Sen. Ron Johnson to Newsmax: Waiting on Confirmations 'Absurd'

It is "absurd" there are so many presidential nominees that Congress has to confirm before they can take office, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., lamented Tuesday to Newsmax.

"One thing I think is absurd is the number of confirmable positions there are," Johnson told "National Report." "I'd love to work with the Democrat colleagues and dramatically reduce that amount for both Democrat and Republican administrations.

"It's absurd that presidents can't staff their administrations until years into it. This is, from my standpoint, unacceptable."

Johnson's comment came in connection with a question about whether he would vote to approve former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who President-elect Donald Trump said he will nominate as attorney general.

"I believe the president has the right to select individuals for his administration," Johnson said. "We'll have a confirmation process, and I'll have an open mind to that confirmation process."

But senators, he added, "spend so much time in confirmation hearings and confirmation votes when we have serious problems facing this nation, so I'd like to drastically reduce that."

Johnson added there will be confirmation hearings, though, and "my bias will be to support President Trump's picks."

Meanwhile, Johnson said he has not seen findings from a House Ethics Committee investigation of Gaetz, which has reportedly ended with his resignation.

But Johnson said he questions why Trump's nominees are getting so much scrutiny while President Joe Biden's did not.

"I didn't hear or I didn't see reporters approaching Democrat senators in the Capitol Hill hallways, asking them all kinds of questions about those nominees," Johnson said.

He added he has only met Gaetz a few times and does not know him well.

"I've seen his very effective questioning and hearings," Johnson said. "He's obviously a very effective advocate for President Trump. We need to clean house in these agencies. And that's obviously what his job would be in the corrupt Department of Justice."

Meanwhile, Johnson said he does think Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Trump's pick for secretary of state will be "excellent" in that role.

"We came into the Senate at the same time," he said. "Sen. Rubio is a highly intelligent individual. He served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his entire Senate career and then was vice chair of the Senate Intel Committee. The guy is incredibly knowledgeable, you know, high intelligence, I think high integrity."

Johnson also commented on the selection of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., after he had been backing Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., because of his background in the private sector.

"Part of the problem we have in Washington, D.C., is there's so very few individuals from the private sector," he said. "They don't have experience in it, which means not much knowledge of and maybe even worse, very little sympathy for the private sector.

"We really could have used his skill set, his unique, successful skill set as leader."

But Thune is also "highly articulate and intelligent," Johnson added. "I want to make sure he succeeds in President Trump implement his agenda."

Thune has also said he will lead in a collaborative process, which Johnson said he appreciates.

"I think one thing good about the leadership election is we pretty well repudiated the leadership style of Mitch McConnell, which was pretty much a one-man dictatorship," Johnson said. "I don't think we'll see that moving forward."

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