Democrats are pledging to block Sam Clovis, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the United States Department of Agriculture as its chief scientist, despite not actually being one.
As we previously reported, Clovis is a climate change denier, birther, and one of the most staunch anti-LGBTQ individuals of all the president’s picks. And that’s saying something.
Clovis thinks being gay is a choice, has linked giving rights to LGBTQ people to legalizing pedophilia, and is a proponent of “religious freedom” laws that would provide a licence to discriminate.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and Sen. Brian Schatz released a joint statement:
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President Trump should withdraw the Clovis nomination immediately — not only because he is a proud ‘skeptic’ of climate change and wildly unqualified…but also as a gesture to the American people that this administration is serious about rooting out the most hateful voices in our society.
The extremist views Mr. Clovis has expressed and the racist conspiracy theories he has stoked about President Obama, former Attorney General Eric Holder, members of the LGBT community and others have zero place in the public discourse, much less coming from the highest levels of our government.
Clovis called Holder “a racist black.”
They added that the choice of Clovis sends a “clear as day message to the world that this administration continues to tolerate hate.”
If the administration fails to withdraw the nomination, they said Democrats “will vehemently oppose his nomination and urge our colleagues from both parties to come together and summarily reject him as well.”
In order to successfully block Clovis, Democrats will need at least three Republican senators to join them in voting against him.
