Ken Cuccinelli, now the most-oft prospect to be named as secretary of Homeland Security, revealed Wednesday morning he has met with Republican senators who might be hostile to his possible nomination.
"I met with some of those fellows yesterday," said Cuccinelli, now the acting head of the Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) office at DHS, adding that he has also been "in a couple of meetings with the Senate majority leader" Mitch McConnell.
McConnell has reportedly signaled he is opposed to the nomination of Cuccinelli as DHS secretary because of his past work as head of the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), a political action committee that supported right-of-center primary challenges to several Republican senators — including McConnell himself.
"I led SCF, not one of his favorite organizations, which may be the understatement of this breakfast," joked Cuccinelli, who spoke at a Washington, D.C., press breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor.
But the former Virginia attorney general quickly noted that "since I signed onto [heading CIS], I haven't been engaged in the kind of political pugilism SCF advances in the political realm."
As for McConnell, Cuccinelli said, "I don't know whether his views have changed, but the work I do is what I ask to be judged on. That's what I expect to be judged on."
Because of opposition from McConnell and other Republican senators over Cuccinelli's involvement with SCF, it has widely been expected that, if President Trump names him to the DHS secretaryship, it will be in an "acting" capacity rather than submitting his name to the Senate for confirmation as permanent secretary.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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