A veteran and television commentator at the head of the Pentagon, a member of Congress under investigation for sex crimes by prosecutors and an anti-vaccine Health official. Donald Trump wasted no time in appointing his new cabinet, plagued by unconventional and incendiary profiles who will not tremble when it comes to implementing the most ambitious reforms of their program.
Furthermore, the creation of an advisory department headed by the controversial Elon Musk demonstrates its desire to break with all the social policies and institutional structures of recent years. A hard blow for “culture” woke up from within the state.
So, a week after signing his victory in the presidential elections, Trump sent a message to his party colleagues and American citizens: he does not want to see the same thing again. internal obstacles which stopped some of its ambitions during his first term.
If in 2017 he had to face a series of politicians from the old guard of the Republican Party who responded with reluctance to his accession to the leadership of the party and his ways of exercising power, in 2025 – when he takes office – he will find a Congress with a conservative majority and a large number of followers of “Trumpism”a Supreme Court forged during his previous mandate and, as his appointments indicate, a government team ready to carry out the most radical promises of his campaign until the end of the consequences.
His choices to lead the three entities that most resisted Trump’s first push: the Justice Department, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies show that the Trump of 2024 is choosing loyalty vs experience.
A prosecutor investigated
The appointment of Matt Gaetz As the new attorney general, he perplexed Washington and even aroused Republican suspicions. “I don’t know. “I’ll have to think about it,” Congressman Lindsey Graham, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who will interview Gaetz before voting on his nomination, managed to say, moments after the ‘announcement.
Gaetz, 42, has never worked at the Justice Department or as a prosecutor, a demonstration of Trump’s tendency to appoint nominees with limited experience. His experience in the legal world is also limited: he worked for a brief period in a law firm before being elected as a congressman from a district in Florida.
On the other hand, its history of scandals is long. The same Justice Department he aspires to lead investigated him for alleged sex trafficking crimes. Although the investigation was archived, years later the House Ethics Committee opened another investigation into accusations that included sexual misconduct, such as sending inappropriate videos from the chambers of Congress and illicit drug use. Once his nomination was confirmed, Gaetz immediately resigned as a congressman and the investigation was called off.
Gaetz was also one of the most supportive members of Congress in Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, even running for Speaker of the House of Representatives that paralyzed Congress for several days and that only the most extreme wing voted. the Republican Party.
His nomination resembles a “vendetta” by Trump against himself The Department of Justice which refused to prosecute the tycoon’s adversariesincluding his opponent Hillary Clinton, and refused to say there were substantial irregularities in the last election.
Purge of the Pentagon
The new president-elect also has outstanding accounts with the Pentagon, headed by the secretary of Defense, a position which, during Trump’s previous term, had two confirmed and three acting secretaries. The last, Mark Esper, refused to deploy military troops during the 2020 anti-racism protests and was fired.
Trump also had disagreements with his defense officials when They turned their backs on him in his attempt not to recognize the election results. in which he was defeated. In fact, Mark Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the highest rank in the US armed forces), went so far as to describe him as “a total fascist.”
Trump’s enmity towards the US armed forces is such that he had to go to the televisions to find his candidate for Secretary of Defense: Peter Hegsethcurrently host of the conservative news channel Fox News.
Hegseth is an Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, but never led a military organization. It began to gain popularity for defending soldiers convicted of war crimes and Guantanamo prison practices, among other controversial statements.
Trained at Princeton University, at the prestigious Ivy League, Hegseth criticizes the diversity policies implemented in the American army. “We shouldn’t have women in combat roles,” she even said on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast, where she said the Pentagon needed to be purged because it had succumbed to the culture. woke upterm used to criticize policies regarding social inequality, race or gender.
Russia’s ‘girlfriend’ at the CIA
Of Tulsi GabbardChosen to head US intelligence, Russian TV presenter even said she was ‘the country’s sweetheart’ favorable opinions on Russia in relation to NATO expansion and the invasion of Ukraine. She is also a strong supporter of Israel’s actions and has made the fight against Islamic terrorism her personal crusade.
What is curious is that Gabbard, also retired from the army, was an opponent of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the nomination for president of the Democratic Party, a party she abandoned in 2022 to finally move to the Republican side. in 2024. Its story of changes does not end there: in 2016 supported Bernie Sanders in the primariesrepresentative of the most progressive and social democratic wing of American politics. From one extreme to the other.
Donald Trump and Tulsi Gabbard at a campaign rally in Georgia.
Reuters
An “anti-vaccine” in Health
Another nomination which, although expected, has aroused disbelief is that of Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health.
A member of one of the most powerful bloodlines in the United States, Kennedy Jr. is known for his controversial positions on all types of subjects, close to conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine denial movement.
His public profile was initially linked to environmental activism (he fervently supported Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000) and he had a long career in law firms after studying at Harvard and the London School of Economics, but during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic he returned. under the media spotlight for his support of conspiracies born in the depths of the Internet.
Kennedy Jr. described without scientific basis the Covid-19 as a “biological weapon” designed to “attack Caucasians and Black people” and compared movement restrictions imposed during the pandemic to Nazi Germany during an anti-vaccine protest in Washington DC.
His crusade against health authorities was of such magnitude that he published a book in 2022 in which he accused former White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci of conspiring with Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and other pharmaceutical companies in medical research since. decades ago. He has also linked vaccines to autism and advocates that the food industry is poisoning citizens.
Elon Musk: at the controls of the scissors
Trumo also charged the tycoon Elon Musk and the businessman Vivek Ramaswamy the creation of a Ministry of Government Effectiveness (DOGE, in English). For the moment, this body is not provided for in the structure of the American government and will serve only as an advisory body responsible for proposing reforms of the federal administration and reducing public spending.
“We need revolutionaries with high IQs and willing to work 80+ hours a week on cost reduction,” Musk posted this week on the social network acquisition.
When Musk bought Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion, he laid off 80% of its staff (around 6,000 employees), changed its algorithms and imposed a new payment system. A year later, the company lost 50% of its advertisers, 15% of its users – according to the agency P.A.– and its valuation fell by more than 70%.
The moderate counterweight
To counter these profiles, Trump chose a moderate, discreet and well-respected woman among politicians of all stripes: Susie Wilesthe shadow director of his campaign, will be chief of staff of the White House at age 67, becoming the first woman to occupy this position.
With extensive experience in political strategy, having worked on the Ronald Reagan campaign, people who have worked with Wiles often describe her as a moderate conservative, particularly well-educated and quiet. “Early in my career, things like form mattered and a certain level of decorum was expected,” he once told the newspaper. Policy in one of his rare public statements.
The leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives also have a moderate profile: John Thune And Michael Johnsonwho prevailed over other more extremist candidates.
And for the Foreign Affairs portfolio, Trump also opted for a longtime politician: Marco Rubioappointed Secretary of State, was one of the favorites for the post of vice president. A Cuban-born senator from Florida, Rubio supported a legislative plan to prevent any president from withdrawing the United States from NATO without congressional approval.
His critical positions on China, Russia and Iran seem to fit Trump’s geopolitical aspirations, even if he will have to deal with the eccentric Gabbard and Hegseth to harmonize countless actions.
