Senate confirms Mike Pompeo as 70th secretary of state
Pompeo had faced unprecedented opposition.
The Senate has confirmed Mike Pompeo as the 70th secretary of state by a 57-42 vote.
Six Democrats and one Independent voted to confirm Pompeo: Heitkamp, Donnelly, Manchin, McCaskill, Jones, Nelson, and King (I).
Every Republican supported his confirmation, with the exception of Sen. John McCain who is still in Arizona battling brain cancer and was not present for the vote.
Pompeo faced unprecedented opposition to his becoming the nation's top diplomat – many Democrats who just last year voted to confirm him as CIA director publicly opposed him as the next secretary of state.
Last year, Pompeo had little trouble clinching the confirmation to be the director of the CIA. He was confirmed by the full Senate in a 66-32 vote at the time.
It is very unusual for a secretary of state nominee to face such opposition.
Past secretaries of state, including Condoleezza Rice, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton have breezed through their respective confirmations.
“I realize my Democratic friends in many cases feel like that in supporting Pompeo, it's a proxy for support of the Trump administration policies, which many of them abhor. I understand that" Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee said last week on the Senate floor.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted on Monday along party lines to send Pompeo's nomination to the Senate floor with a favorable report.