson.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Lake and Mastriano, both MAGA loyalists who have amplified Trump’s stolen election claims, must still survive a floor vote if they hope to be confirmed to their diplomatic posts. Lake ran two unsuccessful campaigns for governor and Senate in Arizona before her rocky tenure leading the Voice of America, a government-funded broadcaster.
Mastriano, who lost to Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) in Pennsylvania’s 2022 race for governor, is controversial due to his VIP attendance at a “Stop the Steal” rally before the Jan. 6 riot and efforts to help overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), another retiring Republican, previously told the Washington Examiner that he’s a “no” on Lake and signaled the same for Mastriano. He does not sit on the Foreign Relations Committee, but his opposition likely means their nominations will get stand-alone votes on the Senate floor.
Less contentious nominations are generally lumped together for a single up-or-down floor vote.
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“I’m pretty sure with Kari Lake’s history, she doesn’t have a prayer of getting my vote,” Tillis said in May, shortly after they were nominated.
Lake also had to overcome initial trepidations from Sen. John Curtis (R-UT), a Foreign Relations Committee member who voted “yes” on Wednesday following outreach from her team. Lake and Curtis sat down one-on-one in June.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
