Former Republican Representative Joe Walsh of Illinois warned Americans on MSNBC‘s The Weekend on Saturday to “assume the most sinister” about President-elect Donald Trump‘s second administration.
Since winning the presidency last week, Trump has made numerous picks for his Cabinet, some being controversial due to their backgrounds.
“What is your take on what you are seeing with these potential Cabinet secretaries running agencies that affect the health of the American people and the national security of our country?” The Weekend co-host Michael Steele, former chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), asked Walsh.
Walsh, a Trump critic who now identifies as an independent, responded: “Assume the worst. Assume the most sinister. In this era of Trump the last nine or 10 years, we just haven’t used our imagination.”
The former congressman added: “Assume the worst, it is not going to be a circus. This is more dangerous. Donald Trump has convinced millions and millions of Americans that the Justice Department is our enemy. The FBI is our enemy. Our intelligence community is our enemy…This will be four years of tearing down these institutions, Michael. Just like Donald Trump successfully tore down our elections system. Same thing. “
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, via email for comment Saturday morning.
Walsh launched a long-shot 2020 presidential bid to challenge Trump for the GOP’s presidential nomination, but he suspended his campaign in February of that year. Trump was the Republican nominee in the 2020 election, in which he lost to now-President Joe Biden.
In the wake of his election loss, Trump tried to overturn the results, claiming the election was stolen via widespread voter fraud. Despite no evidence of such claims, they propelled a mob of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, in a failed effort to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s election victory.
Who Are Trump’s Most Controversial Cabinet Picks?
While appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience during his election campaign, Trump told podcast host Joe Rogan that the “biggest mistake” of his first term was picking “bad, disloyal people” to join his administration.
So, this time he stacked his Cabinet with his allies, but some have been more questionable than others.
Matt Gaetz
When Trump tapped Representative Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, to be his next U.S. attorney general on Wednesday, it sent shockwaves through the political sphere.
Gaetz, who is a lawyer, represented Florida’s 1st Congressional District from January 2017 until he resigned on Wednesday following Trump’s announcement. Gaetz’s resignation ended the House Ethics Committee’s probe into his alleged involvement with the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl. Gaetz has denied the allegations before the committee.
The Hill reported that there were audible gasps in the room where House Republicans were waiting to start leadership elections when Trump announced Gaetz’s nomination.
Meanwhile, Paul Rosenzweig, a former federal prosecutor who is now a professorial lecturer at George Washington University, previously told Newsweek that Gaetz’s nomination, “along with that of Gabbard and Hegseth, is a collective middle finger from Trump to America and to those who have devoted their lives to defending her.”
Rosenzweig was referring to former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who was tapped for Secretary of Defense, and former Democratic Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who was picked for director of national intelligence.
Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard
Hegseth and Gabbard have military experience, but Politico described them as “dark-horse selections by Trump known more for being media personalities than for their influence on national security matters.”
Hegseth served in the U.S. Army where he did tours in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan. He previously served as the executive director of political groups Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America. He joined Fox News as a contributor in 2014 before he became a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend in 2017.
Gabbard, an Army National Guard veteran, gained national attention for her anti-interventionist foreign policy stance and 2020 presidential campaign. Now a loyal ally of Trump, Gabbard advocates for civil liberties, energy independence, and ending U.S. military entanglements abroad.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
On Thursday night, Trump announced Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his administration’s secretary of health and human services. Kennedy Jr. has advocated against processed foods and the use of herbicides, but his most notable stance is perhaps on the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism.
Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer turned politician, started out as Trump’s rival in the 2024 election as an independent candidate for president. But he later dropped out and endorsed him.
Trump’s choice to pick Kennedy Jr. to lead America’s public health agencies under his second administration left medical professionals aghast with Dr. Ashish Jha, a former Biden administration COVID-19 coordinator and the dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, calling it “an extraordinarily bad choice,” to CNN‘s Wolf Blitzer.
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