Donald Trump has nominated a roster of highly controversial, and in some cases scandal-plagued, MAGA chaos agents to serve in his Cabinet — and is planning to force them through the U.S. Senate, a chamber in which the incoming president will enjoy a new conservative majority. However, when it comes to some of Trump’s picks so far — including Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, Matt Gaetz for attorney general, and Fox & Friends co-host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary — a number of Senate Republicans are privately hyperventilating about their party’s leader (once again) causing unnecessary melodrama and disorder at the dawn of his administration.
Mere minutes after Gaetz’s selection was announced, one GOP senator close to Trump simply told Rolling Stone: “Our president is doing his best to give me a stroke.” That was before Trump selected vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist Robert Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Conservatives on Capitol Hill are scrambling to figure out how, exactly, they would clear the way for several of his nominees — some of whom have track records that would have been immediately disqualifying in a different era. Gaetz, for instance, was literally investigated by the Justice Department, the agency he is now set to lead, over sex trafficking allegations.
But this is a new day: It’s the second Trump administration, one premised on the idea that the twice-impeached former (and now future) leader of the free world has a mandate to impose his openly authoritarian, bloodthirsty, and revenge-focused vision on America. The ideological undergirding of the project is that Trump, in all the ways, deserves the opportunity to do whatever the hell he wants.
And according to associates and transition personnel who have spoken to Trump about some of his recent picks, that is precisely the point of his extreme selections.
It’s not just that Trump wants these people in positions of enormous power and influence; it’s that Trump, as he’s privately remarked, wants to quash any sliver of opposition within his own party even before he’s sworn in. And that starts with his ongoing efforts to force squeamish Senate Republicans to go along with his nominees, whether they like it or not.
“He wants to bend them to his will until they snap in half and then thank him for the privilege,” says one Trump transition team member, who has discussed the matter of appointments with the president-elect.
Another person with direct knowledge of the situation says that Trump said within the past week that “we’ll see who’s loyal and who’s not so loyal,” referring to which GOP senators try to stand in the way of — or even object to — some of his nominees to the highest and most consequential ranks of the federal government. Trump, this source adds, mentioned it was important to keep track of who is with him, full-stop, on these nominations, and who sounds like a squish when pressed by reporters.
Republicans will have a 53-47 majority in the Senate next year — and Vice President J.D. Vance set to break any ties — so there will be some margin for error when it comes to confirming Trump’s nominees. Even so, Trump has demanded that Republicans adjourn the Senate so he can make “recess appointments.” That would allow Trump to appoint controversial officials to his Cabinet for two years at a time, without senators performing their duty to provide the president with “advice and consent.”
For years, the Senate has held “pro forma” sessions to block presidents from making block recess appointments when Congress is out of session, i.e. on vacation, which happens often. Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has indicated he’s open to changing that for Trump. “We must act quickly and decisively to get the president’s nominees in place as soon as possible, [and] all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments,” Thune posted on Sunday. A few days later, on Thursday, Thune did not specifically commit to allowing recess appointments.
While Republican senators have largely offered positive thoughts about Trump’s nominees so far in public, the Gaetz nomination could represent an early test of the president-elect’s stranglehold on the Senate GOP. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have already expressed reservations about Gaetz’s selection, and The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Senate Republicans expect his nomination to fail, and it might not be close.
Gaetz officially resigned his Florida congressional seat on Wednesday, just two days before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on whether to release an investigative report into allegations that the congressman had engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and corruption. Given his nomination, Republican lawmakers are now facing pressure to release the report. The ethics committee reportedly canceled its planned meeting Friday over whether to make the Gaetz report public.
“In many cases, conservatives were excited by the initial national security picks, but I think the picks over the past couple days are big blunders, in part because at the end of the day, if Matt Gaetz thinks this somehow gets him out of his report that’s due on Friday, all it does is expose him to senators digging into all these allegations, and then potentially make it so alleged victims come testify,” says, Marc Short, the Trump White House’s former legislative affairs director and then chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence. “The Senate is not going to recess if they think Matt Gaetz is going to get appointed; they’re going to stay in a pro forma session. So I think this has been counterproductive to Donald Trump’s goals.”
But as Trump insiders say, Trump intends to force through his nominees, whether Republican senators support them or not.
