On Tuesday, Trump chose Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and veteran, to be his secretary of defense. Hegseth has opposed women in combat roles and questioned whether the top American general was promoted to his position because of his skin colour. He also lobbied Trump during his 2017 to 2021 term to pardon servicemembers who allegedly committed war crimes.
Sprinkled in with those personnel choices were more conventional selections. Trump said on Wednesday he would nominate Senator Marco Rubio, who is a hardliner on China, as his new secretary of state.
But on the whole, his selections signal a radical shift in the way the US government conducts its business and in the role America will play in the world over the next four years.
Trump has said he wants to end the “weaponisation” of the Justice Department, which he said brought politically motivated criminal cases against him to hurt his presidential candidacy. The department says it acts without political bias.
LOYALTY
One common thread for Trump’s picks: He chose unfailingly loyal people who are unlikely to push back against his most controversial orders, analysts said.
Trump pledged on the campaign trail to go after his political enemies, including Democratic President Joe Biden, a pledge that Gaetz, his attorney general-designate, is unlikely to stand in the way of.
“Gaetz will do exactly as Trump says, which is why he was picked I guess,” said a source close to Trump, after Gaetz’s selection as was announced.
A half dozen sources close to Trump world, including donors, consultants and fundraisers, said privately that they were shocked by the choice of Gaetz because of his limited qualifications and past DOJ investigation into him.
“I was shocked that he has been nominated,” Republican senator Susan Collins, a moderate from Maine, told reporters about the Gaetz selection. “The president obviously has the right to nominate whomever he wants. But I think this is an example of why it’s so important that we have the advice and consent provisions in the Constitution.”
Some of Trump’s other nominees also lack any meaningful qualifications. Hegseth, while a decorated combat veteran, is best known in recent years as a media personality. He will now oversee the better part of 3 million employees and the world’s largest fighting force.
“Being secretary of defense is a very serious job, and putting someone as dangerously unqualified as Pete Hegseth into that role is something that should scare all of us,” said Tammy Duckworth, a Democratic senator from Illinois who sits on the armed services committee.
