What to watch on a busy day of confirmation hearings for Trump’s Cabinet

By Eric Bradner, CNN

(CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for attorney general, secretary of state and several other key Cabinet posts are set to appear in front of Senate committees Wednesday for high-stakes confirmation hearings.

The hearings, five days before Trump takes office, come as the Republican-led Senate appears to be largely falling in line behind the president-elect’s choices.

One of his most controversial picks, Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary, kicked off this week’s hearings Tuesday with an at times contentious appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee. But by the end of the day, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst – one of the few Republicans whose support was in question – announced she’d back his nomination.

On Wednesday, two Floridians – Sen. Marco Rubio, Trump’s choice to lead the State Department, and former state Attorney General Pam Bondi, his choice to lead the Justice Department – are among the six names set for hearings, all of whom have generated less controversy than Hegseth.

The other hearings on deck: former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy for the Transportation Department; energy industry executive Chris Wright for the Department of Energy; John Ratcliffe, a former congressman who was briefly director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, for CIA director; and Russell Vought, one of the key authors of Project 2025, for the Office of Management and Budget.

Here’s what to watch in Wednesday’s hearings:

Rubio vs. the ‘global order’

Rubio, a respected presence in the Senate who hasn’t always been in Trump’s political orbit, has been expected to easily win confirmation as the president-elect’s top diplomat from the moment he was chosen for the role.

However, Rubio, viewed as a hawk on foreign policy, will first have to explain to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – on which he served – what Trump’s “America first” approach will mean for the United States’ role in the world. Eight years ago, Rubio – coming off of an unsuccessful presidential primary bid against Trump – challenged Rex Tillerson, the first-term pick for secretary of state, on some of Trump’s isolationist views. Now it’s the Florida Republican who will be in the hot seat, answering his colleagues’ questions and trying to prove his loyalty to the president-elect.

“The top priority” of Trump’s State Department “must be and will be the United States,” Rubio is expected to say, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks obtained by CNN.

The Florida Republican plans to say that “while America far too often continued to prioritize the ‘global order’ above our core national interests, other nations continued to act the way countries always have and always will, in what they perceive to be in their best interest.”

Rubio also plans to target China, claiming the country has “lied, cheated, hacked, and stolen their way to global superpower status, at our expense.” Rubio’s comments come as Trump pledges massive tariffs on Chinese products.

One of the most pressing issues Rubio may face if confirmed is US support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion – and how that will change in the new administration. Trump has called for a negotiated end to the war.

The son of Cuban immigrants and long a hard-liner on Cuba, Rubio could also address President Joe Biden’s administration’s announcement Tuesday that it will remove Cuba from the state sponsor of terrorism list – a list that also includes North Korea, Syria and Iran.

Rubio has already won the support of some Democrats, and is all but assured to win a quick confirmation. His bigger, longer-term task could be grappling with Trump’s more isolationist allies who could seek to undermine his role once the incoming administration takes office.

The shadow of January 6 and political prosecutions

There is little doubt Republicans will back Bondi, who was Trump’s second choice for attorney general after former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration.

But Democrats are likely to use her confirmation hearing, scheduled to spread across two days, to press for answers on whether she will act on Trump’s often-stated desire to target his political enemies for prosecution.

Democrats are also likely to use Bondi’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday and Thursday to push for details on Trump’s plans to pardon Trump supporters who were convicted over their actions during the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

The hearing comes the day after special counsel Jack Smith, who prosecuted Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, released a report concluding that his office “assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”

Bondi, who joined Trump’s legal defense during his first impeachment trial in 2019, backed Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and could be asked about those false claims.

Project 2025 architect’s hearing

Amid attacks from Democrats over its contents, Trump on the campaign trail disavowed Project 2025, a far-reaching conservative blueprint for a second Trump term put together by a host of his allies and former staffers.

However, a key author of that blueprint, Vought, is Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget – likely returning to a role he held in Trump’s first administration.

Vought is set to appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday.

Unlike some nominees, Vought will have to testify twice – including at a not-yet-scheduled Senate Budget Committee confirmation hearing.

Democrats could use the hearing to put Vought on the spot about whether he believes Trump can slash spending without the approval of Congress – and whether Trump can replace federal employees with political appointees.

A sea change at Energy Department

Trump’s choice of Wright, a Colorado fracking company executive, for the Energy Department signaled the dramatic policy shift his administration will make away from the Biden administration’s push for renewable energy.

Democrats on the Energy and National Resources Committee had sought to delay the hearing, complaining that as of 24 hours ahead of his hearing, they had not received Wright’s ethics and financial disclosure paperwork from the Office of Government Ethics.

Wright will also serve as a member on the newly formed Council of National Energy, which Trump said will consist of all agencies involved in the “permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation” of energy. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum – Trump’s pick for Department of the Interior – will be the chairman.

“The world runs on oil and gas, and we need that,” Wright told CNBC in a 2023 interview, saying that calls to transition off fossil fuels in a decade was an “absurd time frame.”

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