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Senate confirms Trump nominees
The U.S. Senate on Friday confirmed dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominees, including 11 ambassadors to foreign nations and five people nominated to ambassador-rank positions, in a vote approved by the Senate by 51 to 47 along party lines.
“The Senate approved the list of 74 nominations by 51 to 47”
The list also included six assistant secretary of state nominees, filling key State Department roles that had been open on an interim basis since Trump returned to office.
One nomination—Florida politician Daniel Perez’s appointment as ambassador to Brazil—was described as potentially complicated because the Brazilian government held up formal approval amid a diplomatic spat with Washington.
A senior State Department official said the U.S. revoked the visa of Brazil’s ambassador in Washington, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, after Brazil withheld formal approval for Perez and denied visas to two American diplomats.
The move marked an escalation in the rift between Trump and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as the Senate confirmations proceeded.
Perez resignation and visa fight
After the U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination, Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez resigned from the Florida House of Representatives and said President Donald J. Trump asked him to serve as Ambassador to the Federative Republic of Brazil.
Perez said his resignation takes effect Friday, Aug. 21, and he will take the oath of office later this month, while Speaker pro tempore Wyman Duggan would assume the duties of Speaker under House Rule 2.5(d).
The diplomatic dispute around the Brazil posting intensified as the State Department said it revoked the visa of Brazil’s ambassador in Washington, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, in response to Brazil’s delay in granting diplomatic authorization for Daniel Pérez to assume the U.S. embassy in Brasilia.
The State Department said the visa revocation does not amount to the ambassador’s expulsion and that she may remain in the United States but without a valid visa, with the document potentially reinstated if Brazil grants diplomatic approval for Pérez.
Brazil’s government said the U.S. should have asked for consent to send Perez in private under the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations before the nomination was made public, and it said the U.S. request was still “under analysis.”
FEMA leadership and broader stakes
Separately from the ambassadorial confirmations, the U.S. Senate on Friday confirmed Cameron Hamilton as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, returning the former Navy SEAL to FEMA after he had been fired from a temporary role last year.
“confirmed Cameron Hamilton as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency”
Hamilton’s confirmation came as FEMA’s future had been uncertain since Trump threatened to get rid of it days into his second term, and the Orange County Register said Hamilton would take over an agency with more than 20,000 employees.
The article also tied the confirmation to disaster-policy fights, noting that Democrats accused Trump of politicizing disaster relief and that a July analysis by The Associated Press found Trump approved 80% of disaster requests from Republican governors but only about 60% from Democratic governors.
In a June hearing before a Senate committee, Hamilton pledged to ensure FEMA is “objective, is fair and reasonable, follows the law, and is consistent in the approach to how we adjudicate and process claims and requests for disasters.”
The same Senate package that included Hamilton also encompassed the Daniel Perez ambassador dispute, with the U.S. revoking Viotti’s visa and Brazil withholding agrément, leaving the embassy led by a chargé d’affaires while the crisis continued.
