Defeated GOP senator threatens Trump with blockade — over a surprising issue

President Donald Trump faces another potential headache, as Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has threatened a blockade against his nominees — over a new issue.

According to Semafor, Cornyn is now vowing "that he [will] not support committee action on Kari Lake’s nomination to be ambassador to Jamaica or Doug Mastriano’s bid to become ambassador to Slovakia without confirmation that the administration will distribute money from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, commonly known as PEPFAR."

The committee vote was scheduled for Wednesday, and Cornyn made clear what he intended to do.

“The only way it seems like you can get the administration’s attention on some of these funding issues is by using the leverage to withhold votes on nominees,” Cornyn told Semafor. “We are going to use the committee vote tomorrow as a way to … get the money distributed the way Congress appropriated it.”

PEPFAR, established under former President George W. Bush, has been widely credited with saving tens of millions of lives around the world, and particularly containing the spread of AIDS in Africa.

A study revealed this week indicates that Trump administration cuts to foreign aid have shuttered 1,700 HIV treatment sites around the world.

Lake and Mastriano are both former failed Republican gubernatorial nominees. For a time, Lake headed up the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the umbrella agency that manages American state-run foreign news services. Her efforts to shut down USAGM operations led to smackdowns in court, and she was ultimately ruled ineligible for office.