Walter Mondale: U.S. must fill embassy vacancies

Former Vice President Walter Mondale said Tuesday in a New York Times op-ed that lack of action by the Senate is putting the country's national security in jeopardy.

Multiple United States ambassador posts have been left vacant due to what Mondale called "Senate politics."

He discussed the issue with MPR News host Tom Crann on Wednesday. Listen to the full interview above.

Mondale, a former ambassador to Japan, said there are a dozen or so U.S. embassies currently without heads. There have been nominations to fill the posts, and the Senate's foreign relations committee has acted on them, often favorably, he said.

Still, Mondale said, they've sat on the Senate calendar without being acted on because someone has placed a hold on them, blocking a vote.

"A hold is an arcane process by which one senator — without saying on what basis he acts and without disclosing his name — can just tell the leadership, 'I don't want that name called up,'" Mondale told Crann.

The hold provision has been around for a long time, Mondale said, but it hasn't been "abused" like this until recently.

The embassy vacancies threaten the country's national security, Mondale said.

"Some of the very people who give these speeches about how we have to be tough on our opponents, bombing them and the rest, are missing in action when we try to get our diplomatic forces together to strengthen the American and the western position," Mondale said.

Mondale, who was a senator from 1964 to 1976, said it would be hard to ask for a rule change to remedy the situation, but it's more reasonable to ask for these vacant spots to be filled.