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"We may, in fact, have an additional Republican colleague voting 'no,' which would stop her tomorrow," Sen. Debbie Stabenow told CNN's Erin Burnett "OutFront" Monday.

Last week, Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski said they would not vote for DeVos.

If all other Republicans vote in favor of her, DeVos' nomination will pass the Senate with Vice President Mike Pence casting a tie-breaking vote. That would be the first time the vice president had broken a tie for a Cabinet pick in history.

But if DeVos' opposition can peel off more Republicans, she will not become education secretary. Republicans have said they are confident they have the votes.

Democratic senators have steadfastly opposed to DeVos' confirmation, and earlier Monday they began a 24-hour long debate against her on the Senate floor.

DeVos has faced significant pushback, from her controversial advocacy of charter school programs to accusations of plagiarism.

Stabenow said the Democrats' united front against DeVos has "galvanized" people and caused some Republicans to declare their intentions not to support President Donald Trump's pick.

But Stabenow acknowledged her party's weak position.

"We know as Democrats we don't have the votes to stop these nominations by ourselves, but people -- parents, teachers, administrators, community leaders across the country -- have power and are weighing in."

As for who else would join them, Stabenow demurred.

"I think there are a couple of folks still thinking about it," Stabenow said. "We don't know."

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Democratic senator: We may flip another GOP vote on DeVos - CNN

New York Times

How Would Republican Plans for Medicaid Block Grants Actually Work? New York Times The federal government picks up between 50 percent and 100 percent (depending on the population and the per-person income) of whatever it costs to provide health care to a state's population. Many, if not most, Republican plans would like to change that. and more »

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How Would Republican Plans for Medicaid Block Grants Actually Work? - New York Times

Senator John McCain was trailed by reporters while walking to the Senate Chamber Jan. 31.

WASHINGTON It became a mantra for John McCain in the months around Donald Trumps improbable electoral win: Im not talking about Trump. Im not talking about Trump. Im not talking about Trump, he chanted to inquiring reporters in December.

McCains reticence is gone.

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The veteran Arizona senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee has taken an unusual role as the new presidents highest-profile Republican critic, his pointed pushback keeping stride with the dizzying pace of controversies Trump has set in his first two weeks.

McCain has publicly challenged Trump on refugees and immigration saying the action may do more to recruit terrorists than beef up national security as well as on the issues of torture, Russia, and trade. Trump has shot back, accusing McCain of looking to start World War III.

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Daily updates and analysis on national politics from James Pindell.

McCains willingness to so aggressively challenge Trump contrasts with many of his House and Senate colleagues and serves as a warning that Trump, his agenda, and his provocative ways may face increasing obstacles. It also highlights a danger of Trumps scorched-earth, anti-establishment attacks.

Sen. John McCain said that multiple committees investigating the matter, rather than a single panel, would be inefficient.

Trump openly mocked McCain during his presidential campaign for being a Vietnam POW, saying I like people who werent captured. It was a highly personal attack that stunned the Republican Party, whose leaders rushed to McCains defense and called him a war hero.

Now McCain is needling Trump as the new president appears to hit a few early potholes running the executive branch. On Thursday, McCain who occupies the powerful post of Armed Services Committee chairman contacted Australias ambassador to smooth over the diplomatic dustup Trump created during a contentious call with the countrys prime minister. McCain followed that with a press release that implied he felt the need to mop up after the president.

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Despite the tensions, McCain, who is 80 and was just installed by Arizona voters to another term, bristled in a Senate hallway conversation with reporters at the notion hes playing the role of opponent in chief to the commander in chief.

Whether it be Ronald Reagan, when I said we shouldnt send Marines to Lebanon; whether it be George W. Bush, when I said youve got to fire [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld because were losing the war in Iraq I have always done what I think is best, said McCain. But to portray it I know its very convenient for the media as some kind of nemesis. Im not, he said.

It is true McCains opposition is rooted in rhetoric, not legislative action. If he is emerging as the conscience of his party, the role is thus far limited to a moral argument. McCain pointed out that he has supported many of Trumps Cabinet nominees and helped ensure quick committee action on a waiver to allow retired General James Mattis to serve as defense secretary despite not being out of the military for seven years, as required.

He said he is working closely with Mattis, White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, and Homeland Security chief John F. Kelly and described all three men as close friends.

McCain and Trump see eye-to-eye on military spending, too.

Ive supported him strongly on rebuilding the military and Im very much in favor of that, McCain added.

Friends say McCain, in his criticism, is merely displaying his usual independence.

I just think hes being John McCain, said close ally Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina with whom McCain issued a harsh statement blasting Trumps ban on travelers from seven countries.

First elected to Congress in 1982 and the Senate in 1986, the former naval aviator has under gone several political metamorphoses.

In 2000, his bid for the GOP presidential nomination during which he rode a bus dubbed the Straight Talk Express attracted centrist support from both the right and the left and helped solidify his reputation as a forthright maverick, willing to buck his party when principle dictated.

His second run at the presidency in 2008 saw him stake out more conservative positions, and the happy warrior of 2000 seemed crankier. His selection of Sarah Palin, then the governor of Alaska, as his running mate turned off many of his independent supporters even as she energized conservatives.

Today, some Trump skeptics privately chafe at praise of McCains pushback on Trump, grumbling that he helped pave the way for the real estate moguls rise by elevating Palin, whose selection invigorated the far-right wing of the Republican Party and ultimately the Tea Party movement.

Since 2008, two tough Senate primaries in 2010 and 2016 caused McCain to move further right, and some say he never truly returned to his old bipartisan self.

One former senior level Capitol Hill staffer recalled how, in 2010, aides for Graham, then-Senator Joe Lieberman, and Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts were confident that McCain would back their bosses climate change legislation as soon as he beat his primary opponent that year. They were so confident that they printed up gray T-shirts with the slogan Operation Sidney, a reference to McCains middle name.

The confidence was based on conversations the three senators had had with their friend and colleague, the former aide said.

But McCain did not end up backing the legislation. It fell apart.

While he may be Trumps most frequent critic, McCain isnt the only Republican standing up to Trump. McCains close friend Graham has taken his shots, too, including accusing Trump of undermining confidence in our democracy with claims of widespread illegal voting.

Several others have criticized the immigration order, in varying degrees. Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska put Trumps pick to lead the Education Department, Betsy DeVos, at risk of failing confirmation by refusing to vote for her.

But McCain has nonetheless become the most prominent and persistent Trump critic at a time when most congressional Republicans seem intent on putting up a united front on behalf of the new president.

McCain is showing flashes of his trademark humor when it comes to Trump, too. Moments after fuming about not being Trumps nemesis, he joked to reporters that watching the presidents prime-time Supreme Court nomination announcement made him think he was watching The Apprentice.

The day he did cleanup duty with the Australians, a reporter asked McCain whether he was worried about how the new administration was handling foreign policy.

Oh no, McCain replied, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

I dont care about that, McCain said with a smile, when asked about having the president lash out at him on Twitter after he and Graham criticized Trumps executive order on immigration. He added, laughing: Ive just joined a large group of people.

But mostly McCain is taking the new president head on, at maximum volume.

When Trump issued his controversial immigration order, McCain blasted out a press release ahead of Trumps first call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia to warn that the president better not lift sanctions against the country run by a murderer and a thug.

McCain has criticized Trumps position on the North American Free Trade Agreement, castigated his nominee to lead the White House budget office, and called one proposal floated by the White House on how it can force Mexico to pay for a wall insane.

And that isnt an exhaustive list.

It is what he would do if Hillary Clinton had been elected, said Mark Salter, a former senior adviser to McCain.

Salter said the senator is doing what he thinks is in the best interest of national security, speaking out forcefully and trying to mitigate what he sees as damaging policy moves, as he did with previous presidents of both parties.

If Trumps the kind of guy who takes it personally, too bad, Salter added, noting that other presidents didnt. Grow up.

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John McCain has emerged as a leading Republican dissenter - The Boston Globe

President Donald Trump offered a fulsome defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin over the weekend, leaving Republican lawmakers frustrated and flummoxed yet again by the president's warm feelings toward the rival nation.

In a Fox News interview, Trump, who during the campaign repeatedly praised Putin, again said he respected the Russian leader and hoped to get along with Moscow, and he seemed to equate the United States with its adversary when pressed by host Bill O'Reilly, who said, "But he's a killer though. Putin's a killer."

"There are a lot of killers," Trump said, in an interview that aired Sunday before the Super Bowl. "We've got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country's so innocent?"

Trump's comments came even as his United Nations envoy, Nikki Haley, on Thursday condemned Russia's "aggressive actions" in eastern Ukraine and as both the Senate and House intelligence committees launched investigations into alleged hacking by Russia of the U.S. election that the intelligence community believes was intended to benefit Trump.

The issue of Russia dogged Trump's presidential campaign - including after a news conference where he suggested that Russia hack Hillary Clinton's emails - and his latest comments left Capitol Hill Republicans scrambling to distance themselves from the president and his unusually friendly stance toward Putin, who has praised the president as a "smart" man.

In an interview with CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called Putin "a former KGB agent" and "a thug," and he rejected any comparison between the two nations, citing Russia's annexation of Crimea, its incursions into Ukraine and its interference in the U.S. presidential election.

"I don't think there's any equivalency between the way that the Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does," McConnell said.

The senator added that while he hoped not to "critique the president's every utterance," he found significant differences between the two nations. "I do think America is exceptional. America is different," McConnell said. "We don't operate in any way the way the Russians do. I think there's a clear distinction here that all Americans understand, and no, I would not have characterized it that way."

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was similarly wary. "Speaker Ryan has consistently and frequently spoken out on Russia and Putin and made his opinions well known, including the need for continued sanctions," spokeswoman AshLee Strong said Sunday.

She pointed to Ryan's comments at a CNN town hall broadcast last month, where he called Russia a "global menace" and said Putin "does not share our interests; he frustrates our interests."

"Let me put it this way, the Russians are up to no good, we all know that," Ryan said, responding to a question about Russia's election meddling. "We've got to make sure going forward that we do everything we can on cyber, on all of the other things to make sure that they can't do this again."

Congressional Republicans have broken with Trump over dozens of controversial statements he has made during his campaign, his transition and now his presidency. But few issues appear to have confounded lawmakers as much as his consistent defense of Putin. Trump's coziness is at odds with years of Republican foreign policy orthodoxy calling for a more aggressive stance toward Putin's regime.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., weighed in on Twitter with two missives that he personally penned. "When has a Democratic political activists ever been poisoned by the GOP or vice versa? We are not the same as #Putin," he wrote. In a second tweet, he said the United States should lift sanctions on Russia only if it ends its violations in Ukraine.

And Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wy., the daughter of former Vice President Richard Cheney, also took to Twitter to say that Trump's "statement suggesting moral equivalence between Putin's Russia and the United States of America is deeply troubling and wrong."

Appearing on four Sunday shows, Vice President Mike Pence rejected the notion that Trump had equated Russia to the United States.

"I simply don't accept that there was any moral equivalency in the president's comments," Pence said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "There was no moral equivalency. What you heard there was a determination to attempt to deal with the world as it is - to start afresh with Putin and to start afresh with Russia."

Pressed by John Dickerson, the show's host, on whether he believed the United States was morally superior to Russia, Pence repeatedly dodged the question, instead finally saying, "American ideals are superior to countries all across the world."

Pence, who would not commit to maintaining sanctions against Russia if it continues to violate a cease-fire agreement in Ukraine, nonetheless took a slightly harder line than the president on Russia.

Asked on ABC's "This Week" whether the White House planned to put Russia on notice, as it had Iran, over violating the cease-fire, Pence said, "We're watching, and very troubled by the increased hostilities over the past week in eastern Ukraine."

But he also broadly defended his boss, saying, "There's a new style of leadership, not just a new leader in the White House."

"President Trump is bringing a very candid - and direct type of leadership to the White House," Pence said. "And in conversations with leaders around the world, frankly, I think they all find it very refreshing."

Not everyone seemed to agree. Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who ran against Trump during the 2016 Republican primaries, issued a sharp rebuke on Twitter. "America has been a beacon of light and freedom," he wrote. "There is no equivalence with the brutal regime of Vladimir Putin."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., even called for an investigation by the FBI into Trump's financial, personal and political connections to Russia.

"I want to know what the Russians have on Donald Trump," she said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We want to see his tax returns so we can have truth in the relationship between Putin, whom he admires, and Donald Trump."

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Republicans decry Trump's defense of Putin, Russia - Chicago Tribune

A coal-fired power plant near Center, North Dakota, in 2008. Tom Stromme / AP

On Feb. 3, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, introduced a bill in the House that would terminate the EPA by the end of 2018.

The bill comes two months after Trump appointed Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the agency picking an ally of the fossil fuel industry who has long been skeptical of climate change and has filed 14 lawsuits against the EPA.

In addition to Gaetz, here are the Republican sponsors, most of whom cite job creation as their main objective.

Gaetz, a freshman, took aim at the EPA in a leaked email,

"Our small businesses cannot afford to cover the costs associated with compliance, too often leading to closed doors and unemployed Americans,"

If enacted, the bill would will give power back to the states and local governments, Gaetz said.

"To better protect the environment we should abolish the EPA and downstream resources to states for more effective & efficient protection," Gaetz said in a Facebook post Friday.

Gaetz's track record with the EPA is not a friendly one. For years,

As a state lawmaker, Gaetz previously came under fire for

As a representative for Georgia's 11th Congressional District, Loudermilk has served in Congress since 2015. Since then, he's signed onto almost a dozen measures to pull back environmental regulations, including one that would

After being flooded with messages online, Loudermilk defended the bill in a tweet, saying state and local governments are better equipped to protect the environment than federal agencies.

Of his support for scrapping the agency, he said: "The GA EPD would do much better protecting the environment than a big DC bureaucracy."

Loudermilk was a vocal opponent of President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, which was the first policy of its kind to set national limits on carbon dioxide produced from power plants.

He made a statement denouncing the plan in 2015, saying, "What the [Obama] Administration does not want us to know is that these standards would wreak havoc on our economy and inflict enormous costs on the American consumer."

Massie, who's represented Kentucky since 2012, has also long been an opponent of the EPA, which is why it's not surprising he's pushing to abolish the agency.

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"The Constitution reserves lawmaking authority for the legislative branch, not unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch. The EPA makes rules that undermine the voice of the American people and threaten jobs in Kentucky," Massie said in a statement Friday to

Massie's voting history reveals his disdain for the federal agency. On Friday, he voted to overturn a rule that limited methane emissions on federal land, and he has previously co-sponsored

At the beginning of the 115th Congress, Massie was assigned to three committees: Oversight and Government Reform; Science, Space and Technology; and Transportation and Infrastructure.

Palazzo, who's represented Mississippi since 2011, previously signed the

His track record on environmental issues includes:

More recently, Palazzo got backlash for being among nine Republicans who

While some conservatives are praising the proposal, the legislation has little chance of getting through both chambers of Congress.

"It's hard to imagine Congress being willing to do so, and the American public would almost certainly virulently oppose such a move," Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles Law School,

Since its creation in 1970 under President Richard Nixon, the EPA has grown into an agency with an $8 billion fund. And throughout its history, politicians have called to end the EPA both on the campaign trail and through legislation.

Six years ago, Sen. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina,

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Meet the Four Republican Lawmakers Who Want to Abolish the EPA - NBCNews.com