While Republican senators have expressed confidence that all or most of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees will be confirmed, Elise Stefanik is expected to cruise to confirmation with support from a number of Senate Democrats. The outgoing New York congresswoman was nominated to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations just a few days after Trump’s November election victory.
Stefanik, who served as the third-most senior member of the House before her nomination, garnered national attention by pushing back against pro-Palestine protests on college campuses last year. The New York Republican grilled presidents of Ivy League universities for allowing weeks-long protests that contained violent rhetoric towards Jews and pro-Israel students.
In one particularly explosive hearing, Stefanik pressed former Harvard University President Claudine Gay, who was ultimately forced to resign due to plagiarism allegations. The congresswoman listed a number of specific examples, including a number of Harvard students who were calling for an “intifada” or chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
“You understand that the use of the term intifada in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians