The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to approve former CIA director Mike Pompeo as secretary of state Thursday after a bruising battle by Democrats against President Donald Trump's nominee.
Senators voted 57-42 in favor of the Republican former member of the House of Representatives.
It's one of the slimmest margins for the job in recent history. Every past nominee since at least the Carter administration has received 85 or more yes votes, with the exception of Trump's first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. He got 56 yes votes.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito swore in Pompeo just an hour after the vote.
State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said Pompeo would kick out his term as top diplomat with a trip to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel this weekend, after a stop in Brussels for a NATO meeting.
"No other secretary in recent history has gone on a trip as quickly as he has," Nauert told reporters.
Speaking on the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews in front of the secretary's government jet as he arrived from his Supreme Court swearing-in, Nauert said the stops were chosen to reflect their "importance as key allies and partners in the region."
Pompeo, who has earned Trump's confidence after a year at the CIA, was accused by Democrats as being too hawkish and harboring deep anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ sentiments.
The approval came in time for Pompeo to lead the U.S. delegation to NATO foreign minister talks in Brussels this weekend and to arrange a summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the coming months.
Pompeo has been deeply engaged in the administration's efforts on North Korea and recently traveled to Pyongyang.
Pompeo will be forced quickly to address a wide array of other international challenges, including long conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, Chinese expansionism in Asia and Russian assertiveness.
Washington is also working with European allies such as French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to decide whether to toughen an international nuclear agreement with Iran.
Pompeo narrowly avoided a historic rebuke by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
He faced stiff opposition from Democrats, who worried he might be too closely aligned with the president.
While in Congress, Pompeo was an outspoken opponent of the Iran nuclear accord.
But he said during his confirmation hearing that he was open to fixing, rather than blowing apart, the pact, which the West believes is key to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear bomb.
Opponents also worried that Pompeo was too hawkish, and said his past remarks about homosexuals and Islam made him unsuitable to represent the United States on the world stage.
Supporters said Pompeo did well during 15 months leading the CIA, and said the country badly needed a leader at the State Department, where staffing has been slashed with many positions unfilled since Trump became president in January 2017.
Trump picked the CIA's deputy director, Gina Haspel, to replace Pompeo as head of the spy agency. If confirmed by the Senate, she would become the first woman to hold the post.
Pompeo avoided being the first nominee for secretary of state ever rejected by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee only when Republican Senator Rand Paul, who had vowed to oppose him, announced his support minutes before the committee voted on Monday after pressure from the party.