Incoming Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he believes former deputy defense secretary Ashton Carter will be quickly confirmed as the next defense secretary, but the confirmation hearing will be an intense one with a focus on acquisition reform.
The White House on Wednesday formally submitted Carter’s name to the Senate as the defense secretary nominee, and McCain said Carter’s confirmation hearing would take place the first week of February to allow Carter to recover from back surgery.
The hearing will be held “as soon as he’s well enough, which is the beginning of February,” McCain said Wednesday at the Capitol. Asked if he was concerned about the confirmation hearing coming the same week the Pentagon is scheduled to deliver its budget request to Congress, McCain said “no, because [Carter] wants to be confirmed as quickly as possible.”
A Senate aide noted that the two hearings would coincide but would be treated as two separate issues. McCain understands that Carter had no role in crafting the FY ’16 budget request, the aide said, and therefore the confirmation hearing would focus on other topics.
McCain said he expected Carter’s confirmation to go through SASC and the full Senate quickly.
“I don’t have any doubt about the votes being there, but there will be intense discussion about cost overruns, about acquisition, about policy, about Iraq. There will be a lot of conversation,” he said. “He was in charge of some of these programs that got out of control,” McCain added when asked if he had any concerned about Carter based on their prior work together.
Another topic sure to come up in the confirmation hearing is sequestration, McCain said. He said repealing defense cuts is a priority of his, and he has already spoken to new SASC members to ensure their cooperation.
Asked about the likelihood of repealing sequestration–or at least the cuts to the defense side of the budget–now that Republicans are in control of both the House and Senate, McCain said, “I will do everything in my power to have it happen” either with or without commensurate spending increases on the domestic side of the budget.