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Donald Trump’s Modeling Agency Is on the Verge of Collapse, Say Industry Insiders

by CarrieGottshall Posted on April 5, 2017

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump’s presidency hasn’t been good for one of his favorite businesses. The president’s modeling agency has been losing models and senior staff in recent months amid a growing backlash over his toxic politics. And the problems at Trump Model Management appear to be escalating. In interviews with Mother Jones, three industry insiders said they believe the agency could be forced to close.

The sources—two model bookers who have worked with Trump Models and another person with deep ties to the agency—attributed the firm’s sudden tailspin to the controversial president himself. The once glamorous Trump brand, they said, now appears to be tainted.

“Yeah, it’s closing,” said Virginie Deren, a model booker at the top Paris firm Premium, which co-represents a handful of models with Trump Model Management. Deren said she was given this information by a Trump booker. “It’s surprising that it’s come to that point,” she added. “It’s rough.”

Trump executives didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment for this story, but employees of the agency said this week that business is continuing as normal.

Deren said she didn’t know the precise timing of the potential closure or what might happen next for models at the agency. “For now, they haven’t really told us anything,” she said. “Of course, it’s going to take time.”

“That’s definitely happening,” said a second modeling agent who has also worked with Trump models, when asked about the potential closure. This source added that Trump staffers have approached the source’s own company looking for work. “They’re all pretty much sort of scrambling to get out,” said the source, who spoke anonymously to protect the firm where the source works. “We’ve met quite a few who’ve expressed the dismay this is happening, and their only goal is to find a new place.”

A third source—who has close ties to Trump Models—agreed that the situation at the agency is dire and that closing is a real possibility. This source requested anonymity to protect against the possibility of future legal action by the agency.

Corinne Nicolas, president of Trump Model Management, did not respond to questions from Mother Jones. Ronald Lieberman, a vice president at the Trump Organization who has previously responded to press queries about Trump Models, also did not respond to questions about the state of the modeling business. No one answered several calls to the company’s main phone line Wednesday.

Asked about the claims that the agency could soon close its doors, Michael Wildes—a New York attorney who has worked extensively with the agency, as well as with Melania Trump—told Mother Jones, “I’ve been privy to conversations, but I’m not permitted to share anything.”

Still, employees at Trump Models say their work is continuing as normal. Reached on her cellphone Tuesday, Helene Marengo, who works in the agency’s accounts department, said she was unaware of any plans to close her company. “I’m still working. I’m in my office right now, working like normal,” she said. “I have no knowledge of anything happening. As of right now, it’s business as usual.”

A woman who answered the door at the company’s Manhattan office Wednesday said that “of course” the agency remained open for new business.

Last summer, Mother Jones interviewed several foreign-born models who alleged they had worked illegally in the United States with Trump’s agency—a report that was particularly striking in light of Trump’s hawkish stance on illegal immigration. Four former Trump models told Mother Jones they worked for the agency without work visas; one said she worked for the agency for four years without a visa. Records in a lawsuit filed against Trump Model Management by a fifth former model, Alexia Palmer, indicated that she, too, worked for the company without work authorization. (The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.)

Read Mother Jones’ original Trump Models investigation here.

Deren, the Paris booker, said agencies have recently suffered from a general downturn in the modeling business in both Paris and New York. But, she added, the problems at Trump Model Management have more to do with “the political situation”—that is, with Trump.

Since Trump’s campaign, models and their bookers have become increasingly uneasy about working with the president’s agency, said Brandon Hall, the creative director of Sutherland Models, a Toronto agency. He has co-represented roughly 10 models with Trump’s agency over the years and said he currently has about four or five models in common with the company. (Successful fashion models typically have several agents representing them in different markets around the world to book local gigs.) “I would probably be a little reluctant” to work with Trump’s agency, Hall said—adding that models themselves might be even more reluctant to sign with Trump.

One model Hall represented recently didn’t want to meet with Trump’s agents in New York, he said. “It’s just sort of what has transpired because of the election and what has arisen from that,” he said, attempting to explain the apparent aversion to Trump’s agency in the modeling world. “I’m sure he’s gained in some ways and is suffering in others. And I think in the entertainment industry and the fashion industry, among actresses, models, he’s not well liked.”

According to his most recent financial disclosures, Trump owns an 85 percent stake in the agency. He earned nearly $2 million in commissions from it in 2015. But since the election, the modeling firm he founded in 1999 has suffered from a series of staff defections, including longtime Trump agent Duane Gazi-White, who traveled the globe scouting new modeling talent at pageants and Miss Teen USA contests. He recently went to work for a Trump competitor, New York Models, as director of new faces and development. (Gazi-White did not respond to requests for comment.)

Another Trump agent, Gabriel Ruas Santos-Rocha, recently left Trump Models to set up a new modeling firm called Anti Management, which launched last month. “I did not start an agency with the intent of taking someone out of business,” Santos-Rocha told the Washington Post this week. “Outside of that I have no comments.” (Rocha wouldn’t comment for this story.)

Rocha told Refinery29, the fashion news site, that Trump models were finding it tough to stay with the company because of Trump’s brand. “The people who got the worst of it were the models; they’d arrive on set and people would say, ‘Oooh, you’re from Trump Models? How dare you,’ or ‘Why are you still with them?'” Rocha said, according to the article. “They were constantly harassed by employees on shoots, especially by other models.” Refinery29 first reported that a possible boycott among industry stylists and photographers was being discussed in early February.

Then there are the models. Katie Moore, a breakout star from New York’s Fashion Week in February 2016, and a rising talent in the modeling world, is preparing to leave Trump’s firm in search of new representation, according to Tabitha Garcia, her Texas-based agent. Garcia told Mother Jones that too many Trump agents were leaving the agency for Moore to continue her career there—the situation had become untenable. “Most of Katie’s agents have moved on to other agencies and we are exploring those options for her right now,” Garcia wrote in an email. “An agent really makes the model…That is why it is sad to have this happen.”

“I will be flying to NYC next week to meet with agencies with Katie to continue her career at another agency,” Garcia added. “The staff at Trump have been nothing but kind and amazing along our journey and I am sad that we had to make this hard decision.”

A post shared by Katie Moore (@katherineann.moore) on Apr 3, 2017 at 4:25pm PDT

Katie Moore’s Texas-based agent confirmed the star Trump model is seeking new representation.

Other top Trump models have also fled the agency. Shirley Mallmann signed on with Anti. Veteran supermodel Maggie Rizer blamed Trump’s politics when she exited the company on the eve of the November election. “As a woman, a mother, an American and a human being, I cannot wake up Wednesday morning being the least bit related to the Trump brand,” Rizer wrote on Instagram.

Trump Model Management might be a small part of the president’s business empire, but it did seem to be particularly close to his heart. It augmented his brand as a playboy, and he enjoyed cross-pollinating his other businesses with Trump models. He personally signed talent directly from his Miss Universe and Miss USA competitions. And Trump Models appeared on his reality show, The Apprentice. Melania Trump was once represented by the agency.

At the agency’s launch party in 1998, Trump issued a promise about the company, as described by New York Magazine. Flanked by his business partner and the supermodel Daniela Pestova, Trump rose for a toast. “To the richest agency,” he declared. Now that agency could become the first piece of his business empire to fall victim to his polarizing presidency.

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Donald Trump’s Modeling Agency Is on the Verge of Collapse, Say Industry Insiders

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Martin Luther King Jr.’s Daughter Slams Pepsi Protest Ad in One Tweet

by ClarissaMccaffre Posted on April 5, 2017

Mother Jones

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Bernice King, the daughter of legendary civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., has added her voice to the criticism sparked by Pepsi’s controversial protest ad.

The commercial, which was released Tuesday as a two-and-a-half minute video, depicted reality TV star and model Kendall Jenner walking through a demonstration. As police stare down the protesters, Jenner approaches one of the officers to hand him a Pepsi. The gesture appears to defuse tensions, which prompts cheers from the protesters.

The ad quickly became the target of derision, with many calling it “tone-deaf.” Critics also argued Pepsi was co-opting the imagery of recent minority-led protest movements for profit. On Twitter, people pointed out that the scene of Jenner handing a Pepsi to an officer closely resembled a widely-shared photo of a Black Lives Matter protester being arrested during a 2016 protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

On Wednesday, King took to Twitter to share her thoughts about the controversy, posting a photo of her father being pushed back by police officers during a protest. In a particularly cringeworthy bit of timing, the Pepsi ad’s Tuesday release came on the same day of the 49th anniversary of King’s assassination in Memphis, Tennessee:

In a statement Wednesday, Pepsi announced the ad would be pulled immediately.

“Pepsi was trying to project a global a message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly, we missed the mark, and we apologize…We are pulling the content and halting any further rollout. We also apologize for putting Kendall Jenner in this position.”

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Martin Luther King Jr.’s Daughter Slams Pepsi Protest Ad in One Tweet

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The Republican in Charge of the Trump-Russia Probe Just Pulled a Crazy Political Stunt

by UTOClinton Posted on March 22, 2017

Mother Jones

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Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the lawmaker overseeing one of the main investigations of the Trump-Russia scandal, went rogue on Wednesday when he told reporters that a source had provided him information that indicates that the US intelligence community collected intelligence on Trump associates—possibly Donald Trump himself—in the course of authorized surveillance aimed at other targets. Nunes, who chairs the House intelligence committee, said this happened during the transition period and was unrelated Russia’s meddling in the 2016 campaign or to Trump associates’ connections to Russia. Without revealing any real evidence of wrongdoing, Nunes suggested that something amiss had occurred when the identity of these Trump-related people were noted in reports disseminated in intelligence channels.

Nunes’ theatrical press conferences—not one but two!—indicated he was perhaps more concerned about politics than national security and the protection of civil liberties. At his first presser, held in the Capitol, Nunes described the materials he had been given as “normal incidental collection” and “all legally collected foreign intelligence.” Nonetheless, he said, he was “alarmed” by the fact that some of the Trump associates had been “unmasked” in the reports. (“Incidental collection” refers to Americans whose communications are monitored not because they are the target of the surveillance, but because the person they are communicating with is the target. The identities of these non-targeted Americans generally are supposed to remain hidden in intelligence reports, but there are rules that allow their identities to be unmasked in such reports when that provides needed context.)

Still, Nunes said he was rushing to the White House—without even having spoken to the Democratic members of his committee about this—to brief Trump immediately. “They need to see it,” Nunes told reporters before he dashed off to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

But when asked whether Trump was specifically and intentionally targeted—a sensational claim that would bolster Trump’s widely debunked March 4 tweets accusing former President Barack Obama of “wire tapping”—Nunes said he wasn’t sure. In fact, nothing Nunes said would back up Trump’s tweets. He was referring to legally authorized surveillance conducted under a court order that targeted a foreign intelligence source but that happened to also pick up Americans—not an uncommon occurrence.

At his White House press conference—following his meeting with Trump—a reporter asked, “But just to clarify, this is not intentional spying on Donald Trump?”

“I have no idea,” Nunes replied. “We won’t know that until we get to the bottom of: Did people ask for the unmasking of additional names within the president-elect’s transition team?”

This was a disingenuous response. Nunes had earlier acknowledged he was only referring to officially authorized surveillance, which could not be ordered by a president. (There’s a whole process through which the FBI and other intelligence agencies go to a special court to receive permission to conduct surveillance.) Yet here was Nunes slyly hinting that well, just maybe, this would back up Trump’s fact-free charge. This was the tell. If he were only concerned with the unmasking of Americans caught up in incidental collection, Nunes could have instructed his committee staff to examine the matter and worked with Democrats on the committee on how best to handle the matter. Instead, he ran to the White House to share his information with the fellow who is the subject of an investigation Nunes is overseeing. Nunes was pulling a political stunt to provide Trump some cover.

And Trump took the cover. After Nunes’ briefing, the president told reporters that he felt “somewhat” vindicated by what Nunes reported to the public on Wednesday. “I very much appreciated the fact that they found what they found.” The revelations, though, don’t vindicate Trump at all; he accused President Obama of directing the phones in Trump Tower to be tapped in October. Nunes’ new information refers to incidental collection after the election. Trump compared the situation to “Nixon/Watergate,” and called Obama a “Bad (or sick) guy!” Nunes made clear the surveillance was legal. Trump suggested Obama had somehow broken the law.

Adding to the political nature of what Nunes did is the fact that he didn’t consult with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House committee, before he briefed Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, reporters (twice), and the White House.

“I’m going to be meeting with Mr. Schiff at some point to talk about where we go with this investigation,” Nunes told reporters when the issue came up after he briefed the president. “I had to brief the speaker first, then I had to talk to the CIA director, the NSA director, and I’m waiting to talk to the FBI director…Then I went and talked to all of you…and then I voted, and then I said I was coming here to brief the president, and then I’ll be glad to talk to others later.”

Schiff issued a statement Wednesday afternoon slamming Nunes’ actions.

“This information should have been shared with members of the committee, but it has not been,” Schiff said. “Indeed it appears that committee members only learned about this when Nunes discussed the matter this afternoon with the press. Nunes also shared this information with the White House before providing it to the committee, another profound irregularity, given that the matter is currently under investigation. I have expressed my grave concerns with Nunes that a credible investigation cannot be conducted this way.”

Schiff added that Nunes told him that most of the names within the intelligence reports were, in fact, masked, “but that he could still figure out the probable identity of the parties.” This means that the intelligence agencies followed the law, Schiff said, and “moreover, the unmasking of a US Person’s name is fully appropriate when it is necessary to understand the context of collected foreign intelligence information.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, (D-Ore.), accused Nunes of leaking classified information.

Jeremy Bash, who formerly served as chief counsel for the Democrats on the committee, said Wednesday that what Nunes did was unprecedented and very concerning.

“I don’t think in the 40 years of the committee’s existence, since the post-Watergate-era reforms, with the Church and Pike committees that emerged from those scandals, I have never heard of a chairman of an oversight committee going to brief the president of the United States about concerns he has about things he’s read in intelligence reports,” Bash told MSNBC Wednesday afternoon. “The job of the committee is to do oversight of the executive branch, not to bring them into their investigation or tip them off to things they may be looking at. I’ve got to believe that other members of the committee are horrified at what they just witnessed.”

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The Republican in Charge of the Trump-Russia Probe Just Pulled a Crazy Political Stunt

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A Recently Bankrupt Coal Company Is Being Honored at Mar-a Lago

by HermanHallock Posted on March 22, 2017

Mother Jones

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President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort will host the opening reception Wednesday evening for a conference where a recently bankrupt coal company will be a guest of honor. The annual Distressed Investing Summit will bestow one of its “Restructuring Deal of the Year” awards to Arch Coal for clearing $5 billion in debt after it filed for bankruptcy in 2016.

“They emerged from bankruptcy in 2016 after shedding huge amount of debt, obligations to workers, and environmental cleanup,” Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal director Mary Anne Hitt says. “When a company is in bankruptcy, you don’t have a lot of leverage in there with all the lawyers and stakeholders. To have them feted at Mar-a-Lago as a turnaround is salt in the wound for workers and people representing the public interest.”

The summit, hosted by financial company The M&A Advisor, has held its opening cocktail reception at Mar-a-Lago for the past two years, ever since Trump emerged as a serious contender for president. In its invitation email, M&A Advisor names Arch Coal as one of its winners alongside a number of other firms, including energy companies Alpha Natural Resources, Midstates Petroleum Company, and Venoco, an oil and gas development company.

Here’s how the invitation describes Mar-a-Lago, “the new Winter White House”:

The agenda for roundtables that are held at a nearby hotel reads like a laundry list of Trump’s campaign themes: “Making America Great Again,” “Informing and Silencing The Media,” and the “Art of Dealmaking: Getting Deals Done In The New Economic Order.”

Not everyone agrees that Arch Coal’s 2016 bankruptcy deal warrants celebration. During the bankruptcy proceedings, environmental opposition forced the company to abandon its proposal that taxpayers should foot the entire bill to clean up its abandoned mines. The company also laid off hundreds of its miners that same year.

In the years before bankruptcy, United Mine Workers of America complained that Arch Coal moved 40 percent of its employees’ health care coverage to Patriot Coal, a volatile offshoot company. When Patriot went under, those health benefits were at risk and continue to be because of Arch Coal’s bankruptcy. Patriot and Arch Coal are only two examples of a larger problem. The union shop has been pressing Congress for a long-term solution for 22,000 miners’ benefits in jeopardy because of coal bankruptcies—an issue that won’t go away no matter what happens to federal environmental regulations.

The idea that the coal industry can recover is a cherished narrative for Trump. Earlier this week, at a campaign-style rally in Kentucky, the president claimed that he will “save our coal industry” and put miners back to work with executive orders that are expected any day. Trump likes to blame “terrible job-killing” regulations, but there are other pressures beyond federal regulation driving coal out of business, namely competitive natural gas.

Nonetheless, on Wednesday evening, a coal turnaround will be celebrated. Even though it might only be, as the Sierra Club’s Hitt notes, “one of many of the alternative facts they like to celebrate at Mar-a-Lago.”

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A Recently Bankrupt Coal Company Is Being Honored at Mar-a Lago

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Trump Declares War on EPA Mileage Standards

by CierraSummerfiel Posted on March 15, 2017

Mother Jones

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California has made a lot of noise about being the front line of resistance to President Trump, but mostly it’s just blather. This week, however, it’s finally getting very real:

President Trump will direct the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday to shelve aggressive vehicle fuel economy targets that are a pillar of climate action and anti-pollution efforts in California and nationwide, according to a senior administration official.

…Targeting them puts the White House on a path of direct and costly confrontation with California….Under the Clean Air Act, the state has the authority to impose emissions standards stronger than those set by the federal government, and a dozen other states have embraced the California rules, as the act allows. About 40% of the vehicles sold in America are subject to the rules California sets. Automakers have said repeatedly that it is untenable to manufacture separate fleets of vehicles to meet different standards.

The state had refrained from charting its own course on mileage goals as part of a compromise with auto companies and the EPA early in the Obama administration. That agreement will start to unravel Wednesday with Trump’s action, which will direct the EPA to re-open the rule-making for the mileage standards. If, as environmental and auto lobbyists anticipate, the administration ultimately decides to weaken the rules, California will almost certainly move to invoke its federal waiver.

There are other disputes on the horizon between California and the Trump administration, but this is the first big one. From the very beginning, California has had an exemption under the Clean Air Act to set its own standards, and these standards have often led the nation. The state is pretty jealous of this prerogative, and it will fight to prevent any change to the law that weakens it. However, unless the Trump administration succeeds in doing that, it’s likely that California will adopt the current EPA standards and car companies will follow along even if Trump trashes the federal rules. It’s either that or build two separate fleets of cars, one for California and its fellow green states, and one for everyone else.

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Trump Declares War on EPA Mileage Standards

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Climate activists carved a clever message into a Trump golf course.

by pitery Posted on March 14, 2017

During a Wednesday visit to Michigan, President Trump will announce that efficiency standards established by the Obama administration will undergo further review, according to a senior White House official.

The Obama standards for vehicles manufactured between 2022 and 2025 were originally adopted in 2012 with a promise to automakers that a review before April 2018 would assess whether they could realistically meet the goal. Days ahead of Trump’s inauguration, Obama EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announced the review was complete. The standards — requiring new cars and light trucks to get an average of 36 miles per gallon, up from 26 today — would remain unchanged.

The auto industry was incensed, claiming there hadn’t been proper consultation or data collection. In February, automakers reached out to new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and asked him to reconsider. Now, they’re getting a second chance at relaxed guidelines.

Another review of the standards could take years. To stand up to legal challenge, the government will have to prove the data undergirding the EPA’s original review was inadequate.

But the Trump administration contends the new review is no big deal. “I don’t think we’re saying we’re going to pull [regulations] back,” said the White House official. “We’re just doing the review that was originally agreed to.”

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Climate activists carved a clever message into a Trump golf course.

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Watch These Protesters Outside the Department of Justice Demand Sessions’ Resignation

by RickPaceuorrp Posted on March 2, 2017

Mother Jones

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On Thursday at noon, a crowd of about 100 people and growing gathered outside the US Department of Justice to call for the resignation of attorney general Jeff Sessions, chanting “Fire Sessions” and “Dosvedanya Jeff Sessions,” in an event organized by MoveOn.org, a progressive advocacy group and political action committee.

The calls for resignation were triggered by allegations, published late Wednesday by the Washington Post, that Sessions misled Congress during his confirmation hearing when he denied having any contacts with representatives of the Russian government during the 2016 presidential race. The Post found that Sessions met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice at the height of the campaign—once in July 2016 and once in September. A growing number of Republicans in Congress are also calling on Sessions to resign over the allegations or recuse himself from any investigations.

You can watch the ongoing protest live below:

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Watch These Protesters Outside the Department of Justice Demand Sessions’ Resignation

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Every Night There’s Going To Be Another Bombshell About The Trump Presidency

by PorterKashiwagi Posted on February 16, 2017

Mother Jones

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Late Wednesday night, the Wall Street Journal published a big story alleging that, according to “current and former intelligence officials,” US spies have been withholding sensitive intelligence from President Trump.

In some of these cases of withheld information, officials have decided not to show Mr. Trump the sources and methods that the intelligence agencies use to collect information, the current and former officials said. Those sources and methods could include, for instance, the means that an agency uses to spy on a foreign government.

A White House official said: “There is nothing that leads us to believe that this is an accurate account of what is actually happening.”

…

The officials emphasized that they know of no instance in which crucial information about security threats or potential plotting has been omitted. Still, the misgivings that have emerged among intelligence officials point to the fissures spreading between the White House and the U.S. spy agencies.

This follows a previous report this week in the New York Observer which conveyed similar murmurs from within the intelligence community.

It’s worth keeping in mind that what Kevin Drum said about that earlier report is still true:

“Inside” reporting about the intelligence community is notoriously unreliable, so take this with a grain of salt. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. But just the fact that stuff like this is getting a respectful public hearing is damning all by itself. For any other recent president, a report like this would be dismissed as nonsense without a second thought. But for Trump, it seems plausible enough to take seriously. Stay tuned.

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Every Night There’s Going To Be Another Bombshell About The Trump Presidency

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Andrew Puzder Withdraws as Labor Secretary Nominee

by GPPGarryfs Posted on February 15, 2017

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday, millionaire fast-food executive Andrew Puzder withdrew his nomination to become President Donald Trump’s secretary of labor. Puzder’s confirmation hearing, delayed weeks due to his failure to submit required financial and ethics paperwork, was set for Thursday.

With his nomination facing stiff opposition from labor groups, Puzder had been bleeding support in recent days. On Wednesday, Mother Jones published details of some of the 39 labor violation claims that have been brought against his company, CKE, which owns both Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. Also on Wednesday, Politico obtained and published video of a 1990 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, in which Puzder’s ex-wife, Lisa Fierstein, wore a disguise and claimed he abused her. (Winfrey handed over the tape at the request of senators.)

Earlier in the day, National Review tried to get ahead of the nomination’s impending collapse by opposing it on immigration grounds. But as MoJo‘s Kevin Drum noted, it was probably just to change the narrative.

Well, it turns out he’s soft on immigration: he supports comprehensive immigration reform rather than walls and high-profile raids. Can’t have that. And just by coincidence, NR’s opposition comes shortly after we learned that Puzder “employed an undocumented housekeeper for several years and failed to pay related taxes.” I don’t think NR actually cares about that, though. They only care that it gives Democrats a hook to fire up the opposition. Why give them a victory that will just make them even smugger than usual? Might as well pull the plug now and pretend that it was all because conservatives have such high moral standards.

This is a developing story and we’ll update as more information becomes available.

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Andrew Puzder Withdraws as Labor Secretary Nominee

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Betsy DeVos’ Confirmation As Education Secretary Is in Trouble

by PCYLesley9031877 Posted on February 1, 2017

Mother Jones

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Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) told colleagues Wednesday that they will not vote for GOP billionaire megadonor Betsy DeVos for education secretary, throwing her nomination in doubt just a day after a committee voted to advance DeVos’ bid to the full Senate.

With the GOP-Democrat split in the Senate at 52-48, “no” votes from Collins and Murkowski—and a party-line vote from Democrats—would tie the count at 50, leaving Vice President Mike Pence to cast the deciding vote. With one more dissenting Republican, however, Democrats would have officially defeated a Cabinet nominee for the first time since defense secretary nominee John Tower was voted down in 1989.

The two senators’ statements came as somewhat of a surprise given that both had voted in committee Tuesday to move DeVos’ nomination to the full Senate. But each had expressed reservations about DeVos’ support for school choice and voucher programs and her commitment to public education. “I have serious concerns about a nominee who has been so involved in one side of the equation,” Murkowski said on the Senate floor Wednesday, adding that her office had received thousands of calls from constituents concerned about DeVos.

DeVos has been the subject of criticism from teachers’ unions, Senate Democrats, and others for her defense of expanding charter schools and voucher programs, her inexperience in public education, and questions about her commitment to upholding federal civil rights laws, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. As my colleague Kristina Rizga recently pointed out in an in-depth investigation, DeVos and her family have donated millions of dollars to right-wing causes and conservative Christian groups.

DeVos’ vote before the full Senate has not yet been scheduled, though there was speculation Wednesday afternoon that the GOP would move quickly. Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters he had “100 percent confidence” that DeVos would be confirmed, adding, “I think that the games being played with Betsy DeVos are sad.”

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Betsy DeVos’ Confirmation As Education Secretary Is in Trouble

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