Kristi Noem's confirmation as Department of Homeland Security secretary Saturday gives further momentum to President Donald Trump's nominees while giving vote counters the ability to figure out how to push through more difficult nominations, former Trump adviser Roger Stone said on Newsmax.
"We're setting a template of victory here [with] the narrow victory of Pete Hegseth yesterday," Stone told Newsmax's "Saturday Report."
He added that "nothing succeeds like success," but there are the "more difficult" nominations such as Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the head of Health and Human Services, and Kash Patel for the FBI.
"The president's nominees are on a roll," said Stone. "Not every one of these votes is going to have the same makeup."
Stone said he does not think Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, can be counted on to vote for any of Trump's nominees, but still, there are "some wild cards" in the mix.
Stone said that he thinks Gabbard, "one of the president's most impressive and most important nominees," will get some votes from the left such as from Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
"People forget this but [Sanders] was the antiwar candidate against Hillary Clinton, so perhaps [Gabbard] could pick up a vote there," he said, adding that he was disappointed in Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voting against Hegseth for defense secretary.
"I have a high regard for Susan Collins," Stone said. "I've known her for 30-plus years. I like her very much. I think she does think hard about these things. I'm disappointed in her votes here ... I think you just have to keep working to put together a slightly different coalition to get each one of these nominees passed."
Meanwhile, Stone said he believes Hegseth got the "full Kavanaugh treatment," referring to the contentious hearings to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh."
Hegseth, he said, was "smeared relentlessly."
"The Democrat Party, the fake news cabal tried to destroy this guy with hearsay and inaccuracies and things taken out of context," said Stone. "Victory is victory. You know, I remember the morning of the 1968 election, they asked Richard Nixon, who had lost by a very thin margin in 1960, the difference between 1960 and 1968. And he said, 'You know, I've lost and I've won. Let me tell you, winning is much better.'"
