For days, Donald Trump’s selections for top roles in his administration were praised as exceptional normal.
As chief of staff, Susie Wiles would keep everyone in the West Wing on track. Marco Rubio would avoid a catastrophe abroad. Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Tom Homan would handle the president-elect’s aggressive border agenda.
And then, in the space of less than 24 hours, Trump added, one after another, a series of Cabinet picks that not only raised eyebrows but also stoked fear for much of Washington — and even some within the Republican Party.
It culminated in Trump on Wednesday tapping Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general, selecting one of the House of Representatives’ top flamethrowers and standouts, who himself has been investigated by the chamber’s ethics committee. Trump chose former congresswoman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard as his Director of National Intelligence, and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Both Hegseth and Gabbard served in the military, although both Trump was a dark selection known more as media personalities than for their influence on national security issues.
A senior Republican Hill official said the Gaetz decision was an “absolute gut punch.”
Trump ally and his former political strategist Roger Stone – who posted Trump’s statement on Gabbard’s nomination before even Trump did – had claimed just days ago that “they won’t be able to get the clown car into the White House” while Wiles would run operations.
That no longer seemed to be the case Wednesday, at least in the eyes of longtime party insiders and traditional actors who had hoped that Trump’s claims to upend the federal government were more of a wink and a nod than an actual plan .
Much of Washington — and even some of Trump’s own allies — is dismayed and less certain than ever that the second Trump administration will be more professional than his first, as some had hoped after the highly disciplined Wiles and co-campaign chairman Chris LaCivita’s campaign walked.
And it’s about to test the relationship between Trump and the Senate’s new Republican leader, John Thune, with the president-elect not only pushing the body to use recess appointments to install his Cabinet and to circumvent normal protocols, but also challenges them to resist his choices. .
“We went from some solid picks, to some interesting wild cards, to some that are beyond controversial and can’t be confirmed in any way,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and appointee in Trump’s first administration. “This is Trump challenging the US Senate. This means that Trump may take over the US Senate and try to put people in place through recess appointments, which could mean that we will be in a constitutional crisis from the start of Trump’s second term.”
It has not gone unnoticed by some in Trump’s circles that Gaetz traveled with Trump on his trip to Washington, DC on Wednesday. The night before, some close to Trump believed that Andrew Bailey, the attorney general of Missouri, and Robert Giuffra, the head of Sullivan and Cromwell, were among the top candidates for attorney general, according to a person familiar with the matter. deliberations.
For days, some Trump allies had praised his long list of appointees so early in the transition process as indicative of the preparatory work that transition chairs Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon had done in vetting candidates and preparing his second administration, as well as the disciplined operation that Wiles had performed. run.
“For me, what I see is decisiveness. They go fast. I don’t think they really have any trouble finding talent. They have a deep bench here and a lot of people who want to serve and are excited about it. I like the decisiveness of it,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist and former aide to President George W. Bush. “It gives me a signal that they are starting.”
“You should look forward to a pretty bouncy winter,” he added.
But there were also signs that Trump is less concerned about the qualifications for his new Cabinet posts than about finding roles for allies who have remained loyal to him — the thread connecting all of Trump’s appointments from his first week as president-elect .
“President Trump chooses his most competent loyalists first — as he should,” Mike Davis, a former Republican Senate aide and prominent conservative lawyer who had been floated as a possible attorney general, told POLITICO on Tuesday.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s nomination as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security raised eyebrows after she was fired early in Trump’s search for a running mate and is not seen as one of the party’s leading thinkers in the field of immigration policy.
Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, Trump’s new Environmental Protection Agency administrator, is widely respected by Republicans across the party spectrum but has no specific background on environmental issues — even from a deregulatory perspective. Several officials from Trump’s first administration had expected an announcement later — likely in December, when Trump made his final go-around for his EPA pick — and Zeldin’s name was not in the mix.
While Hegseth has experience in the military, with three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, the former executive director of Vets for Freedom and former CEO of Concerned Veterans for America has no defense policy experience and was picked to be Secretary of Defense, which alarmed national security and defense officials. analysts.
“I would say the best way to make our government more efficient is to elect leaders in the agencies who know how to run large organizations and can do that as a priority,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of the non- profit organization. , a nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, which tracks presidential transitions. “And so far, the people they choose don’t have that experience. Working in the news business is a very different proposition than running a multi-trillion-dollar, multi-million-person organization – to take the most obvious example.”
Trump has already surpassed his own record set in 2016, when a flurry of Cabinet appointments in November gave him a big lead over other recent presidential transitions. President Joe Biden didn’t make his first Cabinet-level appointment announcements — Alejandro Mayorkas and Antony Blinken as secretaries of Homeland Security and State, respectively — until Thanksgiving in 2020.
But some, like Taurus, worry that Trump is sacrificing speed for quality.
“They are fast and furious with naming names right now,” Stier added. “The question now will be: do they realize how important the process is? Not just on the back end, in terms of confirmation, but also on the front end, in terms of the kind of vetting that should take place before you nominate people.”
“They choose people quickly. That may be efficient, but not effective,” he added.
Transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said this week that Trump’s choices reflect his “America First” agenda.
“The American people re-elected President Trump by a wide margin, giving him a mandate to fulfill the promises he made during the campaign,” Leavitt said. “President Trump will continue to appoint highly qualified men and women who have the talent, experience and necessary skills to make America great again.”
In turning to Gaetz — whom the Justice Department under the Trump and subsequent Biden administrations investigated but did not bring charges over alleged sexual encounters with teenage girls — the president-elect, as attorney general, is trying to make one of his fiercest defenders the to lead on: in his words, “ending the partisan weaponization of our justice system.”
Still, Trump could face an uphill battle for Gaetz’s confirmation, especially if the country follows the traditional process. Democrats immediately objected to his selectionmeaning Gaetz can afford to lose just four Republican votes if push comes to shove. But in the new Republican majority, the rejections of moderate Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine would not be enough to suppress him either. Collins has already expressed concerns about his nomination. according to Punchbowl news.
“I thought it would be difficult for Trump to continue to surprise us. Sure, it’s a surprise. But it shouldn’t be that way,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist and former aide to Mitt Romney. “It’s clear he wants loyalists in these cabinet positions. He wants to snitch on the ‘deep state’ and use the DOJ as a headquarters to snitch on the ‘deep state’ and Gaetz is the ultimate choice to do that.”
Adam Wren and Alex Guillén contributed to this report.
