Kim, Booker express discomfort with actions of Trump officials they voted for

It’s been one month since Donald Trump took office as president, and his second administration’s Cabinet is already close to complete, with 18 out of 22 Cabinet or Cabinet-level positions having been confirmed by the Senate as of this morning.

New Jersey Senators Andy Kim and Cory Booker have voted against nearly all of those nominees, and neither sound especially inclined to support those still awaiting confirmation; in fact, both signaled discomfort even with the few nominees that they did support in the Senate.

Kim told the immigration-focused outlet Migrant Insider earlier this week that he won’t vote for any more Trump nominees from here on out due to the Trump administration’s efforts to shutter federal agencies and curtail the government’s reach. He confirmed that to the New Jersey Globe, saying that “for the Cabinet level, I’m not supporting that at this point.”

That includes Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Kim’s former House colleague and Trump’s nominee for Labor Secretary, who has faced some opposition from conservative Republicans and may need Democratic support to make it through the Senate. Kim questioned Chavez-DeRemer this morning on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and he said her answers on how she would fight for American workers were “really unsubstantive.” (Kim said his pledge doesn’t necessarily apply, though, to sub-Cabinet nominations and to federal judgeships, which the Senate will likely begin taking up once the Cabinet is complete.)

As for Booker, New Jersey’s senior senator said that he’s been similarly alarmed by the Trump administration’s early actions, but he didn’t go quite as far as Kim when it comes to Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

“Because of what Donald Trump is doing – what he is ordering Cabinet officials to do, the number of Cabinet officials that have turned over Americans’ private data, that have allowed [the Department of Government Efficiency] to come in and do things that violate civil service laws and privacy – I have a very deep, skeptical view of any nominees,” Booker said. “But I’m still looking at them one at a time.”

Booker and Kim both voted for the first two nominees put before the Senate, Secretary of State Marco Rubio (who was confirmed unanimously) and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Booker also voted for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and Kim voted for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem; in the latter two instances, the senators serve on the Senate committees that oversee the secretaries’ departments.

Asked whether he regretted any of his “yes” votes, Booker said “regret is not the right word,” but he expressed disapproval with the actions they’ve taken so far in office.

“I have a lot of concerns with, already, what some of them are doing,” Booker said.

Kim was more explicit, saying that if the three nominees he supported were before the Senate again today – now that he knows the full extent of the Trump administration’s ambitions – he would vote no.

“If those nominees came after what we saw with regards to the funding freeze and the lawlessness of the DOGE efforts right now, I would vote against them,” Kim said. “I just cannot support these nominees right now, when they’re enabling and executing and implementing a lot of the lawless actions.”

Kim’s vote for Noem was especially notable, since he was one of only seven Democratic senators to support the firebrand former governor of South Dakota. The senator said at the time that he wanted to make sure he had an open line of communication with an important department amid the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, and he stands by that logic, even if he’s lost much of his confidence in Noem and other Cabinet nominees.

“On issues related to foreign policy or my committee work, I was being particularly open to supporting [nominees], as an indication of my willingness to find a working relationship,” Kim said. “I do think it’s in the interests of New Jersey to have at least one person that can be able to have a direct line to the Secretary of Homeland Security.”

Of course, even if every Democrat opposed every Cabinet nominee, they would still be able to pass the Republican-controlled Senate; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, for instance, drew unanimous Democratic opposition as well as three Republican “no” votes, and he was still confirmed thanks to Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote. For Democrats, opposing Cabinet nominees has mostly amounted to little more than a protest vote.

But Kim characterized it as part of a multi-pronged effort that Democrats are undertaking to make the American people aware of what they say is a reckless and lawless Trump administration – and get them to elect a Democratic Congress in 2026.

“[Flipping Congress] can be a game-changer effort, in terms of being able to get the gavel in one or both chambers, and we need to build towards that,” Kim said. “But in the meantime, we have to really try to maximize what we have. On a communications side, sometimes that is sending those signals – whether through votes or through interviews or whatnot – to try to convey to the American people why it is we’re so concerned.”

“I try to get people to look at this in terms of having multiple tools in the toolbox,” he added.