Acting USCIS Director Ken Cuccinelli, a top contender to be the next leader of the Department of Homeland Security, responded to a question about his relationship with a longtime foe: Mitch McConnell.
Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, is considered to be one of President Donald Trump’s top choices to become the next Homeland Security secretary. However, it’s not clear if he would survive a confirmation vote in the upper chamber of Congress, where Senate Majority Mitch McConnell has made clear his disdain for the acting director.
“Well, you know, we’re not all perfect,” Cuccinelli said Thursday on Fox News about his relationship with the Kentucky senator. “In my previous roles, I was very political and I was very aggressive. That aggressiveness is presumably part of the reason the president wanted to hire me to head USCIS and participate in advancing his immigration agenda.”
“The politics has been set aside from my previous work, but I’ve been pushing the same way — 110% to get this job done, and get it done well. And again, the president has cleared the path with his leadership with what he’s done with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries, and as I said, if the courts don’t get in the way, we will continue to improve in this area.”
Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli speaks about immigration policy at the White House during a briefing August 12, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Cuccinelli was tapped by the Trump administration in June to lead USCIS, which manages legal immigration into the country. Since that time, he has appeared frequently on the media circuit and maintains an active Twitter account, quickly becoming one of the strongest voices of the president’s immigration agenda.
However, it was his work before joining the White House that earned him the ire of the Republican establishment. After he served as the attorney general of Virginia, Cuccinelli lead the Senate Conservatives Fund, an organization dedicating to propping up more conservative candidates in GOP Senate primaries.
McConnell has long blamed Cuccinelli for helping less electable candidates in primaries that went on to lose potentially winnable general elections. The Kentucky senator suggested earlier in 2019 that he would not allow Cuccinelli to win a Senate confirmation vote. It’s not entirely clear if McConnell has changed his opinion since that time.
Cuccinelli made a similar case Wednesday, mentioning that his “political” work is over and his only focus is on executing the president’s immigration agenda. (RELATED: Trump Administration To Reinstate Aid To Central American Countries That Signed Asylum Deals)
“I think an objective observer would note that I haven’t engaged in any of that political realm since I’ve taken this role. When I take a job, I take it with the intent of doing it one 110%,” Cuccinelli said Wednesday at a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast. “So I don’t know whether [McConnell’s] view has changed.”
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