I can use only one word to describe newly President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks: characters. From Fox News anchors to a Secretary of Health nominee who believes that childhood vaccines cause autism, his picks are riddled with lunacy.
The first hint of the way that the 47th president would choose his cabinet members was the announcement of Matt Gaetz as attorney general. Gaetz, being previously accused of sex trafficking and statutory rape, soon withdrew his name from consideration. Right from the get-go, Trump’s picks were already problematic and most definitely did not stop there.
He then appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health after Kennedy ran and later suspended his campaign for the 2024 Presidential race. Kennedy certainly has a slew of opinions when it comes to health in the United States, claiming that vaccines cause autism, denying that HIV causes AIDS, alleging that the COVID-19 vaccine caused death, and that “the people who are the most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
Kennedy’s constant badgering about the COVID-19 vaccine had become so passionate that his Instagram account was suspended for sharing countless false claims. Despite all these beliefs, this is the man who will be in charge of health in the U.S.
If there is one thing that has been debated throughout this past election, it’s education. Who better to be the Secretary of Education for the United States than someone who is named in a massive sexual abuse lawsuit? Linda McMahon might sound familiar to you from her days as CEO of the WWE. McMahon was mentioned in the “Ring Boys” scandal, where she and her husband allegedly both acknowledged and allowed the sexual exploitation of children to occur by a WWE employee named Melvin Phillips Jr.
While McMahon ran for Senate twice, she lost both races, then made political contributions by being an avid donator to the Trump campaign. This seems to be where Trump recognized her as a loyal follower, influencing his pick.
Pete Hegseth, another Fox News contributor, was selected for the Secretary of Defense. Having a background in the military, Hegseth eventually left active duty and joined the National Guard. During this time, he had volunteered to safeguard the January 2020 inauguration of Joe Biden.
Still, he was asked not to come after a report was filed claiming Hegseth’s “Deus Vult” tattoo had ties to modern white supremacist ideologies. Additionally, Hegseth firmly believed that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was made up by the Democratic party, stating, “Count on a new variant… every two years.”
While Trump picks his top fifteen cabinet members, the four listed here all share something. Matt Gaetz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mehmet Oz, and Pete Hegseth have their fair share of controversies. It’s impossible to find information on them that doesn’t include something about these problematic and sometimes illegal, situations.
The sheerly disorganized nature of his selections consists of public features and individuals who he knows will go along with almost anything he says, as he did in his previous term.
His disorganization shines by his creating a new department titled the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE; yes, I cringed too).
Leading this new department with Vivek Ramaswamy is none other than Elon Musk, the man America simply cannot escape. After running X, formerly Twitter, into the ground by laying off a majority of their workers encouraging misinformation, and forcing Tesla factory workers to work during the COVID-19 pandemic, Musk is in the extremely ironic position of highlighting efficiency..
However, this begs the question, how much will this government even be able to get done? With several of his cabinet members seeming to lack any experience in government jobs, including Trump himself when running in 2016, it’s clear that the future government will simply be lacking in knowledge.
Trump will always show that what he cares about most is public opinion, and appealing to his base that supports him now, and forever will. The history that Trump made in office during his first term will always be that he was the first president without any government or military experience. That will go to show how the next four years will be for our country.
