Trump’s Cabinet Picks, Panned in Washington, Thrill Many of His Voters

Where Donald J. Trump’s critics see underqualified nominees with questionable judgment, his voters described them as mavericks recruited to shake up Washington.

To his detractors, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet looks like a rogues’ gallery of people with dubious credentials and questionable judgment.

His supporters see something different.

“It’s a masterpiece,’’ Eileen Margolis, 58, who lives in Weston, Fla., and owns a tattoo business, said of Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks unveiled over the past week. “If it was a painting, it would be a Picasso.”

A “brilliant alliance,’’ is how Joanne Warwick, 60, a former Democrat from Detroit, described many of the nominees.

“It’s pretty much a star cast,’’ said Judy Kanoui of Flat Rock, N.C., a retiree and lifelong Democrat who voted for Mr. Trump for the first time this month.

Democrats, and even some Republicans, worry that these nominees for top positions in government are inexperienced, conflicted and potentially reckless. But in interviews with almost two dozen Trump voters around the country, his supporters were more likely to describe them as mavericks and reformers recruited to deliver on Mr. Trump’s promise to shake up Washington.

In Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee for health and human services secretary, Mr. Trump’s supporters see a crusader searching for new solutions to chronic illnesses, not a conspiracy theorist promoting questionable and debunked ideas about vaccines and fluoride.

In Matt Gaetz, the nominee for attorney general, many Trump supporters look past the ethical investigation into allegations that he had a relationship with a 17-year-old girl and possibly violated federal sex trafficking laws, and see a provocateur who is willing to punish the Democrats who unjustly prosecuted the president-elect.

“I think it’s so crazy, and I love it,’’ Merrill McCollum, 60, of Bozeman, Mont., said of the nominees.

Ms. McCollum said she voted for Mr. Trump after becoming frustrated by bureaucracy, identity politics and the rising cost of living. She is excited by his appointments of people she sees as outsiders to Washington, D.C., a place she got to know while working there during tours in naval intelligence.

“What we’ve been doing in the past really hasn’t worked,’’ she added.

Not everyone is thrilled with every nominee. Some said the choice of Mr. Gaetz, a polarizing figure in both parties, could prove an unnecessary distraction and expressed doubts that he could be confirmed. Others thought the cabinet was not anti-establishment enough, pointing to Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who was tapped as secretary of state.

Brian Kozlowski, a 40-year-old lawyer in Orlando, said even after Mr. Trump’s resounding victory, his own expectations were relatively low that his candidate would be able to bring about lasting change in Washington. But the cabinet appointees have made him hopeful.

“It’s an actual fulfillment of a politician dispensing with the norms,” said Mr. Kozlowski.

“The No. 1 thing to me, and a lot of Trump voters, is getting rid of the swamp,’’ he added. “This is what is shocking some people — it may actually be happening.”

Among the nominees most praised in the interviews was Mr. Kennedy, who often speaks of addressing the rise in chronic health conditions.

Many health experts are alarmed by Mr. Kennedy’s unfounded claims that vaccines cause autism and by his threats to sue medical journals and fire hundreds of employees at the National Institutes of Health. They fear that as health secretary, he could undo generations of sound public health policy.

But voters who support Mr. Trump said they admired Mr. Kennedy’s focus on environmental toxins and his break with his famous family over his unorthodox views.

David Dollar, 71, a home improvement contractor in Durham, N.C., said he appreciated Mr. Kennedy’s push to examine how corporate agricultural and food manufacturing affects Americans’ health.

“I see the epidemic of obesity in our country,” Mr. Dollar said. “I really appreciate Mr. Kennedy’s passion for trying to change these things.”

Ms. Warwick, the former Democrat from Detroit, said, “I bet there’s a bunch of people shaking in their boots” about Mr. Kennedy’s selection. But in the end, she said, “Democrats might actually like some of his policies.”

Perhaps more than any other policy stance, Mr. Kennedy’s criticism of vaccines resonated with Trump supporters, many of whom said they were still angry about the mandates and business and school shutdowns during the pandemic. They blamed them on President Biden, not Mr. Trump, who was president when the pandemic started.

The more criticism the cabinet nominees elicit, Trump voters said, the more it proves that Washington is scared of change.

Donna Hutz, 60, of Hubbard, Ohio, said she has been happy about every appointment announced so far, particularly Mr. Gaetz, a former Florida congressman who resigned last week after Mr. Trump announced his nomination. Ms. Hutz believes that the allegations against Mr. Gaetz are false, which makes her root for his success even more.

The Justice Department under Mr. Biden declined to file charges in the case, and Mike Johnson, the House speaker, said he objected to releasing a report on an ethics committee’s investigation into the allegations because Mr. Gaetz resigned from Congress.

“It’s not what he’s done, it’s what was done to him,” said Ms. Hutz, a portfolio manager at an information technology company.

She said the backlash to some of Mr. Trump’s appointments did not surprise her, because in her view, his opponents have been blinded by the media.

“They’re losing it, and I’m enjoying every minute of it,” Ms. Hutz said of Mr. Trump’s critics.

Not all comments were unalloyed praise.

Ron Riggs, 65, a real estate broker in Torrance, Calif., said he thought Mr. Gaetz’s nomination was counterproductive, even though he could understand why Mr. Trump might want a loyalist in that position.

“It’ll bring drama and things to the surface that aren’t needed,” Mr. Riggs said. “This country has been so separated for so long, and we need a smooth pathway to get things done.”

Some worried that cabinet would not work quickly enough to end the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Cole Graham, 30, took issue with the selections of Mr. Rubio and Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host who was tapped to run the Pentagon.

Mr. Graham, who lives in Arizona, said those men appeared “too war hawkish.”

“I do not support further encroachment of Israel into Gaza or into the West Bank,” he said. “I was hoping we might be able to take a step back.”

Many Muslim voters backed Mr. Trump to protest the Biden administration’s unwavering support for Israel in its war against Gaza.

One of those voters, Khaled Saffuri, a Palestinian American of Fairfax County, Va., said he worried that Mr. Rubio, the secretary of state nominee, is “pro-Israel to no limit.” But Mr. Saffuri believes if Mr. Trump keeps his campaign promises, he will step in to end the war.

“I didn’t think he was going to appoint angels,” said Mr. Saffuri, 65, who leads a foundation involved in foreign policy issues.

Sam Alasri, who heads a Yemeni political organization in Michigan, said he was also willing to give Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt.

He said that Mr. Trump’s nominations, including Representative Elise Stefanik for U.N. ambassador and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas as ambassador to Israel, raised some concern.

But, “we trust him,” Mr. Alasri said of Mr. Trump. “I trust his word.”

Eric Adelson, Hamed Aleaziz, Emily Cochrane, Eduardo Medina, Christina Morales, Mitch Smith, Anna Venarchik and Verónica Zaragovia contributed reporting.

Trump Builds His Administration

As his team ramps up the transition process, President-elect Donald Trump says his administration will radically reshape the federal government.

• White House Press Secretary: Trump announced that he had chosen Karoline Leavitt, who worked in his administration and was his campaign’s press secretary, to be his White House press secretary.
• Justice Department: Trump intends to nominate three members of his criminal defense team to senior roles at the department, raising further concerns about politicization of the department.
• Health and Human Services: Trump said he would nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy opposes fluoride in water, promotes unproven Covid therapies and has threatened to prosecute medical journals.
• Immigration: Trump’s plans to expel noncitizens on a mass scale are likely to raise prices on goods and services and lower employment rates for U.S. workers, many economists say.
• Skirting the Senate: Trump’s demand that Senate Republicans surrender their role in vetting his nominees poses an early test of whether his second term will be more radical than his first.