Gaetz, Gabbard and Hegseth: Trump’s Picks Are a Show of Force

News Analysis

Gaetz, Gabbard and Hegseth: Trump’s Picks Are a Show of Force

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet picks show that he prizes loyalty over experience and is fueled by retribution.

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By Katie Rogers

Reporting from Washington

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See the latest on Trump’s cabinet and staff picks as he transitions into the White House.

A Fox News ally for defense secretary. A former Democrat-turned-Trump-World-celebrity to oversee 18 spy agencies. A right-wing provocateur for the nation’s top law enforcement job.

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s picks for top government jobs continued to roll in fast and furiously on Wednesday, and his promise to build a presidential administration fueled by retribution quickly came into view.

Those plans were perhaps best summarized by Representative Matt Gaetz, who wrote of his enthusiasm for the wholesale elimination of federal law enforcement agencies just hours before Mr. Trump announced he’d chosen the Florida Republican to lead the Justice Department:

“We ought to have a full-court press against this WEAPONIZED government that has been turned against our people,” Mr. Gaetz wrote on social media on Wednesday. “And if that means abolishing every one of the three letter agencies, from the FBI to the ATF, I’m ready to get going!”

Mr. Trump could not have said it better himself. And that is the entire point.

The president-elect’s other bombshell picks include Pete Hegseth, a military veteran known for defending Mr. Trump on Fox News, to be his defense secretary; and Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, to be director of national intelligence.

“These are so appalling they’re a form of performance art,” Michael Waldman, the president of the Brennan Center for Justice, said in an interview, reflecting on Mr. Trump’s choices and their fitness for their jobs.

This parade of loyalists is Mr. Trump’s first show of force to Senate Republicans, who will be under immense pressure to either confirm his nominee or sidestep that process altogether. But it is also something of a denial-of-service attack against one of the checks on the presidency: Mr. Trump has insisted that the next Senate majority leader allow for recess appointments, which would grant him the ability to unilaterally install cabinet members.

That newly elected leader, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, told reporters on Wednesday that the Senate would “explore all options” to make sure Mr. Trump’s nominees “get moved and that they get moved quickly.”

The president-elect, Mr. Waldman said, had effectively “provoked his first constitutional crisis” eight days after winning the election.

“He’s going to pick people who are conservative, who are Republicans,” Mr. Waldman said. “You know, that’s what you get with an election. But these choices seem designed to poke the Senate in the eye.”

Not all of Mr. Trump’s choices seem designed to throw a wrench into government as usual. The selection of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida elevates an established foreign policy hawk who has taken a hard-line approach to China. And the election of Mr. Thune signals that Republicans are willing to buck pressure — on a blind ballot, at least — to install Trump loyalists like Senator Rick Scott of Florida, a longtime backer of Mr. Trump’s. But among lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the reactions to the selections — Mr. Gaetz’s in particular — drew a mixture of surprise and disbelief.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said Mr. Gaetz is “not a serious candidate” and compared him to the disgraced fabulist who was expelled from the House last year, saying, “If I wanted to make a joke, maybe I would say now I’m waiting for George Santos to be named.”

In selecting Mr. Gaetz and a cast of other loyalists, Mr. Trump is trying to ensure that he can leave the levers of the federal government to people who ultimately answer to him. In this group, there is no Jeff Sessions, who was forced out as attorney general during Mr. Trump’s first term because he recused himself from the Russia inquiry.

There is no Gen. Jim Mattis, who chose to resign rather than abide by Mr. Trump’s willful fraying of international alliances. There is not even a John Bolton, the former national security adviser who ended up clashing with Mr. Trump over making what he considered unwise agreements with America’s enemies. (On Wednesday, Mr. Bolton said on NBC News NOW that the choice of Mr. Gaetz was “the worst nomination for a cabinet position in American history.”)

Timothy L. O’Brien, a longtime biographer of Mr. Trump, said that the selections are his way of ensuring loyalty to him above competence for the role.

“He prizes loyalty above competence, atmospherics above expertise, and buffoonery above maturity,” Mr. O’Brien said. “He values that at the expense of almost everything else, other than his own survival.”

Indeed, the one theme in Mr. Trump’s running personnel announcements is that no one will step in to establish guardrails for a president who despises them.

Instead, the Senate will now grapple with confirming Mr. Hegseth, whom Mr. Trump praised as “tough, smart and a true believer in America First,” but who may lack the experience needed to lead the 1.3 million active-duty men and women of the American military. In Mr. Trump’s eyes, Mr. Hegseth’s criticisms of “woke” behavior in the armed forces and of the military’s diversity programs could be qualification enough.

They will also review the credentials of Ms. Gabbard, who is one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal supporters. She has long been popular with Russian state media. Democratic senators are expected to ask her about her decision to meet with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and her past embrace of Russian talking points.

And they will consider the track record of Mr. Gaetz, who was recently the subject of a federal sex-trafficking investigation that was concluded in 2023. If he is confirmed, he will lead the Department of Justice, which carried out that investigation.

Mr. Gaetz was also the target of a House Ethics Committee investigation into accusations of drug use, using campaign funds for personal use, and sharing inappropriate material on the House floor, among other offenses. He resigned from the chamber on Wednesday after Mr. Trump chose him for attorney general, effectively ending the investigation.

As a congressman, Mr. Gaetz has also introduced legislation that would limit sentences for people who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol, and became notorious for his conflicts with other House members. (Representative Max Miller, Republican of Ohio, told reporters on Wednesday that at least the House would be a more peaceful place without Mr. Gaetz.)

“The Justice Department usually prosecutes bomb throwers,” Mr. Waldman said. “This would be somebody whose entire political brand is as a bomb thrower, being put in charge of an agency with extraordinary responsibility and power.”

It will now be up to the Senate to decide whether, or how, Mr. Trump’s choices will be installed. As a candidate, Mr. Trump had promised that he would root out government corruption, combat censorship and seek revenge on “enemies from within” who have unfairly targeted him. As president-elect, Mr. Trump’s organized, quick, headline-grabbing cascade of choices is designed to show that he meant what he said, and that he intends to redirect institutions from functioning on behalf of the national interest to functioning on the behalf of his.

“There are all sorts of things going on inside those agencies that we’re not going to be able to see, that are really important to the integrity and the smooth functioning of American life,” Mr. O’Brien said. “And they’re going to be in there with matches, seeing what, what catches fire first.”

Reporting was contributed by Carl Hulse, Maya C. Miller and Julian E. Barnes.

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.

• 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.
• Middle East: Trump’s emerging team in the Middle East appears poised to push U.S. foreign policy into even tighter accord with Israel’s far-right government.
• Foreign Policy: While many of Trump’s foreign policy picks were once called neocons by their peers, they now speak the language of the “America First” movement.
• 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.
• Department of Education: The president-elect said he would use the department to further his priorities. He also said he would close it. Both options would face difficulties.
• Slashing Government: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been tapped to lead what Trump called the Department of Government Efficiency, which he said would seek “drastic change.”