Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump’s increasingly strange, unconventional and often provocative Cabinet picks have left even the Republican senators aghast and Washington in shock and disbelief.
Trump’s message is to create awe and outrage and drive the vehicle of fear in full throttle. He touched a new level on November 13, 2024, announcing Florida Republican Matt Gaetz — one of his most zealous agents of disruption, who, like him, was once investigated by the Justice Department — as his pick for Attorney General.
Gaetz lost no time in courting controversy by calling pro-abortion rights activists as ‘fat and ugly’.
The latest selections for Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) dream team caused such a stir that they almost overshadowed the pick of Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth to serve as Defense Secretary.
News that Hegseth had been picked to lead the Pentagon rocked Washington the night before the Gaetz pick and sparked similar questions about Trump’s motives. The Fox News star has a military record after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he has little of the deep experience in high-level strategy, international diplomacy and national security that is normally required of those in charge of the planet’s most powerful military.
He, therefore, risks being outmatched on a call with a grizzled Russian or Chinese defence minister if he is called upon to defuse a ‘sudden’ crisis. But Hegseth’s years on Fox demonstrate that he’s highly qualified to lead a culture war inside the Defense Department given his condemnation of diversity programmes, women serving in combat and advocacy for Trump to free service personnel accused of war crimes.
Tulsi Gabbard, the one-time Democratic presidential candidate, who now shares Trump’s belief that the intelligence community has been weaponized against him, will be America’s new top spy if confirmed as Director of national intelligence.
Sources said they are perfectly in tune with Trump’s campaign trail promises and political project. The dismay engulfing establishment elites contrasted with the euphoria rocketing through conservative networks and social media among Trump fans. The President-elect draws political strength from his position as an outsider scourge of the establishment, and if his picks are confirmed by the Senate — a huge if in the case of Gaetz — they will be tasked with his mission of defenestrating government and driving out those Trump sees as enemies.
Trump won the election and has a mandate for change and these and other picks are proof of a President-elect who is increasingly powerful and cares little for the critics who warn his second term poses a threat to the rule of law.
Trump’s short-lived former first-term communications director Anthony Scaramucci told CNN that the President-elect’s personnel selections were purposely meant to “own the liberals.” Paraphrasing Trump’s intent, he added: “‘Let’s pick some triggering people.’ And those are the triggering people.”
Gaetz — who had been under a House Ethics Committee investigation — resigned from Congress on November 13, 2024, in the wake of Trump’s announcement. The committee, which had been probing allegations that he “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favours to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct” — was due to meet this week to vote on releasing a report, potentially as soon as November 15, 2024.
Hegseth, Gaetz and Gabbard pose questions about Trump’s motivations and the direction of his second administration that begins on January 20, 2024, not least because of their professional, ethical or experiential qualities, or lack of them.
Is Trump looking for an attorney general to ensure the administering of fair justice? If so, would he have chosen Gaetz, who had been under investigation? But the President-elect was clear in his announcement of his intent to nominate him: “Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan weaponization of our Justice System.” Trump’s statement seems to play into his long-term aspiration to find an attorney general who defends him and targets his enemies.
“This is an outrageous pick. There is no way around it,” CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, a former assistant US attorney, said.
– global bihari bureau
