GOP senator: Democratic opposition to Pompeo ‘driven 100 percent by politics’

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Sunday tore into Democrats who have come out against Mike Pompeo, President Trump’s nominee for secretary of State, saying that their opposition is “driven 100 percent by politics.”

“The Democrats, especially on the Foreign Relations Committee, are really engaged in shameful political behavior,” Cotton said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“Most of these Democrats don’t have a problem with Mike Pompeo,” he added. “They are still struggling to get over the election of Donald Trump in 2016.”

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Pompeo, the current CIA director, has garnered stiff opposition in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Each of the panel’s 10 Democratic members and Republican Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) have come out against his nomination.

Even without a favorable referral from the committee, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can still bring Pompeo’s nomination to a vote on the Senate floor.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the Democratic opposition to Pompeo was purely partisan and insisted that he would have received a favorable referral from the panel if the political landscape was less tense.

“Under ordinary times, he would be confirmed overwhelmingly,” Corker said. “Secretary [Hillary] Clinton had one negative vote when she came through. [Former Secretary of State] John Kerry had no negative votes when he came through committee.”