A Trump tornado hit the nation’s capital Wednesday.
President-elect Trump shook up the political world with nominations for key posts that shocked even some Republicans. He had earlier savored the attention of the world’s media as he met with President Biden at the White House and, separately, was hailed by the House GOP on Capitol Hill.
By far the most striking development was Trump’s decision to nominate political bomb-thrower Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as his attorney general. The move came hot on the heels of the announcement that Trump had tapped Democrat-turned-Republican Tulsi Gabbard, the controversial former congresswoman from Hawaii, to become his director of national intelligence (DNI).
Those choices were so dramatic that they even overshadowed Trump’s White House meeting with Biden. They also relegated one of the president-elect’s most important nominations so far — naming his 2016 GOP primary rival Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to be secretary of State — to a lowly spot on the news agenda.
A day earlier, Trump pulled another surprise by saying he would nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be Defense secretary. That decision came under some criticism Wednesday given Hegseth’s lack of experience, but it amounted to a much less controversial move than the picks of Gabbard and Gaetz.
In aggregate, Trump’s wild Wednesday underscored just how dramatic a jolt he is going to deliver in Washington as he prepares to return to the White House after last week’s election victory.
His comfortable win over Vice President Harris was his best performance in any of the three presidential elections he has contested. He looks determined to seize on his mandate and stiff-arm any restraining influences on his brand of right-wing populism.
The election win capped Trump’s takeover of the GOP and his marginalization of the old establishment, represented by figures like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the last pre-Trump GOP nominee for president, retiring Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).
In the second Trump White House, the old establishment may not have even one seat at the table.
The nomination of Gaetz to head up the Department of Justice (DOJ) is Exhibit A.
The Florida congressman is one of the most aggressively pro-Trump members of the House GOP conference — and one of its most insistent self-promoters. He also engaged in a bitter public feud with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), whose downfall he was instrumental in organizing.
But it’s not only his pugnacious advocacy for Trump or his relentless pursuit of headlines that marks Gaetz out. It’s also the fact he was at one point drawn into a DOJ investigation into alleged sex trafficking.
While it became apparent last February that Gaetz would not face criminal charges in the matter, his conduct is still being examined by the House Ethics Committee.
Among the subjects under investigation is whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct or illegal drug use. He emphatically denies wrongdoing.
Gaetz could face significant hurdles in winning confirmation in the Senate, even though Republicans will hold a 53-47 majority in the upper chamber in the incoming Congress. The Florida congressman is polarizing even among his Republican colleagues in both chambers.
A reporter for Huffington Post wrote on social media late Wednesday afternoon that Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) responded to being told of Gaetz’s nomination by asking, “Are you s‑‑‑ting me?”
The Gaetz uproar caused even the nomination of Gabbard as DNI to pale in comparison.
Trump announced that appointment by paying tribute to Gabbard’s “fearless spirit” and noting her political trajectory.
Gabbard sought the Democratic nomination in 2020, though she never got any real traction and is best remembered for causing Harris some discomfort over the latter’s record on criminal justice during one debate from 2019.
But Gabbard has also drawn controversy for positions that are unusually favorable toward Russia.
She has suggested Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could have been averted if Moscow’s “legitimate security concerns” regarding the possibility of the Ukrainians joining NATO had been addressed.
She has contended the U.S. was involved in Ukraine developing biological weapons — a charge that provoked Romney to accuse her of “parroting false Russian propaganda.”
If Trump’s nomination of Gabbard is approved by the Senate, she will have access to the nation’s most sensitive secrets.
Trump’s choices highlight the extent to which the president-elect is the antithesis of the man he will be supplanting in the Oval Office — temperamentally as well as ideologically.
Biden invited Trump to the White House despite the fact that, back in 2020, the current president had been denied that tradition by the defeated Trump.
Back then, Trump was falsely insisting he had won the 2020 election — a claim that reached its nadir on Jan. 6, 2021.
Biden and Trump were photographed in front of a blazing fire before a meeting that lasted around two hours.
Afterward, Trump told the New York Post that Biden had been “very gracious” while White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre used the same term about Trump in her briefing to reporters. Jean-Pierre said the duo’s meeting had been “substantive.”
Still, it was plainly a difficult moment for Biden. The 46th president had cast his quest to beat Trump in 2020 as a battle to reclaim “the soul of America.” He then had to suffer the twin indignities of being prodded to stand aside from his reelection bid after a disastrous debate performance and seeing Harris fail in her bid to extend his legacy.
Trump had earlier met with House Republicans in a near-euphoric meeting where he boasted about the election results, joked that he wanted 15 people from his House conference for his Cabinet and expressed faux-exasperation about one key supporter, Elon Musk.
Not every single thing went Trump’s way Wednesday.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) prevailed in the battle to become the next Senate majority leader, defeating Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.).
Scott, the favored choice of the MAGA battalions, scored the lowest support of the three in the secret ballot that decided the position.
But that decision seemed almost minor on such a tumultuous day.
It represented only a very soft tapping of the brakes as the Trump train roared full steam ahead.
Rebecca Beitsch, Brett Samuels and Mychael Schnell contributed.
