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President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks keep getting more outlandish, which may be part of the point.
Attorney general? Rep. Matt Gaetz, the right-wing provocateur who is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for allegations of sexual misconduct.
Secretary of defense? Pete Hegseth, a weekend Fox News host who served in the Army National Guard.
Director of national intelligence? Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman who has expressed sympathy for Russia.
“Some of them are designed to shake up Washington,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican and senior CNN political commentator who appeared on CNN after the surprising pick of Gaetz. Other Trump choices, like Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state, are more conventional.
Jennings said no one should underestimate Trump’s ability to push some of these nominees through the Senate now that he’s claiming a mandate after winning the presidential election.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat who served with Gaetz in both the Florida legislature and US House, said there should be no surprise that Trump would pick Gaetz, who has been one of Trump’s most effective advocates in Congress.
Gaetz is known for scorched-earth tactics in the House and was instrumental in ousting then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year for negotiating with Democrats. He might be controversial enough to challenge even Trump’s ability to get an attorney general confirmed.
“Matt Gaetz knows exactly what to do with the attorney general’s office,” Moskowitz said, noting that Gaetz is loyal to Trump and “competent.” He added that Gaetz will be “the most powerful attorney general in American history.”
Trump has previously expressed a desire to drastically change both the national security apparatus and the Department of Justice, which he still blames for the investigation into Russian election meddling in the 2016 election.
Trump wants power to get around Senate confirmations
Trump already demanded a fast track around the Senate confirmation process when he encouraged Republicans to back the concept of “recess appointments” for his picks.
It would be a major evolution for Republican senators to back such appointments, which can be made when the Senate is out of session. Ten years ago, Senate Republicans took the Obama administration to the US Supreme Court over this issue, winning a unanimous ruling and guaranteeing their constitutional ability to have input on who runs the US government.
Back then, Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who is now a major Trump ally, called President Barack Obama’s attempt to use a recess appointment to make the National Labor Relations Board function an attempt to “circumvent Congress and ignore the Constitution in order to achieve its controversial political agenda.”
Now it’s a bit awkward that some Senate Republicans want to hand Trump the power to make recess appointments without their input after he demanded it over the weekend.
Recess appointments are temporary hirings that can last a year or two. The goal is speed since the clock is already ticking on Trump’s coming presidency.
“We know that President Trump will only have four years to reshape our federal government,” Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, told Fox Business.
Four years may be optimistic. Each of the last three presidents – Obama, Trump and Joe Biden – achieved their major legislative wins in the first two years of their presidency before losing control of the House as part of a now-normal backlash against presidents in power.
Some Republicans were surprised at Trump’s defense pick
Republicans are poised to have a 53-47 seat majority in the Senate if they win the race in Pennsylvania, where the Republican candidate David McCormick holds a slim lead. That should give them enough votes to push through any Trump appointment, although some Republican senators were scratching their heads at the Hegseth pick.
“Wow,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
“Who?” asked Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, according to NBC.
“Interesting,” said Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Others were supportive. Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma praised Hegseth for not being politically correct.
“The requirement is that President Trump gets to nominate the individual and the Senate gets to confirm them. I trust President Trump’s decision,” Mullin told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday.
Mullin was less convinced by the Gaetz pick.
“He’s got to come to the Senate and sell himself,” Mullin said. “There’s a lot of questions out there.”
Grasping for power
If there’s a theme to this new Trump administration in the making, it’s that the president-elect wants to quickly go big, rewriting some of the rules in Washington, seizing more power for the president to get around Congress and to mold the federal bureaucracy.
Daniel Farber is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and author of a book on presidential power. He told me in an email that there has been a long-term trend of presidents trying to consolidate power in the executive branch.
“One thing that has kept this from going to extremes is that most presidents understand that they need competent, experienced staff across the government to carry out their programs effectively. I don’t think Trump has that view,” he said.
Reports of a special committee to reassess the loyalty of generals is outside the norm and could place Trump-approved generals at the Pentagon.
Then there’s the selection of Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” cross-branded with Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, DOGE.
Many are wondering where these two businessmen will find $2 trillion to cut from the sprawling federal government. Trump promised they would figure out how to “dismantle the federal bureaucracy,” but they don’t currently have any official power or mandate from Congress. Musk said there would be a suggestion box online and they also could show how government money is wasted.
There are ways that Trump could give Musk and Ramaswamy official power or even officially hire them without forcing Musk to divest from Tesla and SpaceX – but it’s telling that Trump does not appear to be pursuing those options, according to Norm Eisen, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution who also served as “ethics czar” in the Obama administration.
“It’s the beginning of the end for them,” Eisen predicted of their relationship with Trump, pointing to the many recommendations of government commissions that have long since been forgotten without any action. “Trump doesn’t really want to share with strong personalities who might be rivals.”
Meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine skeptic who endorsed Trump, wants broad latitude over US health policy but apparently may not be given a Cabinet role.
Now in power, Thune notes constitutional role
On recess appointments, there are some indications that top Senate Republicans won’t want to so easily give away their power to have input on appointments.
All of the candidates vying to be the Republican Senate majority leader when Republicans take the majority in January expressed some openness to the idea of recess appointments, including the ultimate winner, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.
But when he spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill after winning the position Wednesday, Thune pointed out that the Senate “has an advise and consent role in the Constitution.”
While Thune did not reject the idea of recess appointments, he was clear that senators aren’t giving anything up quite yet.
“We want to make sure our committees have confirmation hearings like they typically do,” he said, although he warned Democrats against gumming up the process too much, or Senate Republicans will “explore all options.”
Thune also pledged that Republicans will respect the legislative filibuster, the custom by which a minority of senators can squash most legislation.
“The Senate, as you know, is by the founder’s design, a place where the minority has a voice in our process,” he said.
Anyone who can remember all the way back to 2017 – the first year of Trump’s first term, when Republicans held the House, Senate and White House like they will next year – will recall that Trump routinely groused about the filibuster back then as an impediment to getting legislation passed.
CNN projected Wednesday that Republicans will hold a majority in the House, but it is sure to be much smaller than the majority Republicans held the first time Trump governed. That means it will be more difficult to pass legislation with only Republicans.
