Deirdre Walsh
speaker
394 appearances
48 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 11 Dec
Deirdre Walsh’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 22 in all, peaking in Nov 2025 with 9.
Appearances
I mean, this is a good preview of Trump's unpredictable governing style. I covered the last time Trump was in the White House and Republicans had control of the House and the Senate. And Trump frequently blew up deals cut by Republicans then. I talked to Nebraska Republican colleague Don Bacon. He said he was troubled that Musk was putting out false information about the original deal.
He backed this new plan, but said Trump added a new demand late in the process.
This whole episode weakened Speaker Mike Johnson as he faces another vote in January to stay speaker. And this all just shows how hard it's going to be for Republicans to move their agenda through when they're so divided on this.
Thanks, Steve.
This is a war against women.
Definitely. As Senate Republicans point out her experience, she was a prosecutor eight years as Florida's Attorney General. Like Matt Gaetz, she's viewed as a strong Trump loyalist. She defended him as part of his impeachment team, defense team back in 2019. Bondi just doesn't have the same kind of political baggage that Gaetz had.
A House ethics committee investigated him for allegations of sex trafficking. That just made his nomination an uphill battle from the day he was picked. In terms of the Justice Department, Pam Bondi is likely to pursue the same kind of agenda Trump campaigned on and Gates was promising, reforms at the department and retribution against Trump's political opponents.
There's already more attention on Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon. He's a former Fox News host who served in the Army National Guard. He was accused of sexual assault in 2017. NPR has seen the police report from the Monterey, California, police. Hegseth argues he was cleared. There were no charges filed and his lawyer confirmed to NPR.
that Hegseth settled with the accuser to prevent her from filing any lawsuit. He already has some significant support, senior Republicans on the Armed Services Committee, and the new number two GOP leader, John Barrasso, has endorsed him. Trump's pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, she's a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, is another nominee facing some scrutiny.
Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Lankford, who sits on the Intelligence Committee, said on CNN yesterday, there are lots of questions for Gabbard. He pointed to a trip she took back in 2017 when she was serving in Congress to Syria, where she met with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. All these nominees are expected to go through some background checks in some form.
And Barrasso said they're going to start hearings on January 3rd, and he expects some votes on nominees on inauguration day.
I expect most will. I mean, even if three Republicans break and vote against a nominee, Vice President J.D. Vance, who will also be serving as president of the Senate, can break a tie. If four Republicans oppose a nominee, they will fail. There are a group of senators we're keeping an eye on who have raised questions about nominees and want to see more information.
People like Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, incoming Utah Senator John Curtis, who replaces Mitt Romney, and Mitch McConnell, who stepped down from leadership but is still in the Senate. All of these senators are saying the same thing. The president gets to nominate who he wants, but it's the Senate's job to advise and consent. Some nominees will have bipartisan support.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is up for secretary of state, is well known. And some Democrats I talked to say they could see voting for him. That's NPR's Deirdre Walsh. Thank you, Deirdre. Thanks, Layla.
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