“Useful idiot.”
What does “legally” have to do with it? I’m pretty sure this would be considered part of his official duties. He’d be immune from any prosecution and, if he did it, who else could be charged with anything? He did back down when threatened with mass resignations before but this time, who knows?
Aside from that - are there any R Senators who don’t plan on running again and, with nothing to lose, might defy Trump on his appointments based on, you know, principles? One can dream.
RFK jr thinks 5G causes cancer. Do Republicans really want their 5G taken away?
“Not illegal” != “possible”. It’s not illegal to blow up the Moon, but that doesn’t mean Trump can blow up the Moon, no matter how many people he fires or how many hamberders he throws at the wall.
An unlawful appointee would not be able to wield the power of the office.
There’s one I know of who’s a solid maybe on running again and has shown no willingness to change the filibuster like Trump wants. They just made him Majority Leader.
Maybe it’s already appeared here, but I just saw on Facebook: “Trump isn’t building a cabinet; he’s building a junk drawer.”
Trey Gowdy says one of Trump’s Cabinet picks has less than half of Senate Republicans supporting them, and he won’t say which one but you can probably guess.
I probably can’t guess correctly.
The one who I think Trump would gladly throw under the bus, in return for getting the others confirmed, is Kennedy.
Re Trey Gowdy, it looks like he singled out Gaetz:
Personally, I care about policy much more than whether they can pass a criminal background check. I can make a case to myself that any one of the four (Gaetz, Kennedy, Gabbard, Hegseth) is the worst.
I don’t know who Ben Domenech is, but the man knows how to write. Well worth the short read. At this point, with appointees like Gaetz and Gabbard, I think Trump has lost his mind and is just trolling the libs, hell-bent on nothing but destruction. His “border czar”, Tom Homan, is likely to foment violence when he starts his promised “shock and awe” deportation campaign.
Gaetz is unlikely to be confirmed, and maybe not Gabbard, either, but others probably will be, with RFK Jr and Musk also figuring prominently. What a shit-show this is going to be. And well beyond the US, too. Canada is engaged in an emergency program of strengthening border security because of the potential influx of escaping immigrants. As always, we’ll take in as many refugees as possible but there’s a limit to what our infrastructure can handle. The EU is meeting to discuss other aspects of how to deal with Trump, including tariffs and the existential threat to Ukraine…
This from WaPo is bizarre:
Can anyone tell me the members of this transition team? And isn’t Trump picking his cabinet himself?
Having a history, so it will be hard to get employed elsewhere, makes it more likely they would stay loyal to Trump. It is in his interest to avoid normies who can easily switch sides.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/11/07/congress/donald-trump-transition-team-00186912
“In a break from his approach in 2016, Donald Trump has turned to a pair of staunch allies from the private sector — Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon — to lead his transition effort. Lutnick is in charge of personnel, while McMahon is overseeing policy.”
“In addition to McMahon and Lutnick, Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard have been given honorary roles on the transition. Trump Jr. is expected to help with selecting staff.”
I don’t think Trump does any vetting except whether the person is loyal to him.
In a move that simultaneously:
- established Lutnick’s basic level of sanity and
- decimated his credibility …
RFK Jr. Won’t Be Health and Human Services Secretary if Trump Is Elected, Transition Leader Says
Surely, paywalled, but …
Trump transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick said during a Wednesday interview on CNN that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wouldn’t head the Health and Human Services department if former President Donald Trump wins the election. The comments came after Kennedy told supporters at a virtual event on Monday that Trump had “promised” him control of several health-focused governmental offices, including HHS.
Thank you.
I can’t believe that someone from pro wrestling (McMahon) considers a seven year old dropped sexual assault charge a negative. So I’ll guess that the WaPo anonymous source is Lutnick. Trumpworld needs to key him in on how this presidency grift thing is supposed to go down.
This just gets into the futility of having any kind of conversation around a Trump Administration. There’s a certain portion of the left that are convinced Trump is completely unconstrained by any legal or political considerations. And of course, it’s absolutely clear that he will obliterate well-established norms of behavior and find torturous interpretations of statutes to justify his actions. But if he can have Matt Gaetz just show up at Justice tomorrow morning saying, “I is Attorney General now!” and everyone goes along with it, I don’t know what to tell ya.
As a Texan, I’ve been wondering what John Cornyn will get up to now that he’s failed in his bid for Majority Leader. He’s 71 and now knows he’ll never advance higher in the Senate. He’s up for reelect in 2026. Him saying he want to see the Gaetz ethics report is a bit of a surprising break with the Administration.
Steven Cheung for Communications Director. I don’t know much about him, so I don’t know how bad this choice is.
Karoline Leavitt is his press secretary pick. I’ve never heard of her.
“Moles” try to hide. She won’t be a mole, she’ll be … whatever the opposite of a mole is. A loud screechy bird advertising for a mate, or something.
On what basis?
“The power of the office” ultimately lies in what the people in the office do when you give them an order. If someone shows up, says, “President Trump put me in charge, and now I’m telling you to flogisticate the frangistat!”, a lot of the staff will get on with the flogisticating. Sure, some might balk, but we already have DOGE saying they’re going to fire 50% or more of the government employees. How many do you think will stick their necks out in such an environment?
Under the rule of law, we might have a chance, but undermining the rule of law is one of their top priorities. It will not be law that saves the US.
This underlies everything he’s doing, and it’s not just the background checks issue. It’s also the utter lack of qualifications, and basic competency. These people know in their hearts that they’d never rise to such heights on their own. They will owe everything to Trump, and so will never turn on him.
We’ve been saying this for years now: The most important qualification any of them will have is “Loyalty to Trump”, and this is all a part of it.
Just based on his campaign utterances, he always struck me as a Baghdad Bob.