Senator Chuck Grassley.
Senator Chuck Grassley took his concerns about the only remaining opening in President-elect Trump’s cabinet to the second in command.
Trump has yet to name his pick for U.S. Ag Secretary and Grassley has suggested Iowa’s Secretary of Agriculture would be a good candidate.
“I met with Vice President-elect Pence and i said to him at that particular time (please give) consideration to Northey,” Grassley says.
Grassley also tweeted about Bill Northey last week, saying Northey had been a “gr8 VOICE FOR AGRICULTURE.” There’s speculation at the statehouse that State Representative Pat Grassley — the senator’s grandson — is interested in running for state ag secretary in 2018.
Trump carried 62 percent of the vote in rural America. Farm groups and some members of congress from farm states have begun to question why Trump has not yet chosen a person to lead the USDA. Grassley suggested in a tweet last week that Trump should choose an ag secretary who comes from “above the Mason-Dixon Line where the states of IA, Mich, Wisc, Ohio, Penn lie.”
“I’ve been seen about 12 names mentioned since the election and I haven’t seen any one of those names pop up a second time,” Grassley says.
Trump has met with the former governor of Georgia and the current president of Texas A&M University as well as prospects from California and from Indiana.
(Reporting by Dennis Morrice, KLEM, Le Mars; additional reporting by Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson)