GOP senators feel weight of Trump’s loyalty test on nominees

Weeks before even taking office, President-elect Trump is already sorely testing the loyalty of Republican senators by pushing an array of controversial nominees to key positions, putting enormous pressure on GOP senators.

Sens. Joni Ernst (Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.), two Republican senators who came under withering criticism last week for raising doubts about Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, on Monday began changing their tunes, sounding more upbeat about his embattled nomination.

Both senators raised doubts about Hegseth’s viability last week — either by declining to express support for him, in the case of Ernst, or calling the allegations against the nominee “disturbing,” as Graham did.

Both senators came under a hail of criticism after raising doubts about Hegseth’s nomination, which Trump pledged to keep fighting for in a statement he posted Friday morning on Truth Social.

Ernst on Monday issued a much more upbeat statement about Hegseth after declining to support him last week.

She described their conversation as “encouraging” and noted that Hegseth committed to completing a full audit of the Pentagon.

“As I support Pete through this process, I look forward to a fair hearing based on truth, not anonymous sources,” she said.

She met with the embattled nominee a second time after talking to him face-to-face last week.

Graham also sounded much more positive about Hegseth after meeting with him Monday, emphasizing his personal relationship with the nominee and pushing back against “anonymous allegations.”

“I have known Pete for many years, and I am familiar with his service in Afghanistan, as I was doing my reserve duty at the same time,” Graham said.

“The accusations being made regarding financial management of veterans service organizations and personal misconduct should only be considered by the committee if they are supported by testimony before Congress — not anonymous sources,” he declared.

Graham sounded much more apprehensive about the nominee last week. 

“I think some of these articles are very disturbing,” Graham told CBS News. “He obviously has a chance to defend himself here, but some of this stuff is going to be difficult.”

Both senators changed their tone on Hegseth after coming under a firestorm of pressure from Trump supporters at the end of last week and over the weekend.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), one of Trump’s staunchest allies on Capitol Hill, warned last month that his Senate Republican colleagues need to “get out of the way” or face political consequences in Republican primaries in 2026.

“If you want to get in the way, fine. But we’re gonna try to get you out of the Senate too if you try to do that,” he told Fox Business in a recent interview.

Tuberville on Monday noted that many Senate Republicans didn’t initially support Trump’s bid for a second term earlier this year.

“There wasn’t a lot of these people on his side now, there wasn’t a lot of [Senate] Republicans on his side until he won the primary,” he said, noting that Ernst remained neutral during the first two months of the 2024 GOP primary.

“If I didn’t vote for Trump’s people, I wouldn’t be able to go home,” Tuberville said.

Several Republican senators have pushed back on calls by Trump allies to get out of the way and rubber-stamp his Cabinet nominees, arguing they have a constitutional duty to provide “advice and consent.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is up for re-election in 2026, said he’s not worried about a primary challenge if he votes down one or more of Trump’s nominees.

“All of these nominees have to realize that this is a part of advice and consent. So there’s going to be tough questions that are asked and there should be good answers for them,” Tillis said.

“I think the one thing that we owe to President Trump — you need to understand, I want to make President Trump the most successful president in modern history. … A part of the way you do that is to look around corners and do everything you can to help him” by carefully reviewing nominees, he said.

Asked about whether Trump’s Cabinet picks pose a loyalty test for GOP lawmakers, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) responded: “Loyalty to the Constitution?”

Cornyn, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees, wasn’t thrilled with Trump’s choice of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to head the Justice Department.  

And he’s reserving judgment on his nomination of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) to serve as director of national intelligence.

“I’m going to give her a fair opportunity. I haven’t had a chance to meet with her yet,” he said.

Trump has agitated moderate Republicans and defense hawks with his selections of Hegseth to lead the Pentagon, Gabbard to lead the nation’s intelligence community, Russell Vought to head the Office of Management and Budget, and Kash Patel to lead the FBI.

The president-elect has also flummoxed conservative allies with his choice of union-friendly Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) to head the Labor Department and has vexed some anti-abortion advocates by tapping Robert F. Kennedy,  Jr., who supports a fundamental right to abortion, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Even Tuberville balked last week at Trump’s choice of Chavez-DeRemer to lead the administration’s labor policies.

“She’s pro-union,” Tuberville told The Washington Post last week. “She checks all the boxes for the left.”

Tuberville said his office has received a flood of calls objecting to her nomination.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a strong anti-abortion voice in the Senate, isn’t a fan of Kennedy’s views on abortion.

But he told reporters that he thinks Kennedy wouldn’t have any latitude to break with Trump’s views on abortion policy if confirmed by the Senate.

“I’d expect that he will take as HHS secretary, if confirmed, he will take the same positions that Trump has taken in the past,” Hawley said when asked about Kennedy’s views on abortion rights. “These Cabinet appointments are not exercises in individuality. You’re serving a principal, they serve at the behest of the president, they serve at the pleasure of the president, and they implement his agenda.

“I would fully expect him to adopt Trump’s positions,” Hawley said, referring to the abortion issue. “I bet he’ll be asked about it a bunch.”

Trump’s nominees have Senate Republicans wondering how far the president-elect will go to push the envelope and carefully weighing how much political damage they can afford by voting for or against his most provocative choices.  

Former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said it’s Trump’s “style” to punch back at individuals and establishments that he feels wronged him, and he views the Departments of Justice, the Pentagon, the intelligence community and Senate Republicans as past antagonists.

“He loves to poke people in the eye with a stick when he thinks he was treated poorly. He left office with a really bitter taste in his mouth about the way the intelligence community and the Defense Department treated him, especially [former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark] Milley,” Gregg said.

“He’s making a point. He’s going to be president, it’s going to be his agencies and he’s going to run them,” he added.

Some of Trump’s picks, such as Gaetz, seem intended to deliberately “poke” the leadership of federal departments and agencies that he clashed with during his presidency and four years out of power. 

Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration after meeting stiff resistance from GOP senators.  

Republican strategists say that Trump, who won the presidency by pledging to disrupt the establishment in Washington, D.C., is doing just that, and some of the establishment figures he’s rattling hardest are GOP senators.

“Gaetz was an impulse and Hegseth was as well. He is putting senators to the test by pushing these nominees forward,” said a Republican strategist.

“Theres’s the staff suggesting nominees on one hand and then Trump’s making his own personal ‘gut’ calls, and now senators are having to deal with the pressure behind it,” said the source, a former Senate GOP aide.

The strategist said Trump appears to be relishing the drama of Republican senators juggling with how to handle his most controversial nominees, with uncomfortable lawmakers knowing that any disloyalty will like prompt an angry backlash.

“There are plenty of qualified MAGA candidates that can be put forward that don’t have these sordid resumes,” said the source, noting the provocative nature of some of Trump’s picks.

“I think staff has Plan Bs” if Hegseth, Gabbard or other nominees appear headed for defeat, said the GOP strategist.