Trump’s Putting Together a Team of Outlaws
It’s a cabinet in his image: narcissistic, corrupt, and dangerous to America.
“IF YOU CAN’T SAY SOMETHING good about someone, sit right here by me.”
As Donald Trump started naming his picks for top government jobs, Teddy Roosevelt’s sharp-tongued daughter, Alice, came immediately to mind. This memorable morsel, attributed to her and embroidered on one of her throw pillows, could easily have been adapted by Trump for his transition: If you have at least three appalling scandals on your resume, sit right here by me for the next four years.
Extra points—and maybe a seat closer—for those with more than three. Multiple brushes with police, courts, and investigators count individually, as do multiple falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and cozying up to multiple dictators. Bonus points for incidents involving white nationalist tattoos, sexual assault, extramarital sex, sex with underage partners, a literal brain worm, shooting a pet, indictments, and convictions.
Trump might need a bigger throw pillow. Maybe even an entire couch.
Trump isn’t interested in the challenge or reward of Abraham Lincoln’s disputatious team of rivals. He wants a team of outlaws: likeminded pals who ignore laws, boundaries, ethics, norms, civility, respect, and plain manners. People whose unforced missteps, mistakes, and worse are now a badge of honor; a mark of achievement; a prerequisite for the job; and a permission slip to bend 330 million people to their will as part of a Trump administration—or from outside it, as we’re already seeing with co-president and diplomatic kibitzer Elon Musk.
This is, of course, a massive problem for what remains of our pluralistic democracy. But the more critical problem is what happens to real people as Trump and his mini-me battalion attempt to crush women’s rights, wage war on science, endanger our national security, and turn us into a violent, terrifying nation of deporters.
The scenario I start with, because I can’t get it out of my mind, is this incoming administration—with anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human services secretary—pushing to end vaccine mandates. Many school systems require vaccines as a condition of attendance. If RFK Jr. is encouraging them to ditch such requirements, or the administration outright bans them, we could be in for outbreaks of chickenpox, diphtheria, and polio, as well as measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR). MMR vaccine levels dropped well below the 95 percent needed for community or herd immunity last year, and we’ve already seen measles outbreaks.
The anti-vax delusion is part of a much larger web of conspiracies that would guide RFK Jr.’s tenure as an HHS secretary instructed by his boss to “go wild.” We have used science to create a safer world. RFK Jr. would make it more dangerous for everyone, especially frail or immunocompromised people of all ages. A 2020 study by the news organization Tortoise found that he was the No. 1 superspreader of misinformation on social media, while the Center for Countering Digital Hate included him among the Disinformation Dozen in 2021.
Only to Trump could RFK Jr. look like the ideal candidate to head a department committed to “enhancing the health and well-being of all Americans” and “fostering sound, sustained advances” in medical science.
THEN AGAIN, ONLY TRUMP could look at Pete Hegseth—a Fox News host who cheated on two wives and now is married to his third, who was accused of sexual assault and investigated by police, who denied the assault but paid off the accuser, who has said it’s not rape if a woman is unconscious, who says women should not have combat roles, who urged Trump to pardon or reinstate troops accused or convicted of war crimes, and was pulled from national guard duty at Joe Biden’s inauguration because a security manager had flagged him as a possible white nationalist “insider threat”—and deem him perfect to lead the Department of Defense and the nearly 3 million member U.S. military.
Only Trump could look at former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard—who spouts Kremlin propaganda, sympathizes with Vladimir Putin, calls Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky corrupt, and met secretly with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad—and see an ideal director of national intelligence, one who would be privy to all U.S. secrets and oversee eighteen intelligence agencies across the federal government.
Only Trump could look at former Rep. Matt Gaetz—investigated by the Justice Department for alleged sex crimes and by the House Ethics Committee in connection with allegations of “sex parties,” illicit drug use, and sex with a minor—and see an attorney general.
Next year’s Republican-led Senate has two paths here. One is voluntary self-emasculation. It can confirm Trump’s choices with little pushback or by even letting him make recess appointments to put his people in place without scrutiny. The other is to fight hard to preserve our alliances, values, and health—and, yes, their own dignity—by holding confirmation hearings to show the nation the absurdity of these nominees.
The key could be outgoing GOP leader Mitch McConnell, who has many reasons to try to block Trump’s disgraceful picks. He was furious about the January 6th Capitol riot and said at the time he expected the justice system would hold Trump accountable. It has not. Gaetz, as chief law enforcement officer, would compound the damage.
McConnell had polio as a boy and recounted that experience in an ad urging people to get COVID vaccines, so RFK Jr. would be anathema to him. So would Hegseth and Gabbard, since McConnell is a strong supporter of the military and aid to Ukraine.
Furthermore, at 82, McConnell may be looking to improve a legacy that, as I wrote early this year, consists mainly of packing the Supreme Court with enough justices to repeal the federal right to legal abortion, and of failing to marshal support to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial—a conviction that would have barred Trump from ever holding public office again.
Instead Trump is headed back to the White House, and is already running a transition that’s a master class in how to normalize corruption, immorality, and narcissism. Bill Clinton said during his 1992 campaign that his cabinet would “look like America,” and he delivered. Trump wants one that looks just like him—and by God, he is trying to deliver.
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