‘They Are There to Destroy’: Rogues Gallery of Trump Appointees Condemned
Incoming president has named various allies unfit for their appointed posts
Donald Trump’s not acting in good faith with his string of bizarre allies that he has nominated for his Cabinet, according to a growing chorus of lawmakers and others.
In recent days, Trump has nominated Fox News personality Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, a sympathizer of Russian leader Vladimir Putin — former Rep Tulsi Gabbard — as incoming intelligence chief, conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr at the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, and suspected sex trafficking former congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general.
And one bizarre appointment seems to generate more outrage than the one before it.
“These folks that Donald Trump continues to appoint, he is putting them there to execute his wishes. You heard what [Republican congressman] Troy Nehls just said. This is not about adherence to the Constitution. This isn’t about rule of law,” Tara Setmeyer, a former Republican strategist who has become a persistent Trump critic. “This isn’t about reforming bureaucracies that need a couple of nuances here are there to make them more efficient. This is about destroying our current government in its form and shaping it in the image and likeness of Donald freaking Trump.”
CNN host Jake Tapper faced off on-camera with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson over Trump’s troublesome appointments.
“So, just to take a step back, because you and I have known each other for a long time, you’re a man of faith, you’re a man of God, you’re a man of family. With some of these nominees, Gaetz, Hegseth, RFK Jr., I wonder, does it matter anymore for Republicans to think of leaders as people who are moral in their personal lives?” Tapper asked. “Is that still important to the Republican Party?”
Johnson only defended the picks as people who would “shake up the status quo.”
Senate Democrats will do “whatever it takes” to defend the US Constitution in the face of Trump’s nominations, according to Send Alex Padilla (D-Calif).
“What are Democrats prepared to do in response? Whatever it takes. Not just to uphold the Constitution of the United States, but the interests of the people here,” Padilla said in an interview with MSNBC. “Donald Trump is way beyond making a mockery of what an incoming president should be doing, regardless of who is in the majority of Congress.
“It is one thing to have policy disagreements, but the examples that you laid out, whether it is Tulsi Gabbard having privy to the most sensitive intelligence information when she has sided with the leaders of Syria and Russia and others is undermining our national security,” he said. The selection of Gaetz, are you kidding me? As a potential attorney general of the United States? You make reference to this ethics report, that is just the beginning of it.
“This is not just a guy who is gotten in trouble for stealing bubblegum, right? The accusations against him, the witnesses and evidence against him has to do with sex trafficking of minors, among other things. These are people who are far from being qualified to be in the position that Donald Trump wants them,” Padilla added.
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