Former ambassador to the United Nations and Republican Party 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley criticized newly elected President Donald Trump’s decision to give high-profile posts in his administration to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And Tulsi Gabbardboth candidates whose future nominations have drawn some criticism over their backgrounds.
On Kennedy’s selection to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Haley criticized his lack of healthcare expertise and his previous party affiliation as a Democrat.
“Who is RFK Jr? He’s not a health guy, he’s been asking questions about what’s in our food, and I’m right there with him,” Haley said on SiriusXM’s “Nikki Haley Live.” However, she added: “That is not his background. He is not educated, trained or practiced in healthcare at all.” She also referred to him as a “liberal Democrat” several times.
Kennedy has a long track record of criticism vaccinesalthough he recently claimed he is not against vaccines. But public health experts have taken issue with his long track record of misleading statements questioning the safety of vaccines and worry he could undo decades of hard-fought victories in improving vaccine safety. vaccination rate in return for fatal diseases.
Haley, who challenged Trump in the Republican primaries and later endorsed him, also criticized Gabbard, a former congresswoman who represented Hawaii and Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, for her “disgusting” past statements about human rights abuses in Syria, which Haley said. says an echo of Russian propaganda.
“This is a job for an honest broker with no stated policy biases,” Haley said. “She went to Syria in 2017 for a photo op with [Syrian President Bashir] Al-Assad while he was slaughtering his own people… this was disgusting to me.” Haley added: “Everything she said about that was Russian talking points, Russian propaganda.”
Gabbard defended her 2017 meeting with Assad at the time as a “fact-finding mission,” although she later called him a “brutal dictator.” In 2019, she also expressed her opposition to US involvement in Syria’s civil war, saying that Assad “is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.” Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gabbard has no intelligence experience and opposes US intervention in the war in Ukraine.
The Senate is expected to provide advice and consent during the confirmation process once Trump formalizes their appointments. Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, whom Trump planned to appoint as attorney general, withdrew his name will be removed from consideration Thursday during a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use against him.
