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Chuck Schumer Tells Trump To Look In The Mirror If Wants To Blame Somebody For His Failures

By Sarah Jones on Mon, Jun 5th, 2017 at 12:44 pm

Senator Chuck Schumer told President Trump to look in the mirror if he wants to blame someone for the slow pace of his confirmations. “If the President is looking for someone to blame on the slow pace of confirmations, he needs only to look in the mirror," the Senate Democratic Leader said in a statement sent to PoliticusUSA.

President Trump blamed Democrats for obstructing his nominees after his tweets about the London Mayor reminded everyone that Donald Trump’s administration was nowhere near ready to handle a disaster.
Tracking how many key positions Trump has filled so far
[ http://www.politicususa.com/2017/06/04/trump-plays-strongman-security-administration-prepared-disaster.html ]

In other words, yeah he might not be remotely competent, but it’s the Democrats’ fault:

.@foxandfriends Dems are taking forever to approve my people, including Ambassadors. They are nothing but OBSTRUCTIONISTS! Want approvals.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blew some facts Trump’s way, telling Trump to look in the mirror if he’s looking for someone to blame. And then:

“There are more than 500 senate confirmable positions. Even though it is now June, the administration has failed to select a nominee for 442 of them.”

Yikes.

“Of the 63 that have been nominated, the Senate has confirmed 39 of them. The Senate took no more than a couple of days to confirm cabinet nominees, each of whom is now in office. ”

The Washington Post and the Partnership for Public Service says of 559 key positions requiring Senate confirmation 442 have no nominee, 15 are awaiting nomination, only 63 have been formally nominated and 39 have been confirmed.
"Tracking how many key positions Trump has filled so far" ( details with graphics )
[ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-administration-appointee-tracker/database/?tid=a_inl ]

What are these positions? “These positions include Cabinet secretaries, deputy and assistant secretaries, chief financial officers, general counsel, heads of agencies, ambassadors and other critical leadership positions.” They note, “The Senate can only act on nominations that have been formally submitted by the Trump administration. Those marked ‘awaiting nomination’ above have been announced but not yet submitted, while those marked ‘formally nominated’ are awaiting action by the Senate.”

The Post’s data says that the average time for Trump’s nominees to get confirmed is even longer than the time to took for Obama’s nominees, 41 to 32 days. So maybe Trump has a point on the length of time it’s taking, even if he hasn’t nominated anyone for most of the positions yet.

But Schumer reminded Trump that he picked extraordinarily tough people to vet, “It was the Senate’s responsibility to give a thorough vetting for such important positions, with many of the nominees having conflicts of interest and incomplete ethics agreements when they were named. President Trump ought to roll up his sleeves and get to work rather than pointing false fingers of blame.”

[...]

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/06/05/schumer-tells-trump-mirror-blame.html