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Subscribe to RSSIf President Barack Obama selects United Nations envoy Susan Rice to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he’ll face determined opposition from at least three Republican senators: John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. Ayotte and Graham would each place a “hold” on Rice’s nomination if she were nominated, their aides told NBC News Tuesday. McCain's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte stated that, after meeting with Amb. Susan Rice, they are more "troubled" and still have many questions regarding the administration's handling of Benghazi.
The three GOP senators met with Rice Tuesday and said afterwards they still weren’t satisfied with the administration’s handling of the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi and Rice’s initial role in explaining that attack.
Related: Senators not satisfied with Rice's Benghazi story
If Rice were nominated and her nomination came to the Senate floor for a vote, it seems highly likely that with Democrats holding the majority in the new Congress, she’d be confirmed.
But her Republican opponents could use the Senate rules to try to prevent her nomination from coming to a floor vote.
A “hold” is an informal procedure by which a senator signals to his or her floor leader that he or she doesn’t want a bill or nomination to come to the floor. Holds have been used for years by senators to indicate that a nomination is so unacceptable to them that they’d try to filibuster it -- to stop it through endless debate -- if necessary.
Ambassador Nicholas Burns talks about Ambassador Susan Rice's meeting with Sens. John McCain, Kelly Ayotte and Lindsey Graham. He also talks about the challenges facing the next Secretary of State.
“I would hold her nomination until I had additional answers to questions, and then I will render judgment," Ayotte told reporters after meeting with Rice.
When Graham was asked by Defense News if he would place a hold on Rice’s nomination, he said, “Oh, absolutely. I would place a hold on anybody who wanted to be promoted to any job who had a role in the Benghazi situation.” Graham’s office confirmed that account.
Graham told a press conference Tuesday after he, McCain and Ayotte met with Rice that “before anybody can make an intelligent decision about promoting someone involved in Benghazi, we need to do a lot more (investigating).”
But indicating they’d put a hold on a nomination does not mean that Rice’s opponents could themselves kill her nomination.
If Rice were nominated and if the Foreign Relations Committee reported her nomination to the full Senate, it would be up to Majority Leader Harry Reid to decide when to bring it to the floor for debate.
Susan Walsh / AP
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, center, flanked by fellow committee members, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., left, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., right, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012, following a meeting with UN Ambassador Susan Rice. Rice met with lawmakers to discuss statements she made about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya that left the ambassador and three other Americans dead.
If senators opposed to Rice were able to keep debating the nomination, and if Reid failed to muster 60 votes for cloture, bringing the debate to a close, then the nomination would essentially be dead.
It’s early in this battle, and it’s not clear there would be enough Republicans to sign onto a filibuster, but one Democratic Senate aide said Democrats would welcome the fight and are confident she would be confirmed. “People are happy to fight for her,” the aide said.
There are echoes here of the nomination battles of the Bush era. Democratic filibusters blocked, and ultimately killed, a number of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees and Bush’s nomination of John Bolton to be U.N. ambassador.
“I remember the John Bolton episode pretty well,” Graham told reporters Tuesday. “Democrats dug in their heels saying we're not gonna vote, we're not gonna consider this nomination until we get basic answers to our concerns.”
There were two cloture votes on Bolton’s nomination in 2005. He got 56 votes on one of them, four shy of the number needed to end debate and confirm him.
In some cases, a senator putting a hold on a nomination is enough to convince the majority leader or the chairman of the committee considering the nomination to not try to move ahead with it.
For example in December 2011 the Washington Post reported that Matthew Bryza, Obama's nominee to be ambassador to Azerbaijan, was "deemed insufficiently hostile to Armenia's enemies by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) and two Democratic senators with Armenian American constituencies, Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and Robert Menendez (N.J.)."
Boxer and Menendez put a hold on his nomination, preventing or at least delaying a floor vote. Obama gave Bryza a recess appointment and renominated him.
But Boxer and Menendez continued to oppose him and the Post reported that Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., never scheduled a hearing on his nomination.
Sometimes a hold on a nomination is simply a way of trying to extract some specific policy change or administrative action from the executive branch.
For example, the Hill reported last year that Sen. David Vitter, R-La., announced he was lifting his hold on Obama’s nomination of Dan Ashe to head the Department of Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service.
Vitter wanted speedier action from the Obama administration on approving deep-water drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico.
“I said I would lift it when we got to 15 permits,” Vitter said on June 1, 2011. “We finally reached that mark today, and I’m lifting my hold.”
But the stakes would be far higher if Obama nominated Rice, partly because it would be the first nomination battle since he won re-election last month.
NBC News’s Domenico Montanaro contributed to this story.
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Obama could be a @!$%#ing murderer and you flakes could care less. It's all about your communism and who the hell cares about anything. There's no justice. There's no morals. There's no right or wrong. Just communism and your steadfast pursuit of it.
But by God if you win the lottery - then that Obama is one big SOB.
Rodney - I hate to have to wake you up.....but communisim has been dead for 20 years!
It is dead in China. It is dead in Cuba. And it will die in North Korea within a few years.
Communisim does not exist anymore. It is dead.
You can finally come out of the bomb shelter. Everything is OK. Relax.
rotney...your everday life must be absolutely miserable... hate monger!
Communist? I thought he is a European Socialist who was born in Kenya...
Well, you know hand... keeping all the spin and rhetoric straight... has gotten complicated for the tea billy right!
WOW, Just wow.
Condaleeza Rice is a war criminal - along with Bush & Cheney for the second war in Iraq. WOMD's were a myth created by our U.S. military industrial complex.
Susan Rice just read the information that she was given from the U.S. intelligence group............
WTF? This is a bunch of political krap......and McCain & company should be embarassed.
and let us not forget... tax dollars for torture... War Crimes, INDEED!!!
Anyone who pays an ounce of attention on what John McCain says - should be comitted to the looney bin.
Don't you remember that it was John McCain who picked Sarah Palin as his running mate for VP? Yikes! What more do you need to know? The man is daft! What more needs to be said?
Not the best judge of character, I think we can all agree.
Obviously the whole McCain secret in this conspiracy against UN Ambassador Susan Rice, is to prevent her to be nomination as Secretary of State, making a great opening for one more lizard in the Republican infested
Senate that is Mr. Brown, in the event that Mr. Kerry now in the Senate, gets nominated for the Secretary of State position leaving a vacant seat in the Senate to be filled by Mr. Brown as a replacement after Republicans think he will win election because he was very closed in voting to Elizabeth Warren!The one that needs to retired is Senator McCain for his continues attack on the Obama’s administration, and his poor judgment in foreign policies since all the blunders he perpetuate in fomenting the Iraq war, and now his new attack with beneficial hidden motives, trying to annihilate our Ambassador for the UN, Susan Rice to keep the open position in the senate for Mr. Brown . The topic of discord about our UN Ambassador Susan Rice came up frequently in the news lately. The complaint coming from Senator McCain and Senator Graham saying she purposely
concealed information about the Bengahzi attack, and expressing their feelings she was not qualified to present the report to the American people. It was well understood by all listeners when she first gave the report it was only to inform the American public of the riots events at that time in Benghazi, and no more. When Mr. McCain said Miss Rice was not qualified to give the report of the attack, we got very upset to his wrong interpretation, much later to become and unjust persecution, and relentless discredit of the performance of our UN mbassador.
As it was confirm later, she was faithfully doing her assignment in the light of the unclassified document given to her of the situation in Benghazi at the time! The whole USA, knows well of Senator McClain erroneous selection, and protection of Sara Palin when running for VP, she evidently had the poorest qualifications for the job, she may have created a permanent irreparable damaged to our country had she been elected as
a VP. With all our honest respects to the Senator, he has made other mistakes during his brilliant career. We think the Senator true motives for the creation of this newly pre meditated havoc over the unpredictable Benghazi attack is his dislike for our president Mr. Obama, and it’s is clearly showing. This worthless loss time the Senator is putting on a lackluster efforts in the persecution on the innocent UN Ambassador should stop, he should be concentrating eagerly on helping the America workers get fruitful paying jobs, and reducing the trillion f dollars Deficit Budget by helping increasing the tax to the very rich that ave made millions with the sweat of the long oppress middle class since the Bush presidency!
I would nominate John Kerry to be DOD liaison to the Vietnamese Navy, he's so fond of bragging about his pseudo exploits in those waters.
Were you there? Did you see any of it? Plenty of witnesses saw Senator Kerry take wounds. It's just the Swift Boat assbags that have the lack of class to lie about a veteran's service. Rove took a big crap on John McClain's for his boss Georgie Bush. Did you back that too? Jerkwad.
Susan Rice has already reached her highest level of inexpertise: buying 8 figure lunches for the rest of the world and giving the bill to US taxpayers.
You should just change your handle to Whitehawk. This lady has a lot more class than you and the Republiclowns you adore.
Almost all the focus seems to be on Rice's performance on a couple of Sunday news shows. (What a terrible woman.) Nobody appears genuinely concerned about the reasons behind the attack at Benghazi or why it was so successful -- or how to prevent the same thing from happening tomorrow, or next year on 9/11.
We can be too quick to blame people we disagree with or openly hate. Would it have made any difference if Paul Ryan and his ilk in the House of Representatives had voted to fund diplomatic security overseas, as Obama and Clinton requested? Nobody knows.
"For fiscal 2013, the GOP-controlled House proposed spending $1.934 billion for the State Department's Worldwide Security Protection program --well below the $2.15billion requested by the Obama administration. House Republicans cut the administration's request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012. (Negotiations with the Democrat-controlled Senate restored about $88 million of the administration's request.) Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Republicans' proposed cuts to her department would be "detrimental to America's national security" --a charge Republicans rejected.
[GOP vice presidential nominee Paul] Ryan, [Rep. Darrell] Issa and other House Republicans voted for an amendment in 2009 to cut $1.2 billion from State operations, including funds for 300 more diplomatic security positions. Under Ryan's budget, non-defense discretionary spending, which includes State Department funding, would be slashed nearly 20 percent in 2014, which would translate to more than $400 million in additional cuts to embassy security."
You can Google it yourself.
Yeah - sure.
It's funny to read the two sides of the political line view points on this issue. Neither one is right. Don't you people get it? The people at the top don't give a crap about us, WE THE PEOPLE. We vote them in, they SH*T on us. I vote to stop sending foreign aid money to countries that are not willingly our allies. We should not be buying them. Then, close all of our embassies in these countries, and then we will not ever have to worry about this type of thing happening again. Nor will we have to worry about whether there was REALLY any WMD's because we will be taking care of our own.... Our tax dollars should stay in our country, period. As a matter of fact, I would ask the question: If we all quit paying taxes, and didn't file on the 15th, do you think our illustrious leaders would listen to the people then??? This other conversation is just a waste of time. The politicos are grand standing, while they admit it's a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" agenda as evidenced by this statement, “I said I would lift it when we got to 15 permits,” Vitter said on June 1, 2011. “We finally reached that mark today, and I’m lifting my hold.” Now, does that stink or what? When do these idiots vote what their constituents want????? NEVER. Everything they do is for their own self interest. Both the Republicans and the Democrats need to come together or we are screwed as a nation.
And the little piggie went We, We, We...all the way home. Never gonna happen. The Republiclowns would rather see America in the midst of a depression and financial and economic ruin than work with the Democrats and their minority President. Haven't you seen the stern stone faces on the GOP Congressmen. Reminds me of the South in the 50's and 60's. Nothing has changed.
Mdrake - You hit it. Billthepill is off his meds. Scary how clear it is to the intelligent and how the entitled feel they have 'won'. The money is gonna run out Billy and Mdrake's post may ring in your head during your withdrawals.
Senator Hold, Senator Block, Senator Filibuster
Nominations: Sen. John McCain, Sen. K. Ayotte, Sen. Lindsey Graham
Four O'Clock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_O'Clock
"Four O'Clock" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
Oliver Crangle is a fanatic who maintains records of people he deems evil, calling and writing their employers to alert them of their evil acts, demand their immediate firing, and threaten to involve higher authorities if they don't comply. Unsatisfied with the results of his anonymous threats, he searches for a more effective way to eliminate all evil from the world. He settles on the idea of shrinking the "evil" people to two feet tall. He cackles at the idea of that plan.
His acts attract the attention of the government, and Agent Hall is sent to investigate. Crangle tells him that he has finally devised a plan to shrink every "evil" person down to two feet tall at 4:00 that afternoon through sheer force of will. Hall dismisses him as a crank, recommends psychiatric help and leaves. Before departing, Crangle warns that Hall will be two feet tall but is ignored.
When 4:00 rolls around, Crangle is dismayed to find that he himself has been shrunk to two feet tall. His parrot, Peter, calls him a "nut" for his actions.
Hey all you haters... Obama won fair and square. If you're so unhappy about it, why don't you pack up, take grandpa McCan't and Lynsey I've-never-been-married-but-I'm-not-gay Graham and their token girl and go where someone gives a rats a$$ about what they are talking about. The America that voted for Obama for a second term has moved on and is too busy Christmas shopping [on Black Friday and Cyber Monday] to listen to all the stupid words that are coming out of their mouths.
Geez, John McClain has gone from being a Congressman I could respect regardless of party affiliation to the whiniest sore loser on the planet. Hell, he lost the election, his self respect went out the door under Sarah Palin's skirt and he is now just another GOP obstacle. All this because an uppity black man beat him and dashed his dreams. John, give it a rest, you've become the punch line to a bad joke.
The party that lost in both the Executive and Legislative (in other words ALL) is trying to "double down". Good, I like a spirited party! Yes, the GOP will be like William and Mary vs. Notre Dame, but it's the sportsmanship, not the score!
Rice is just like her boss, a black who is a habitual liar
The GOP can simply call a spade a spade. She is a dupe at best. Obama needs to start acting like a god damn President. Time to can the "I want it all" crap while the Nation burns.
Block her on Obama whats her is a good enough reason plus compared to Hillary she is an idiot. We need one hell of a SOS and she ain't it.
Billy Boy, remember, like Morsy, you just elected a dictator, not a President. He will make a recess appointment of Rice & proclaim executive privilege to any investigation to the Benghazi cover-up.
For all of you that think people or wacko, etc. Listen up. The women only parroted what was given to her without doing her homework or questioning what was given to her. She is able to view all classified and unclassified material so not looking into what was shoved in her hands is lazy especially if she has nothing to do with Benghazi. My first question would be "why am I appointed to do this when Clinton and others are available?" During the morning show, Chris Wallace confronted her about her statement especially when the Egyptian Pres. was just on and stated that it was a terrorist attack. Amb. Rice stated she only knew it was a demostration caused by video. There was not a pause when confronted with the statement by the Egyptian Pres but she continued to say it was a demostration because of a video. This incident is not the only thing that should give people pause. Her record and job performance is really abysmal. Poor attendance at security council meeting to include emergency security council meetings and the list goes on.
Looks like Republicans are well on their way to losing another election.
Where are the Jobs Republicans?
Probably a better question to ask obama, the one who was elected to be the leader of this nation. I'm sure he will deflect the blame somewhere else, but he is definitely the one to ask where the jobs are.
What ever, I'm sure the democrats and republican will work it out. McCain is just running for president, he doesn't know 2008 election is over. Graham wants to be his vice president. Yes, it's a circus in Congress. As you know each circus haves two clowns.
Face it, if President Obama nominated Jesus Christ to be Secretary of State, the three stooges would object.
Alright. Everyone knows John McCain has a Crush on Hillary, this is just his roundabout and clumsy way of showing her how much he will miss her...
I don't care what your political affiliation is, EVERYBODY nominated for such a position should be scrutinized intently, especially one who is closely associated with the disaster at Benghazi.
The Maverick in a China Shop just needs some Hugs, he and his three Amigos. They have been through a lot lately, so when they lash out just return it with a Hug.
Prez should just have Surgeon General exam all the wacko repubs in congress, find out if they need to take some time off for rehab or just retire. How many houses did McCain forget he owned in his 2008 election interview? Surely he needs to spend more time in them, like every day.
While the surgeon general is examining people, he should examine obama. I seem to remember obama saying he was going to campaign in all 57 states. Of course that was in 2008. Maybe now he knows how many states we have here in America. Still, with all of the pressure on him, perhaps he should retire as well.
You got (3) Graham, McCain and Ayotte in Congress against Rice, and (420+) who hasn't really said anything, does that mean (3)Graham, McCain and Ayotte are right and the rest are wrong? Or maybe they are trying to play a political game two benefit them in some way. You would think if Rice was so bad that their would be more then just (3) Graham, McCain and Ayotte in Congress against her. So I don't know if I believe any of it.
not only is rice not qualified for the job, she is a muslim and point blank? obama is appointing way to many blacks in important offices who arent qualified, who hate white america, and part of obamas agenda is to set up america for amajor crash, and he will then declare marshall law and take over as dictator, anyone want tobet im right?
Shut the phuck up bigot!
The only thing I would bet is that your home is on an axle and you do not have your GED.
zippy, it's time to return to Betty Ford.
You are one nasty individual without a clue.