The duty of the Senate: Trump’s nominees must be carefully scrutinized

We don’t yet know exactly how many votes Republicans will control the in U.S. Senate, but control they will — which means Brooklyn’s own, Democrat Chuck Schumer, will no longer be majority leader. That’s a pity; Schumer has been a strong voice for New York who steered passage of many productive pieces of legislation. Mitch McConnell, who now leads Senate Republicans, is on his way out. His replacement could be John Thune, John Cornyn or a player to be named later.

Republicans took back the levers of federal decisionmaking through fair and square votes cast all across America. Now they must carry out their constitutional duty of “advice and consent” to ensure that the president’s nominees for critical positions, most importantly cabinet secretaries and lifetime federal judges, pass muster.

A president who wins a mandate from the American people should get the team he wants. But that proposition has limits, especially with Donald Trump.

In his first term, Trump made some solid picks and some terrible ones. A shockingly high number of the individuals he chose would go on to oppose Trump after they saw him exercise power — consistently seeking to abuse his authority.

In the four years since, Trump has surrounded himself with many new advisers and acolytes. Some are credible and competent. Others are not. We won’t name names here.

Actually, we will. If Trump nominates anti-fluoride, anti-vaccine crusader Bobby Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services — RFK Jr. said during the campaign Trump “promised” him “control of the public health agencies” — that bad choice will demand rigorous scrutiny from Republican and Democratic senators alike.

His choices for defense and homeland security secretary cannot be rubber-stamped either. Trump has pledged to launch the largest deportation operation in American history, and has said he’ll use the military if necessary. Federal law forbids deploying the armed forces on American soil. Would cabinet secretaries resist an illegal order or follow them? Would they go along with a commander-in-chief who seeks to attack drug cartels in Mexico or oppose him, as former Trump Defense Secretary Mark Esper did?

Never before has a presidential candidate so openly threatened to use the Department of Justice to prosecute his political rivals. (Despite the 2016 rally chants, he didn’t lock up Hillary Clinton, but that’s cold comfort.) Whoever Trump taps as attorney general needs to be intensely scrutinized to ensure they will handle prosecutions with complete independence. Trump’s second AG, Bill Barr, warned that whoever fills this role will have to be “ready to oppose the abuse of government power.”

So too must Trump’s choices to lead Treasury and Commerce answer difficult questions about tariffs, monetary policy and more. The former and future president has gathered an odd collection of economic advisors. He has threatened the independence of the Federal Reserve, an essential foundation of America’s trustworthy markets. He has spitballed slapping 60% tariffs on Chinese goods and 20% tariffs on all other imports. All these plans must be put through their paces, lest the Senate confirm a secretary who reflexively puts in place the president’s worst ideas.

The brilliant American system, which emerged from a revolution against a monarchy, is built to check and balance the power of the chief executive. Trump has autocratic tendencies. The system must prevail.