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It’s been just over a week since Donald Trump won the 2024 election, and he’s already trying to stoke outrage. Over the past few days, the President-elect has announced an avalanche of appointments and nominations for key administration positions. Some are legitimate. Some are downright unserious but with serious consequences.
From these early selections, we’ve seen enough to be able to reasonably glean insight into how Trump plans to run his administration. Trump is planning to surround himself with loyalists and pursue some key plans outlined in Agenda 47 and Project 2025. Based on these early picks, we can see which parts of this far-right agenda are going to be attempted first.
I documented every day of Trump’s presidency during his first term, so, unfortunately, this is not my first time covering a Trump Administration. I also spent the past year writing and making appearances on MSNBC warning about how Project 2025 directly aligns with Trump’s official Agenda 47. One thing that has held true throughout this Trump era is that you can always count on Trump and his allies to self-sabotage and overreach.
These Cabinet picks and White House appointments tell me that Trump and his team are mistaking his win as an endorsement of their extremist agenda. In reality, many Americans voted for Trump due to inflation and under the false impression that he would reduce prices. America’s election outcome was also part of the global anti-incumbent trends we’ve seen this year. I don’t believe most Americans were fully aware of how serious Trump was about pursuing his damaging plans. They’re in for a shock.
Trump is making appointments at a rapid pace, much faster than his 2016 transition. We’re going to see Trump continue to try to see how far he can push things. Trump’s selection of newly resigned Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health & Human Services Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary are examples of that.
Trump is unleashing a loyalty test for Senate Republicans. If they surrender, he’ll know he can steamroll them from day one. If anyone is still wondering whether Trump was serious about his most extreme plans, look no further than his proposed team so far:
The Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff, National Security Adviser, “Border Czar,” and other White House roles do not require Senate confirmation. As for the department heads and ambassadorships, they do. When it comes to the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), which Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead, it is not a real government department, and under the current description of the initiative, it appears to be more like an outside commission that will play the role of a consultant.
I admire the DEI-driven approach Trump is taking with his Cabinet. He wants to make sure people of diverse grifting backgrounds, differing levels of unqualified, and various sexual misconduct allegations are properly represented. It’s tremendously inclusive.
Jokes aside, Matt Gaetz is currently under investigation for sex trafficking by the same DOJ he’s been nominated to lead, and Pete Hegseth faced sexual misconduct allegations of his own. Not to mention Donald Trump, who himself was found liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll.
The selection of Matt Gaetz, in particular, has drawn backlash and feigned “shock” from Senate Republicans. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said of Gaetz, “I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general.” Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) told reporters she was “shocked” by the nomination. Others expressed disbelief or issued no comment.
First of all, I think Senate Republicans should spare us any fake outrage. Donald Trump repeatedly told America during the campaign that this is exactly how he plans to govern, this is how he would weaponize the DOJ, and that he will surround himself with loyalists. Gaetz fits right in with that promise.
Whether or not Gaetz, Kennedy, Gabbard, Hegseth, or other appointees will be confirmed is yet to be seen. But one interesting development in the Senate came in the form of Senator John Thune (R-SD), Senator Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) longtime deputy, who beat MAGA-favorite Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) for Senate Republican Leader.
Does this indicate that the Republican Senate majority will push back on Trump’s worst impulses? Will they reject nominees like Gaetz? Will they allow Trump to force them into recess so he can make his worst Cabinet appointees without Senate confirmation like he did during his first term? We’ll soon find out.
But for now, let’s dive into what these Cabinet picks and White House appointments tell us about what Trump is prioritizing in his second administration.
The thread that runs through all of Trump’s appointees comes down to one thing: loyalty to him over loyalty to the country.
Donald Trump and his far-right allies have been very vocal about what they think went wrong in Trump’s first term. They believe that Trump’s agenda was blocked from seeing its full potential due to Cabinet officials and career civil servants who pushed back against Trump’s most extreme plans. To some degree, they’re right.
Trump’s worst impulses were indeed restrained by people around him who didn’t want to break the law on Trump’s behalf. Notable examples of this can be seen in then-Attorney General William Barr refusing to go along with Trump’s 2020 election plot or then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper telling Trump that he can’t shoot racial justice protestors during the George Floyd protests of 2020. Those are just a few of many.
This time, Trump’s Cabinet and White House appointees are stacked with loyalists who will do Trump’s bidding. Susie Wiles, Trump’s incoming Chief of Staff, was alleged to be a mitigating force for Trump during his campaign. However, as we saw during the campaign and can see from Trump’s Cabinet picks, she couldn’t restrain him from making some truly insane choices.
Aside from selecting loyalists to lead government agencies, Trump is still planning to purge tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with trained MAGA ideologues.
Abraham Lincoln had a team of rivals. Donald Trump will have a team of loyalists.
Among the first announced hires for Trump’s second administration were longtime advisor Stephen Miller as Deputy Chief of Staff and Tom Homan as “Border Czar.” These positions do not need Senate confirmation.
Miller engineered Trump’s immigration policies during his first term, and Tom Homan is an immigration hardliner who led ICE during Trump’s first term, where he oversaw Trump’s family separation policy. Trump also selected North Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security, a role she will largely be a figurehead.
Stephen Miller will very much be the mastermind behind Trump’s cruel immigration policies, while Tom Homan will be the enforcer.
These choices indicate that Trump is, unsurprisingly, going to pursue the most extreme immigration policies America has seen in the modern age.
Trump has explicitly promised to detain millions of immigrants in camps using local police and the National Guard before deporting them, implement ideological screenings, end birthright citizenship, try to end DACA again, end Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants – including Haitians, end student visas for people participating in pro-Palestine protests, and expand on his previous administration’s Mulsim ban. These are the kinds of dehumanizing policies Trump’s dehumanizing rhetoric has been seeking to justify.
In November of last year, Miller spoke extensively with The New York Times about Trump’s second-term plans. The piece was published the same day Donald Trump first called his political targets “vermin.” Miller told the Times:
“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown. The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”
Immigration advocates certainly don’t doubt Trump’s resolve and have been preparing for what’s to come.
Both Project 2025 and Agenda 47 outline plans to reshape government agencies into the image of Donald Trump. I talked about the consequences of those plans in a recent panel discussion on MSNBC. Trump’s Cabinet picks signal those plans will be pursued at full throttle.
Whether or not Matt Gaetz is confirmed as Attorney General, Trump’s selection of him signals his intentions. It appears that Trump will very much pursue retribution against his political targets and use the law as a weapon to punish those he disagrees with. Gaetz has played the role of Trump’s attack dog in the House since the days of the Russia investigation, and he openly discussed how he would behave if he were Attorney General. Gaetz once said:
“Maybe I should serve as attorney general of the United States… If necessary I’d fire every little shit kicker at the J Edgar Hoover Building and send them packing.”
Gaetz would clearly be open to purging the Department of Justice of prosecutors that Trump deems “disloyal” and essentially twisting the department into Trump’s personal law firm.
When it comes to other roles, like Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence, this is a clear signal of Trump’s disdain for the Intelligence Community, with which Trump has long feuded. The DNI oversees 18 intelligence agencies, including the CIA. Gabbard, who has spread Russian propaganda and defended dictators like Syria’s Bashar Al Assad, is not only unqualified for the role of DNI, but her appointment would prove to be incredibly damaging to our national security and reputation abroad. Intelligence officials have been “reeling” after this pick was announced.
Pete Hegseth at the Department of Defense is also worrisome. As outlined in Project 2025 and Trump’s Agenda 47, Trump plans to use the military against Americans he disagrees with. There are plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to unleash the military against protestors, a plan made even more alarming after Trump’s repeated attacks on Democrats he calls “the enemy within.”
Trump has said he wants political generals who are loyal to him, not traditional apolitical generals who are loyal to the Constitution. Trump’s former Chief of Staff, John Kelly, went on the record to The Atlantic claiming that Trump asked him, “Why can’t you be like the German generals” who were “totally loyal” to Nazi Dictator Adolf Hitler? This is what Trump is looking for from the military in his second term.
Do you think someone like Hegseth would refuse to purge the Department of Defense of independent thinkers? Do you think he would push back on Trump? No, he wouldn’t.
When it comes to Health and Human Services, Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known anti-vaxxer and unhinged conspiracy theorist. The consequences this would have on our health could be truly dire. If Kennedy uses the FDA to roll back approval of certain vaccines or pushes his anti-vaccine views at the federal level, health experts fear we could see a resurgence of diseases like polio and measles among children.
Other picks, like Lee Zeldin at EPA and Doug Burgum at the Interior Department, indicate more climate change denialism from Trump – environmental regulation rollbacks and increased oil production.
We’ll see which of these nominees Senate Republicans can stomach or if Trump forces all of them through in a series of recess appointments.
It’s also important to note that if these picks do make it through, many of their more extreme moves would face a mountain of legal challenges that could delay or block their efforts. The extent to which the Supreme Court will allow Trump’s agenda to be pursued unchecked will be a key factor over the next four years.
I’ll be writing more articles about Trump’s transition, what we can expect from a second Trump term, and ongoing analysis pieces when Trump takes office in January. Consider becoming a paid or free subscriber if you haven’t already done so.
These appointments are a lot to digest, but take some solace in knowing that the thing about a coalition of self-interested grifters is that their alliances only last as long as their interests are aligned. Remember the chaos, petty leaks, and infighting in the first Trump Administration? Expect no different this time. Trump’s coalition may be nefarious, but they’re also largely incompetent.
I know this is all demoralizing and disheartening for many of you worried about the future of our country, but we have to take it a day at a time. It’s going to be a long four years. You have to find balance. Take breaks from doom-scrolling. Do things that make you feel present. Get good sleep. Put your mental health first. We’ll get through this.
