From RFK Jr. to Matt Gaetz to Tulsi Gabbard, these outlandish and unqualified cabinet picks show that Trump is playing a trick on you.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump shake hands during a campaign rally at the Desert Diamond Arena on August 23, 2024. in Glendale, Arizona.
(Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
Just hours after President Joe Biden welcomed President-elect Donald Trump to a cozy two-hour meeting in the Oval Office (which frankly made me nauseous), Trump also made any sane American nauseous. He quickly appointed former Democrat-turned-quisling Tulsi Gabbard as his Director of National Intelligence, accused pedophile Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, and appointed a womanizer, serial liar, defilement of a dead baby, decapitating a whale, a worm in his chief anti-vaxxer. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human services chief.
This came just after he appointed Christian nationalist Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel.
What to do? Well, if Republicans decide to retain their confirmation powers — new Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said he’s open to accepting Trump’s demand for a recess appointment — I hope they don’t confirm any of them. Obviously, if you’re a Democrat, you make sure every Democrat votes against their confirmation.
But before the confirmation dramas begin, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, former presidents Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton—and frankly, every Democratic member of Congress—should follow the late John Lewis, who missed Trump’s first inauguration and declined an invitation to the Jan. 20 inauguration.
“This will be the first one I’ve missed since I’ve been in Congress,” Lewis said in January 2017. “You can’t be at home with something that you think is wrong, not right.” Lewis died in July 2020, before attending Joe Biden’s inauguration. But I know he’s okay with it. And if he were here now, I know what he would do. This is a totally invalid government that hates knowledge and science. And people. Everyone except the people they see in their boardrooms.
Please don’t make it legal, Madam Vice President.
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I have written about RFK Jr. on our pages many times. He helped me with my most humiliating professional experience: publishing, Art Salonhis virtually unsubstantiated indictment of childhood vaccines for their role in causing autism. Read about it here.
He basically falsified transcripts to make it appear that medical investigators had found a link between childhood vaccines and autism (he denies forgery, but follow the links). He cheated on me and Ian Venus Rolling Stoneour co-publishers too; it was the biggest embarrassment of my career. But far worse than the embarrassment is that he could have fooled anyone, and HHS could take this misinformation to a whole new level.
It would waste precious moments of my life to describe his robbery in detail. Let’s put it simply: He is not qualified to be HHS secretary – in fact, he is negatively qualified.
Oh hey, the same goes for Matt Gaetz, who runs the Justice Department, and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence.
First, Goetz: In case you missed it, he’s been investigated several times over allegations of child sex trafficking, including in the House of Representatives (and the report is causing bipartisan uproar). It should be added that he was never charged, let alone convicted. But one of his best friends was both, and his testimony was not damning to Goetz. Goetz wants to abolish the Justice Department and the FBI.
Which is where we start with Tulsi Gabbard, a former freak show Democrat who The BBC recently described as an ally Russian Vladimir Putin and Syrian Asar Basad? Right here. We will stop there. She, in my opinion, has been poison to our democracy, although she has her supporters.
I think it will become increasingly difficult for establishment Democrats to maintain the kind of performative action we demand every four years. Biden did it on Wednesday, but no one else has to do it on January 20. Every appointment and many things coming out of Trump’s mouth require Democrats to step up. We can’t just ask Congress for it; we have to ask Obama, Clinton and Bush, and of course Harris and Emhoff.
I’ve been hearing cable talking heads all day speculating that Biden will be there. He won’t. The president welcomes his successor (I’ll say “her” until I die) to the White House, then takes the Marine to his final destination. So it’s funny to watch these very young people — I love young people — assume that Biden sitting on Wednesday foreshadows a big look at the grand staircase. Joe won’t, but Kamala can. Same with the whole gang.
They better not. Now is the time to demand that they stop their usual business and turn away from the pitiful spectacle.
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Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, Nation
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