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As the president-elect’s foreign-policy and national security team takes shape, some names have raised eyebrows.
Trump’s New Team
As U.S. President-elect Donald Trump swiftly assembles his next team, some of his picks for top posts have stunned and unsettled policy circles in Washington—including Republican lawmakers and former officials who served during his first presidency.
Trump has tapped notable foreign-policy hawks for his inner circle, including Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Rep. Mike Waltz as national security advisor. Rubio is a staunch supporter of Israel who advocates a hard-line approach toward China, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela; Waltz is a Green Beret veteran and another tough-on-China lawmaker who has been one of Beijing’s fiercest critics.
Other appointments have sent shock waves through Washington. Take, for example, Trump’s defense secretary pick: Fox News host Pete Hegseth. Hegseth is a decorated Army veteran, but he has little direct experience in the Pentagon or government. He has called for firing any generals involved in “woke shit,” such as diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and said that women should not serve in combat roles. (The Pentagon removed its ban on women holding front-line combat roles in 2013.)
Trump’s selection of Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general also sparked consternation among some Republican lawmakers, with Rep. Lisa Murkowski describing Gaetz as “not a serious candidate” and Sen. Susan Collins saying she was “shocked” by his nomination.
Until he resigned from Congress on Wednesday, Gaetz was facing a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use; Gaetz has denied the allegations, and his resignation has ended the probe. Last year, Gaetz was also the subject of a Justice Department sex trafficking investigation. Gaetz denied those allegations, and the department ended its probe in 2023 without charging him.
Murkowski likened Gaetz to former Rep. George Santos, who was expelled from the House of Representatives in 2023 and in August 2024 pleaded guilty to two felony fraud charges.
“If I wanted to make a joke, maybe I would say now I’m waiting for George Santos to be named,” she told the New York Times.
On Wednesday, Trump also announced that he had picked military veteran and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to serve as director of national intelligence, despite her lack of direct intelligence experience. Now a fierce Trump supporter, Gabbard broke with the Democratic Party in 2022, when she registered as an independent. She has critiqued U.S. military intervention in Syria and has argued in Foreign Policy that U.S. President Joe Biden should push for a settlement in the Russia-Ukraine war—not Ukraine’s victory.
John Bolton, one of Trump’s former national security advisors, described Gabbard’s nomination as “hilarious” in a post on X. “She’s totally not competent for the job,” he wrote. Trump ousted Bolton, who served as the third national security advisor of his first term, in 2019.
“The basic problem is that [Trump] can’t tell the difference between the national interest and his personal interest,” Bolton told FP’s Keith Johnson. “Their connection is fealty to Trump, not loyalty. Loyalty is a good thing, but fealty, that’s a medieval idea of being subservient,” Bolton added. “He just wants yes-men and yes-women.”
Rubio, Hegspeth, Gaetz, and Gabbard all require Senate confirmation before they can serve in their appointed roles; Waltz, as national security advisor, does not.
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The post Trump’s Top Picks Send Shock Waves Through Washington appeared first on Energy News Beat.
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