On Wednesday, Donald Trump announced three more headline-grabbing cabinet nominees. Each represents a strand of the unlikely MAGA alliance that triumphed last week and is set to run Washington in the coming years.
The first pick was the most orthodox and least surprising. Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that Trump was expected to select Florida senator Marco Rubio as his secretary of state. And—after a few days of nervous waiting for Rubio and his supporters—he finally did just that.
Rubio’s elevation to the role of America’s top diplomat is a blow to those in Trump’s orbit pushing for a clean break from the Republican foreign policy establishment. More traditional Republicans welcomed Rubio as an adult in the room who has serious views on how to confront China, Russia, and Iran. But they also wondered how long he might last given how many MAGA loyalists have defined him as a war hawk. “That should make Rubio very wary,” a veteran foreign policy hand from Trump’s first term told The Free Press. “He will not last two years.”
When it comes to the dynamics of the MAGA coalition, Rubio represents a Republican establishment at peace with its leader: a rival turned supplicant whose loyalty since 2016 has been repaid.
The second pick was a little more surprising. Tulsi Gabbard—a military veteran and former Democrat until she came out as a Republican this year, and a longtime critic of the foreign policy establishment—is Trump’s selection for director of national intelligence. This is like putting an antiestablishment fox in charge of the deep-state henhouse. No one disputes the dynamic—they just disagree on whether that’s a good thing.
Gabbard’s foreign policy views are at odds with many of Trump’s other picks, including Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz. On the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Gabbard blamed the West for the war, stating that Vladimir Putin had legitimate fears over Ukraine joining NATO that Biden should have acknowledged. She is a dove on China (unlike most everyone else in Trump’s cabinet) and is also “skeptical” that Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons on his own people—and even went to Damascus to meet the Syrian dictator in 2017.
One senior congressional staffer told The Free Press that he questioned whether the former congresswoman could even get a security clearance given her flirtations with the Assad regime, one of Iran’s closest allies. But many MAGA supporters claimed she’d facilitate a needed break from failed Republican policies. Moreover, they think there’s poetic justice in the idea that a woman who had reportedly been placed on a “secret terror watchlist” by the TSA could now be running the country’s national intelligence apparatus.
Even Gabbard’s admirers admit she’s a little kooky. In 2022, the former Hawaii lawmaker urged Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Joe Biden to “put geopolitics aside and embrace the spirit of aloha, respect and love.” Okay?
While Rubio represents a GOP brought to heel, Gabbard represents the ragtag Rebel Alliance—many of them former Democrats—that formed behind Trump during this election.
But the third announcement yesterday was the real jaw-dropper: Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, Trump announced, would be his pick for attorney general. The news was met with shock across Washington.
The Gaetz pick felt like the cabinet-appointment equivalent of shitposting. The man Trump wants to be the federal government’s top attorney practiced law for a grand total of two years before becoming a legislator. He was the subject of a long-running House ethics investigation relating to allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use—until he resigned from Congress shortly after Trump’s announcement, effectively ending the probe. If confirmed—and that’s a pretty big if—he would be running the department that recently investigated him for sex trafficking and obstruction of justice. (Last night, it emerged that the department was preparing to release a “highly critical” report on Gaetz this Friday.)
We spoke to several senior conservative legal scholars and former White House officials about his appointment, and let’s just say they weren’t thrilled.
“I’m already hearing from a wide number of solid and capable conservatives great consternation,” said one top conservative legal figure.
“My phone is blowing up,” said a leading Republican lawyer. “I can’t believe the Senate would confirm him.”
“Gaetz will have to plead the Fifth at his confirmation, which would be a first,” said a veteran Republican strategist.
So what’s the takeaway on Gaetz?
The left-wing critique is that he’s crazy and this will be a disaster. The conservative critique, expressed by several we spoke to, is that this is needless drama, especially given the other qualified names that had been floated.
Some wonder if Trump is playing 4D chess—that he knows Gaetz won’t get confirmed and ultimately has someone else in mind. If Republican senators die on this hill, then he can get the rest of his picks through. Maybe. But that all sounds a little too premeditated.
What does Gaetz represent? Full-bore MAGA. The 42-year-old congressional troublemaker would be unimaginable in a previous iteration of the GOP: fully on board both stylistically and ideologically, and unquestioningly loyal. Which won’t reassure those who worry Trump wants an attorney general to do his bidding.
And there you have it: three legs of the MAGA stool exemplified by three cabinet picks on a weird day in Washington.
Oliver Wiseman is a writer and editor for The Free Press. Follow him on X @ollywiseman. Jay Solomon contributed reporting to this piece.
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