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The Senate adjourned late Thursday without any plan to vote on Todd Blanche’s confirmation to be attorney general. By early Friday morning, it became clear why: Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the moderate Republican from Alaska, announced she would not vote to confirm Blanche.
Murkowski specifically cited four problems: The Department of Justice’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein; President Donald Trump’s settlement with the IRS that would prevent audits of him, his family and companies; and her lack of credulity that the supposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” for Trump’s political allies was dead; and statements he made to anti-abortion groups about rolling back abortion protections in “every state.”
“I am also keenly aware that the Department’s nearly $2 billion dollar slush fund—which likely would have rewarded January 6 protesters—is only off the table because this nomination is pending and the Senate has leverage,” she said. “Once we vote, that will end, and there is no telling what the future holds.”
Murkowski’s announcement came after her fellow moderate Republican female Sen. Susan Collins of Maine announced her opposition. The two have often worked in tandem as one of only two Republican women in favor of abortion rights. They also voted against the confirmation of Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense. And most importantly, they voted to convict President Donald Trump for his actions on January 6, 2021.
That makes the math for Blanche to be confirmed even harder.
As of right now, Republicans have 53 Senate seats. But Sen. Mitch McConnell was just discharged this week after a medical incident, meaning he will likely not be available for the vote on Blanche. That reduces the number of Republican Senators down to 52. Every Democratic senator is on record as opposing Blanche.
That means his confirmation hinges on a senator who with his own fraught relationship with Trump: Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
Like Murkowski and Collins, Cassidy voted to convict Trump for his actions on January 6. Cassidy, a physician by trade, attempted to atone to Trump for his sins by voting to confirm anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of Health and Human Services.
It didn’t work, and Trump endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow to defeat him in a primary. Cassidy lost the primary and will leave the Senate at the end of the year. Still, he has taken few substantive steps against Trump, save for one closed-door blow-up between the two men during a Senate luncheon.
Part of this is due to the fact Cassidy remains chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and wants to maintain his ability to influence legislation. Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) saw their power significantly weaken after they lost their primary and announce their retirement, respectively. Both men tried to pressure Blanche to articulate the death of the weaponization fund, but both will be gone next year.
But Cassidy has previously articulated his concerns with Blanche, specifically the fact Blanche previously worked as the president’s personal defense attorney.
“I have to be sure that he is an Attorney General who used to be the President's personal attorney, as opposed to being the president's personal attorney, who happens to be attorney general,” he told The Independent in June. “That's what I need to be convinced of.”
It’s simultaneously easy to be optimistic and jaded about the whip count. The most cynical observers will say that Senate Majority Leader John Thune gave Collins, who represents a blue state and is up for re-election, a hall pass to vote “no” the way she had when she voted against Amy Coney Barrett to be a Supreme Court justice in 2020.
It’s even easier to see Murkowski as being free to do this because her state uses ranked choice voting.
At the same time, senators love keeping people in suspense. They relish the waiting game. And often times, to borrow from Janis Joplin, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. While everyone remembers John McCain’s dramatic vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act, he was literally dying of cancer and had stitches in his head.
Cassidy’s career might be over. But he has the chance to both exact his revenge and reverse some of tarnish to his reputation after the Kennedy vote. The question is, will he take it?