Every time Donald Trump tosses out the name of a new cabinet member, it feels like a hand grenade is going off. Matt Gaetz as attorney general, Robert Kennedy Junior as health secretary, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and Pete Hegseth as defence secretary. None of them has any appreciable experience in the vital areas of government they will lead. Their chief qualification is what John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser turned critic, called their “fealty” and “subservience” to the president-elect.
When I first heard of these appointments, I thought the information was coming from satirical magazine the Onion. That one of the hosts of Trump’s favourite television show, Fox & Friends, should be plucked to lead the Pentagon, with an approximately $850bn budget and leadership of all branches of the US military, seemed like an absurd prank. But after Hesgeth came the real stunners: Gaetz, Gabbard and Kennedy.
These appointments are an insult to both the American people and to the vital missions of the government departments they will lead. Senate committees will hold confirmation hearings to question the nominees before reporting to the full Senate—whether favourably, unfavourably, without a recommendation, or without taking action at all. The full Senate then gives a confirmation vote, and a majority must support an appointment for it to pass. The votes of a few moderate Republicans left in the Senate would be needed to sink these nominations, but while a few have reacted with disbelief, none has made ironclad promises to vote against Trump’s choices. If confirmed by the US Senate, they will be in crucially important jobs where they can do untold damage.
Gaetz, an ultra-conservative member of the House of Representatives until last week, drew the most stunned reaction from Republican moderates. For two years, the department of justice investigated sex-trafficking allegations against him, including allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old. The investigation was closed last year, with no charges brought against Gaetz.
Separately, the House ethics committee has prepared a report on its own investigation of Gaetz—but since he resigned his seat after being nominated for attorney general it is unclear whether it will ever see the light of day. Some senators have said they will demand to see it before they vote on his confirmation, but the House speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to disclose it. The tawdry charges include sexual misconduct with minors, illicit drug use, taking improper gifts, and obstructing government investigations of his conduct.
“I was shocked at the nomination,” Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate who occasionally votes with Democrats, told reporters. “Obviously the president has the right to nominate whomever he wishes. But this is why the Senate’s advice and consent process is so important.” She noted that many questions would likely be raised at Gaetz’s hearing, “if in fact the nomination goes forward”. Still, whether she will go up against the new president and her party isn’t clear.
The justice department enforces the rule of law and has traditionally operated independently of the White House. It handles the most serious criminal and legal cases and employs the most experienced career government lawyers. But under Gaetz, it will undoubtedly be transformed into the department of retribution, the instrument that Trump will use to prosecute his long list of enemies.
Trump absolutely loathes the justice department because it pursued two federal prosecutions of him—even though those cases fell apart when the US Supreme Court ruled that the former president was immune from almost all prosecution and that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted while he’s in office. Unsurprisingly, Trump has called for Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed to handle the Trump cases, to be fired, and he is expected to resign soon instead. Like Trump, Gaetz also enjoys immunity. Because he resigned from Congress after Trump named him attorney general, he is beyond the punitive reach of Congress.
In addition to Gaetz, Trump has appointed other toadies to key justice department jobs. His new solicitor general—the justice department lawyer who argues the government’s cases before the US Supreme Court—is Dean John Sauer, the attorney who successfully argued his immunity case. The deputy attorney general will be Todd Blanche, his personal defence lawyer. Fealty indeed.
Trump’s other appointments are almost as bizarre. Kennedy, a vocal anti-vaxxer who has peddled various conspiracy theories and championed an array of dubious medical treatments, will be in charge of the nation’s healthcare. Though some voters liked his stands against processed foods (he also champions raw milk) and child obesity, he is as far out of the mainstream of science and medicine as anyone could be. Doctors have expressed fears that if vaccines are abandoned, diseases like measles will come roaring back. (On Friday, the stocks of major vaccine manufacturers dropped.) Kennedy originally ran for president as a Democrat but ended up endorsing Trump, who appeared quite taken by the Kennedy scion and name.
The other cabinet choices, Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth, are television stars.
Gabbard was once a Democratic member of Congress and made a quixotic run for president as a Democrat in 2020, but she switched parties in 2022 and later endorsed Trump. She is known for being a commentator on Fox News. The role of the president’s top intelligence adviser is highly sensitive and though she has served in the military there is nothing in her background to suggest she is an expert in spy craft. Her critics, including Democratic members of Congress with whom she served, have denounced her for cosying up to America’s enemies, like Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin. Trump considers the intelligence agencies to be part of his detested “Deep State”. Her main orders from the White House will likely be to clean house.
Fox has another alumnus in Hegseth, the new defence secretary. Like Gabbard, he did serve in the military, but that’s about his only qualification for the job. As a weekend Fox host, his disdain for anything “woke” seems to have caught Trump’s eye. He has promised to denude the armed services of any “woke” generals and he opposes having women serve in combat roles—which they have for years now, with distinction. On Friday, news broke that Hegseth was investigated for alleged sexual assault in 2017, but was never arrested or charged. He denies wrongdoing and his lawyer said he was cleared of all allegations. Apparently, Trump did not know about the allegations before he appointed him and it’s unclear whether his appointment will be derailed by the charges.
Other cabinet nominees have come under fire for their thin credentials, including Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who gained fame for shooting her puppy when she was being considered as a vice-presidential pick. As homeland security secretary, she will be charged with carrying out Trump’s threats to deport the estimated 11.7m undocumented migrants in America.
Noem’s appointment came early, when Trump’s cabinet choices seemed to be relatively normal—Senator Marco Rubio’s appointment as secretary of state seemed practical, given his considerable experience on the Senate foreign relations committee. But with Gaetz and the announcements that followed, Trump has picked extremists who will not hesitate to do his bidding. If these people are all confirmed by the Senate, the US government will be virtually unrecognisable (and that’s before Elon Musk makes it smaller). Evidently, that’s what Trump and the people who voted for him want.
