Republican skepticism in the Senate of President Donald Trump’sCabinet nominees has been worn down, putting his unconventional choices for some of the most powerful positions in the federal government on the verge of confirmation. Floor votes are expected this week on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in line to be the nation’s health secretary, and Tulsi Gabbard, the choice for director of national intelligence. Both are from outside traditional Republican circles and espoused views in the confirmation process that alarmed GOP senators at times. Still, their nominations have advanced to the full Senate after crucial committee votes. One by one, Republicans have acquiesced to Trump’s picks, even those whose personal history, lack of experience and unorthodox views would have once made them hardly imaginable for a Cabinet. It’s a striking demonstration of how GOP lawmakers are standing by as Trump, in a show of force, disrupts the federal government and installs loyalists to lead key departments. Republican leaders in the Senate, eager to show Trump their worth, have chalked up confirmations at a rapid clip. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, just a month into the role, has lined up a vote on Gabbard as the first order of business, followed by Kennedy later in the week. Already on the job is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who faced allegations over drinking and aggressive behavior toward women. And Republicans appear ready to soon install Kash Patel as FBI director. Those four nominees were long seen on Capitol Hill as the most vulnerable to losing support from Republicans, who hold a Senate majority by three seats. “There’s never any guarantees, but we’re trending in the right direction,” Thune, R-S.D., said as the Senate wrapped up its work Thursday night and dozens of Republicans headed to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort to meet with the president over the weekend. Thune’s cautious optimism followed a week where the prospect of opposition from Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Todd Young of Indiana — both of whom have tried to maintain some independence from Trump — threatened to derail Kennedy and Gabbard. But after a series of intense phone calls and negotiations led by Vice President JD Vance, even in the moments leading up to committee votes Tuesday, the new leadership team persuaded the key holdouts to come around. Both walked away from the talks speaking of assurances the nominees would restrain some of their more worrisome views. The collapse of resistance has set a new tone in the Republican-controlled government and shown how even the most independent-minded lawmaker would rather work with Trump than risk crossing him. Trump himself has refrained from the threats to GOP skeptics that defined his first term and relied on Vance, a former Ohio senator, to quietly walk some of his former colleagues through their concerns. “You can’t think of this just as a normal president coming into office for the first time,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., who was involved in the effort to get Trump’s nominees across the finish line. “Everybody I was dealing with was truly undecided trying to get to yes, and so it was just a process.” It didn’t always look that easy. Cassidy, a liver doctor, told Kennedy during a committee hearing that he was “struggling” to support the nomination because Kennedy had built a following […]