Richard Blum, the wealthy investor and husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has reportedly showed interest in an ambassadorship, renewing questions about his wife’s future in politics, according to The New York Times.
Blum, 85, has indicated to President Joe Biden’s advisers that he would consider a role as an ambassador, the Times reported. He has conducted extensive business dealings in China, but reportedly has his sights set on a European capital. If Blum took a post, it could lead to Feinstein, 87, leaving the Senate. She previously agreed to give up her ranking position on the Senate Judiciary Committee amid party pressure for her respectful and congenial tone during Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination hearings.
Feinstein, who was reelected in 2018, recently affirmed that she plans to complete the remainder of her term, which ends in 2025.
“Absolutely,” she said to reporters at the Capitol who asked if she would continue to serve. “I think that’s pretty obvious.”
Feinstein’s age, and some recent high-profile incidents led to the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer writing a lengthy piece detailing the senator’s apparent memory decline based on interviews with former staffers, and Feinstein’s alleged cognitive difficulties have remained a whispered topic ever since.
“Speaking on background, and with respect for her accomplished career, they say her short-term memory has grown so poor that she often forgets she has been briefed on a topic, accusing her staff of failing to do so just after they have,” Mayer wrote. “They describe Feinstein as forgetting what she has said and getting upset when she can’t keep up.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., appeared to signal his support for Feinstein stepping down in a recent interview, saying during an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid that he had “multiple names in mind” to replace her.
He later clarified that Feinstein “should absolutely fill out the rest of her term,” calling her a “friend” and a “mentor,” and adding that he has “no anticipation whatsoever that she’s going anywhere for years and years,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“I feel deeply connected to her, always supported her, will continue to,” Newsom said. “She’s a magnificent and extraordinary person, and I think there’s been a little too much punditry around her current term. I think we all would do a lot better if we move away from it.”
After Newsom’s initial interview, Feinstein dismissed any suggestion that he was asking her to retire.
“Please, we’re very good friends,” she said. “I don’t think he meant it the way some people thought.”
She added that her relationship with the governor is “good and strong,” and said people are “making a mountain out of a molehill,” while also declining to answer a question about whether she was disappointed in him.
“We are friends, we are colleagues,” Feinstein said. “There’s nothing to it.”
Source: Newmax
