It was a difficult balancing act this week for Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees, few of whom agree with the president-elect on his many ever-changing, and often incomprehensible, policy positions, but all of whom would like very badly to be approved by the Senate. Winning the approval of just enough Democrats, without losing the approval of Trump, was always going to be a tall order.

The trouble began for Mike Pompeo, James Mattis, John Kelly, and Rex Tillerson right out of the gate, as Democrats used each of their hours-long confirmation hearings to drive daylight between them and the president-elect. There was plenty for Trump’s nominees to delicately push back on. Few of Trump’s most prominent proposals—a border wall, a Muslim registry, a warmer relationship with Russia—have bipartisan backing, much less a plurality of support. Aware of their boss’s controversial stances, the four men frequently broke with him during the hearings, particularly on the subject of Russia.

Mattis, a former Marine general up for secretary of defense, and Pompeo, a congressman who is in line to take control of the C.I.A., repeatedly denounced Russia’s attempts to weaken America’s faith in the democratic process. “I would consider the principle threats to start with Russia,” Mattis said during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I’m all for engagement, but we also have to recognize reality in what Russia is up to, and there’s a decreasing number of areas where we can engage cooperatively.” Pompeo said much the same, calling Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election an “aggressive action” and contradicting Trump’s assertion that Vladimir Putin was doing much of anything to help fight the Islamic State.

Pompeo, who would step into a rapidly escalating cold war between the president-elect and the U.S. intelligence community, largely sided with the C.I.A. when he went before the Senate on Thursday, testifying that he was alarmed by Trump’s decision to publicly undercut his own spies. “It sends a message to our adversaries, to our enemies, that somehow they might be able to take advantage of us because we are so in conflict in terms of the president and the intelligence community,” he said, promising that under his directive, the C.I.A. would continue to deliver “accurate, timely, robust, and clear-eyed analysis of Russian activities.”

While Tillerson largely echoed Trump’s tone toward Russia, the former ExxonMobil C.E.O. broke with the president-elect on climate change (a real threat, he said) and on the question of nuclear proliferation, which he said should be limited (Trump has suggested Japan and South Korea should build their own nuclear weapons).

Kelly, another retired general, who is nominated to lead the Department of Homeland Security, said he believed that a physical border wall would not actually deter illegal immigrants, and that torture, particularly the “much worse” torture Trump promised on the campaign trail, was unacceptable. “I don’t think we should ever come close to crossing a line that is beyond what we as Americans would expect to follow in terms of interrogation techniques,” he stated.

In several instances where they disagreed with the president-elect, Trump’s nominees claimed not to have spoken with him in-depth. Kelly said he had not discussed DACA with Trump, and in a stunning moment during a heated exchange with Marco Rubio, Tillerson said that he and Trump had not talked about their Russia policy in any detail.

Trump appeared to shrug off the media attention being paid to his differences of opinion with his would-be Cabinet members. “All of my Cabinet nominee are looking good and doing a great job,” he tweeted. “I want them to be themselves and express their own thoughts, not mine!”