At least three of Donald Trump’s nominees will test whether his ability to withstand allegations of sexual misconduct will carry over to his Cabinet picks.
The nominations of Matt Gaetz as attorney general, Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense and Robert Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services can determine whether the shield surrounding Trump will be transferred to his nominees — and ultimately to his Cabinet.
All three have faced allegations of sexual misconduct, but senators appear publicly willing, at least for now, to surrender to Trump after his resounding victory on November 5.
“I just don’t think you can deal with past allegations as if they were facts,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who added that Trump, as a “victim of the rule of law,” is well aware of unjust prosecutions – and that Gaetz and the others have not been convicted of any crime.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said he won’t judge any of the nominees based on “hearsay” and that he wants to hold hearings to investigate Trump’s choices. Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma said he expects lawmakers will “let everyone answer questions like we always do.”
Trump’s picks also find themselves in a position familiar to him: as both accused and wronged. He paid to cover up extramarital affairs with porn star Stormy Daniels and swimsuit model Karen McDougal and was found liable by a federal jury in a civil lawsuit several months earlier for sexually assaulting and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. But time and time again, since the October 2016 release of the Access Hollywood tape in which he bragged about groping women, Trump has largely dodged any lasting consequences or long-term political damage.
“I support all of Trump’s cabinet choices. That is a whole part of the process – there will be Senate confirmation, public hearings, the DOJ,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). “The DOJ has decided not to file charges against our colleague. And so there is the media: you want to make him guilty, to hook him and sink him, or to be tried in an execution of a man who has never been charged with a crime.
While Trump’s 2024 campaign was a cultural crusade against “wokeness” and DEI initiatives, it was also a defiant blow from men who carried a former president who himself has been found liable for sexual assault to victory. The nominations of Gaetz, Hegseth and Kennedy speak to a number of men who have cast themselves as a generation at a disadvantage in the post-#MeToo era.
Trump’s own statement at the rally, in which he pledged to be a protector of women “whether women like it or not,” epitomized for Democrats a growing disdain for the idea of consent, a statement that Vice President Kamala Harris described as ” insulting’. After Trump’s victory, the number of sexist messages on social media increased. In particular, an X-post from controversial white nationalist Nick Fuentes: “Your body, my choice. Forever.” he wrote in a rejection of #MeToo politics – was reposted more than 36,000 times and the phrase, picked up by other accounts, trended for days.
The president-elect’s own allies recognize that the current moment has been shaped by #MeToo, but in some of the exact opposite ways the movement could have imagined: the highly politicized appointment of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and the attendant accusations of sexual impropriety – have apparently numbed much of the nation.
“The President of the United States is elected by all Americans. The Senate would presumably have to vote to confirm its qualified nominees unless they have disqualified themselves for misconduct. And after Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the presumption of guilt has gone out the window,” said Mike Davis, the former Republican Senate aide who led Kavanaugh’s confirmation process and was one of Trump’s closet legal advisers.
Some of Trump’s nominations are among the first results of an election marked by a staggering gender divide, with men of all ages drawn to the thrice-married former reality TV star who is still awaiting sentencing to to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to his former president. Attorney Michael Cohen turned to Daniels. Not to mention the ubiquitous presence of Elon Musk, who will not face Senate confirmation as co-leader of the Department of Government Efficiency but has wormed his way into Trump’s inner circle even though Musk has faced lawsuits from employees who claim he has a harassing work environment.
“We are in a different era. Part of it is that we’ve seen behavior that was otherwise disqualifying when it wasn’t,” said Douglas Heye, a former Bush administration official. “The Access Hollywood tape is a perfect example of this. And Bill Clinton was so prominent on the campaign trail. There was a time when Bill Clinton was more or less canceled, and that’s over.
Eli Stokols contributed to this report.
