Donald Trump is refusing to back down over his Cabinet picks in the first clash in an epic battle he will wage against Washington when he takes office next year.
The coming days will show whether Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have staying power for confirmation fights in the new Republican Senate over their assignments to safeguard the rule of law, the US intelligence community, the military, and the health and well-being of all Americans.
Each of the most provocative selections is facing criticism that they lack the expertise and experience to run the vast, specialized bureaucracies that would be under their control.
And debate over their prospects is intensifying following fresh revelations and allegations about their pasts, which will set up a test for Trump’s intention to wield what he regards as almost uncheckable power from the Oval Office.
CNN reported Saturday that Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary, paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault in a settlement agreement that included a confidentiality clause, according to Hegseth’s attorney. The Fox News anchor has denied assaulting the woman, according to the attorney, and was not charged in any criminal case or named as a defendant in any civil lawsuit in connection with the 2017 incident. The initial sexual assault allegation against Hegseth had caught Trump’s team off guard last week, after the president-elect had already picked him.
Intrigue also deepened over a House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz, the potential attorney general, after a lawyer who represents two of the witnesses in the probe said Friday that one of his clients saw the Florida Republican, who resigned from Congress last week, having sex with a minor. Gaetz denies any wrongdoing, including ever having sex with a minor or paying for sex. He was not charged after a Department of Justice investigation.
There is also growing scrutiny over Gabbard’s suitability for the job of director of national intelligence because of her positions that sometimes amplified the propaganda of one of the covert community’s top adversaries — Russia.And some senior medical experts are raising concerns over the qualifications of Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, to safeguard generations of medical advances as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, even though his outspokenness against processed food has found support among many top physicians.
Not all of Trump’s picks are causing uproar. The selection of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to serve as secretary of state has won praise on both sides of the aisle. But in a conventional administration, controversies raging around at least four key Cabinet picks would be seen as a disaster.
Trump is adamant he’s not going to give in as he seeks people who will fulfill his goals of tearing down the Washington establishment in a second term he pledged to devote to retribution. A source told CNN over the weekend that Trump sees Gaetz as his most important pick. The president-elect wants the former Florida congressman confirmed “100%,” the source said. “He is not going to back off. He’s all in.”
