Cindy McCain — the widow of the late public figure John McCain — has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture. McCain isn’t even the only Republican who was nominated by President Joe Biden for an ambassadorship and confirmed by the Senate this week — the chamber also confirmed Jeff Flake, a former Republican Senator from Arizona, as Ambassador to Turkey. Both McCain and Flake were prominent Republican supporters of Joe Biden during the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. Before his death, John McCain was notoriously at odds with Trump.
McCain and Flake were confirmed by the Senate with unanimous consent, meaning that not a single Senator lodged an objection. McCain and Flake have faced pushback from their home-state Republican Party for their support of Biden, but they have remained generally undeterred. After the Arizona GOP censured her — which amounts to a formal rebuke, and that’s about it — Cindy commented that when she “began in the Republican Party officially, the Republican party was the party of inclusion. It was the party of generosity. It was the party of ‘country first,'” adding that “it’s time that we get back on track.”
Cindy also spoke out against the push among Republicans to continue casting doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election. In a discussion of the Maricopa County election audit that was kickstarted by Republicans in the Arizona state Senate, she said that the “whole thing is ludicrous,” pointedly adding that the “election is over. Biden won. I know many of them don’t like the outcome. But elections have consequences. This does not surprise me. Things are just aloof and crazy right now with regards to the election.” Eventually, that audit concluded with a finding that Biden had been victorious in the county, as local authorities previously determined — although this conclusion didn’t stop Trump from claiming some level of vindication for his false claims of presidential election fraud.
NOW U.S. Senate confirms former Arizona Sen. @JeffFlake as ambassador to Turkey and @cindymccain as ambassador to United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture. Both were prominent Republican endorsers of President Joe Biden. @SenMarkKelly intro'd vote for McCain. pic.twitter.com/8wiALfOb56
— Brahm Resnik (@brahmresnik) October 26, 2021
In the Trump era, even ambassadorships were politicized. Famously, Trump fired Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch amid efforts by the then-president and his allies to pressure Ukrainian authorities into investigating the Bidens. Trump removed Yovanovitch on the basis of false allegations of corruption on her part. Specifically, she’d been claimed to have been subverting the president.
