Politics
Trump's own unorthodox rise, focus on loyalty loom large as nominees face headwinds
For weeks, President-elect Donald Trump has faced a barrage of criticism over his nomination of Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary.
Hegseth, an Army National Guard major and co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” is a staunchly conservative combat veteran who has defended Trump’s “America First” policies and called for an end to decades of progress in the U.S. military, including the deployment of women in fighting roles.
He also has little leadership experience and a raft of personal baggage that has dripped out steadily since Trump selected him — from sexual assault allegations in California, to accusations of financial mismanagement at two veterans groups, to widespread claims of severe alcohol abuse going back years, including in work settings.
Those issues have sparked concern among senators who would need to confirm Hegseth to the Pentagon post, and reports swirled Thursday that the nomination was doomed and Trump was considering withdrawing it.
Trump, however, swung back sharply Friday, defending Hegseth as a “WINNER” who was still in the fight.
“Pete Hegseth is doing very well,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social. “His support is strong and deep, much more so than the Fake News would have you believe.”
The pitched battle over Hegseth is one piece of a broader fight among Trump, his critics on the left and a handful of Senate Republicans who have shown a willingness to block the president-elect’s most unqualified nominees. It is also one of the clearest examples yet, experts said, of how Trump’s own unorthodox rise to power and extreme need for loyalty will play a defining role in his second term.
That Trump would downplay traditional experience, dismiss alarming baggage and prioritize camera-ready adherence to his agenda as he seeks candidates for top positions in his new administration is not surprising, they said. Rather, it is in keeping with his own against-all-odds rise to power and his belief that the voters who reelected him — despite his own baggage — are largely unbothered by such issues, experts said.
Time and again, they said, Trump has shown he is willing to overlook criminal charges and convictions, allegations of sexual misconduct and various other red flags that may have short-circuited nominations in the past, as long as the nominees in question have a clear track record of loyalty to him. And while not all of those picks have panned out, and more may still fall, it remains likely that Trump will assemble one of the most unorthodox and inexperienced leadership teams in American history, the experts said.
In some ways, backers of the president-elect have championed that idea.
In a statement to The Times, Karoline Leavitt, a Trump transition spokeswoman, said that Trump “was re-elected by a resounding mandate from the American people to change the status quo in Washington,” and “has chosen brilliant and highly-respected outsiders” whom he will continue to “stand behind” despite efforts to “derail the MAGA Agenda.”
“All of President Trump’s cabinet nominees are receiving great feedback and support on Capitol Hill because they are qualified men and women who have the talent, experience, and necessary skill sets to help Make America Great Again,” Leavitt said.
Other conservative backers of Trump have echoed that idea — including in closing ranks around Hegseth — while Trump has lashed out at any suggestion that he is not in complete control of the nominations process. After the Wall Street Journal reported on a second Trump nominee pulling out under pressure, Trump lambasted the newspaper, writing on Truth Social that Chad Chronister, his pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, “didn’t pull out, I pulled him out.”
Democratic critics and some outside experts take a different view. They say loyalty to Trump appears to be the only metric being applied to his nominees, and that those picks are facing stiff headwinds because they are clearly unfit for the roles otherwise.
Andrea Katz, a legal historian who teaches constitutional law at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis and writes often on presidential power, said all presidents make appointments based on a “mixture of who they like, who they can get, who will actually do the job well, and who needs to be rewarded for their loyalty.” And, conservative presidents for years have held the added assumption that many mainstream candidates and agency experts are too liberal to be trusted, she said.
“With the GOP generally, there’s been since Nixon — definitely accelerating under Reagan — this idea that the bureaucracy is not a conservative president’s friend, and you need to appoint people who are loyal to you and not to the agency you are appointing them to,” Katz said.
But Trump has taken that idea to a new level, she said, making the notion that career civil servants are “woke” and the “deep state” must be destroyed in favor of his own loyalists core to his approach to governance — and to nominations.
His picks, she said, “are historically aberrational outliers, beyond the pale normally, and therefore he is making a point by appointing them.”
In addition to Hegseth, Trump has put forward several Justice Department candidates who have raised eyebrows. His first pick for attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, withdrew his name amid allegations that he paid for sex with a minor and used illicit drugs and the widespread concerns about his fitness for office among senators.
Critics have noted that some of the allegations were already public — and under investigation by a House ethics panel — when Trump selected Gaetz for the nation’s top law enforcement position.
Trump’s replacement pick for attorney general, former Florida Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, is viewed as more qualified, but has also been criticized for backing Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election being stolen. His pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, has been widely panned given his thin credentials and his embrace of Trump’s calls for retaliation against a “deep state” of government workers, members of the media and others who have challenged the once and future president.
FBI directors are normally appointed and left in office for 10-year terms, and Trump’s suggestion that he will replace current FBI Director Christopher A. Wray — who Trump himself appointed — has drawn derision in its own right.
Trump nominated Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, to serve as ambassador to France. The elder Kushner was pardoned by Trump in 2020 after pleading guilty in 2005 to 16 counts of tax evasion, one count of retaliating against a federal witness and one count of lying to the Federal Election Commission.
Trump nominated Peter Navarro, a top trade aide in his first administration, to again serve as a trade advisor. Navarro got out of prison earlier this year after being convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a congressional subpoena from a House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump also has taken heat for his nominations of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to serve as his director of national intelligence despite her having little relevant experience and a history of defending U.S. adversaries; of billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to serve in his newly invented “Department of Government Efficiency” despite having clear conflicts of interest through their business holdings; and of various others with ties to the conservative Project 2025 playbook despite his disavowing the blueprint during the campaign.
Besides Gaetz, the only Trump nominee to withdraw to date is Chronister, Trump’s pick to run the Drug Enforcement Administration. Chronister, the sheriff in Hillsborough County, Fla., had been criticized by conservatives over his record on immigration and his having arrested a mega-church pastor who defied a COVID-19 lockdown.
The unorthodox nature and baggage of Trump’s various picks have raised questions about his process for selecting leaders for his next administration, with some questioning whether his transition team is simply bad at vetting. Others see a purposeful disregard for past improprieties, with loyalty being the only true test.
“Trump is assembling a palace of the most loyal guards,” said Michael Sozan, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, who worked for years in the Senate — including as chief of staff to former Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado — and has written extensively about the checks and balances in American government.
Trump’s nominees, Sozan noted, include people who lent credence to wild conspiracy theories, who have promised to “weaponize government to assault Trump’s political enemies,” and who have been accused of sexual assault or served time in prison, as well as “billionaires with massive conflicts of interest.” The only thing they all have in common is that they are “extremely loyal to Trump” — which is by design, he said. “This is what we see from authoritarians, what we see in other backsliding democracies.”
Sozan said every president “should get a lot of deference” in standing up their own administration, but Trump’s nominees are “so far out of the mainstream” that they deserve special scrutiny. “We have never seen anything like this in modern times.”
Sozan said he doesn’t think Trump cares whether people have been accused or convicted of crimes, and might even see nominating such people as “a way of minimizing” his own legal troubles, including allegations of sexual assault. “It’s almost a way of inoculating himself when he is surrounding himself with loyalists who have gone through similar travails.”
Katz said Trump’s revelry in shocking the mainstream leaders of his own party, angering his progressive opponents and delighting his anti-establishment MAGA base is clearly a factor in his nominations. But so is his deeply held belief, which he has “tested” repeatedly in the past, that “the public is going to perceive a legal liability the way he wants it to be perceived,” she said.
Trump tested that idea when he fired FBI Director James Comey during his first term amid an investigation into his campaign’s ties with Russia, and when he derided as baseless that investigation, the separate investigations into his political strong-arming of Ukraine, his 2020 election denial and the Jan. 6 attack, and both of his resulting impeachments, Katz said.
Each time, voters “didn’t leave him,” she said, “so I think he’s pretty confident that he is able to mold people’s perceptions of where an ethical red line is,” including when it comes to his nominees.
Robert C. Rowland, a professor of rhetoric at the University of Kansas and author of the book “The Rhetoric of Donald Trump: Nationalist Populism and American Democracy,” said Trump’s picks — a dozen now from Fox alone — have been characteristic of his approach to governing.
“Image and loyalty are always the first two things that influence Trump’s view of those with whom he works. He has picked any number of people who excel in praising him and who also have experience on television,” Rowland said.
Trump has “total faith in his own gut instincts” — over and above formal vetting — and “relishes playing the role of provocateur, with a special focus on ‘owning the libs,’” Rowland said.
Rowland said the result may well be a “crazy” mix of loyalists running the country — which he said was scary, as “they are not the adults in the room.”
new video loaded: Bill Clinton Says He ‘Did Nothing Wrong’ in House Epstein Inquiry
transcript
transcript
Bill Clinton Says He ‘Did Nothing Wrong’ in House Epstein Inquiry
Former President Bill Clinton told members of the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door deposition that he “saw nothing” and had done nothing wrong when he associated with Jeffrey Epstein decades ago.
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“Cause we don’t know when the video will be out. I don’t know when the transcript will be out. We’ve asked that they be out as quickly as possible.” “I don’t like seeing him deposed, but they certainly went after me a lot more than that.” “Republicans have now set a new precedent, which is to bring in presidents and former presidents to testify. So we’re once again going to make that call that we did yesterday. We are now asking and demanding that President Trump officially come in and testify in front of the Oversight Committee.” “Ranking Member Garcia asked President Clinton, quote, ‘Should President Trump be called to answer questions from this committee?’ And President Clinton said, that’s for you to decide. And the president went on to say that the President Trump has never said anything to me to make me think he was involved. “The way Chairman Comer described it, I don’t think is a complete, accurate description of what actually was said. So let’s release the full transcript.”
By Jackeline Luna
February 27, 2026
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accused Everett, Washington, Mayor Cassie Franklin of escalating tensions with federal authorities after she issued a directive limiting immigration enforcement in the city.
Franklin issued a mayoral directive this week establishing citywide protocols for staff, including law enforcement, that restrict federal immigration agents from entering non-public areas of city buildings without a judicial warrant.
“We’ve heard directly from residents who are afraid to leave their houses because of the concerning immigration activity happening locally and across our country. It’s heartbreaking to see the impacts on Everett families and businesses,” Franklin said in a statement.
“With this directive, we are setting clear protocols, protecting access to services and reinforcing our commitment to serving the entire community.”
ICE blasted the directive Friday, writing on X it “escalates tension and directs city law enforcement to intervene with ICE operations at their own discretion,” thereby “putting everyone at greater risk.”
Mayor Cassie Franklin said her new citywide immigration enforcement protocols are intended to protect residents and ensure access to services, while ICE accused her of escalating tensions with federal authorities. (Google Maps)
ICE said Franklin was directing city workers to “impede ICE operations and expose the location of ICE officers and agents.”
“Working AGAINST ICE forces federal teams into the community searching for criminal illegal aliens released from local jails — INCREASING THE FEDERAL PRESENCE,” the agency said. “Working with ICE reduces the federal presence.”
“If Mayor Franklin wanted to protect the people she claims to serve, she’d empower the city police with an ICE 287g partnership — instead she serves criminal illegal aliens,” ICE added.
DHS, WHITE HOUSE MOCK CHICAGO’S LAWSUIT OVER ICE: ‘MIRACULOUSLY REDISCOVERED THE 10TH AMENDMENT’
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement blasted Everett’s mayor after she issued a directive restricting federal agents from accessing non-public areas of city facilities without a warrant. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
During a city council meeting where she announced the policy, Franklin said “federal immigration enforcement is causing real fear for Everett residents.”
“It’s been heartbreaking to see the racial profiling that’s having an impact on Everett families and businesses,” she said. “We know there are kids staying home from school, people not going to work or people not going about their day, dining out or shopping for essentials.”
The mayor’s directive covers four main areas, including restricting federal immigration agents from accessing non-public areas of city buildings without a warrant, requiring immediate reporting of enforcement activity on city property and mandating clear signage to enforce access limits.
BLOCKING ICE COOPERATION FUELED MINNESOTA UNREST, OFFICIALS WARN AS VIRGINIA REVERSES COURSE
Everett, Wash., Mayor Cassie Franklin said her new directive is aimed at protecting residents amid heightened immigration enforcement activity. (iStock)
It also calls for an internal policy review and staff training, including the creation of an Interdepartmental Response Team and updated immigration enforcement protocols to ensure compliance with state law.
Franklin directed city staff to expand partnerships with community leaders, advocacy groups and regional governments to coordinate responses to immigration enforcement, while promoting immigrant-owned businesses and providing workplace protections and “know your rights” resources.
The mayor also reaffirmed a commitment to “constitutional policing and best practices,” stating that the police department will comply with state law barring participation in civil immigration enforcement. The directive outlines protocols for documenting interactions with federal officials, reviewing records requests and strengthening privacy safeguards and technology audits.
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Everett, Wash., Mayor Cassie Franklin issued a directive limiting federal immigration enforcement in city facilities. (iStock)
“We want everyone in the city of Everett to feel safe calling 911 when they need help and to know that Everett Police will not ask about your immigration status,” Franklin said during the council meeting. ”I also expect our officers to intervene if it’s safe to do so to protect our residents when they witness federal officers using unnecessary force.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Mayor Franklin’s office and ICE for comment.
Related Article
The morning after Netflix clinched its deal to buy Warner Bros., Paramount Skydance Chairman David Ellison assembled a war room of trusted advisors, including his billionaire father, Larry Ellison.
Furious at Warner Bros. Discovery Chief David Zaslav for ending the auction, the Ellisons and their team began plotting their comeback on that crisp December day.
To rattle Warner Bros. Discovery and its investors, they launched a three-front campaign: a lawsuit, a hostile takeover bid and direct lobbying of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.
“There was a master battle plan — and it was extremely disciplined,” said one auction insider who was not authorized to comment publicly.
Netflix stunned the industry late Thursday by pulling out of the bidding, clearing the way for Paramount to claim the company that owns HBO, HBO Max, CNN, TBS, Food Network and the Warner Bros. film and television studios in Burbank. The deal was valued at more than $111 billion.
The streaming giant’s reversal came just hours after co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos met with Atty Gen. Pam Bondi and a deputy at the White House. It was a cordial session, but the Trump officials told Sarandos that his deal was facing significant hurdles in Washington, according to a person close to the administration who was not authorized to comment publicly.
Even before that meeting, the tide had turned for Paramount in a swell of power, politics and brinkmanship.
“Netflix played their cards well; however, Paramount played their cards perfectly,” said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Integrated Media Co. “They did exactly what they had to do and when they had to do it — which was at the very last moment.”
Key to victory was Larry Ellison, his $200-billion fortune and his connections to President Trump and congressional Republicans.
Paramount also hired Trump’s former antitrust chief, attorney Makan Delrahim, to quarterback the firm’s legal and regulatory action.
Republicans during a Senate hearing this month piled onto Sarandos with complaints about potential monopolistic practices and “woke” programming.
David Ellison skipped that hearing. This week, however, he attended Trump’s State of the Union address in the Capitol chambers, a guest of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The two men posed, grinning and giving a thumbs-up, for a photo that was posted to Graham’s X account.
David Ellison, the chairman and chief executive of Paramount Skydance Corp., walks through Statuary Hall to the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 24, 2026.
(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)
On Friday, Netflix said it had received a $2.8-billion payment — a termination fee Paramount agreed to pay to send Netflix on its way.
Long before David Ellison and his family acquired Paramount and CBS last summer, the 43-year-old tech scion and aircraft pilot already had his sights set on Warner Bros. Discovery.
Paramount’s assets, including MTV, Nickelodeon and the Melrose Avenue movie studio, have been fading. Ellison recognized he needed the more robust company — Warner Bros. Discovery — to achieve his ambitions.
“From the very beginning, our pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery has been guided by a clear purpose: to honor the legacy of two iconic companies while accelerating our vision of building a next-generation media and entertainment company,” David Ellison said in a Friday statement. “We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead.”
Warner’s chief, Zaslav, who had initially opposed the Paramount bid, added: “We look forward to working with Paramount to complete this historic transaction.”
Netflix, in a separate statement, said it was unwilling to go beyond its $82.7-billion proposal that Warner board members accepted Dec. 4.
“We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros.’ iconic brands, and that our deal would have strengthened the entertainment industry and preserved and created more production jobs,” Sarandos and co-Chief Executive Greg Peters said in a statement.
“But this transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price,” the Netflix chiefs said.
Netflix may have miscalculated the Ellison family’s determination when it agreed Feb. 16 to allow Paramount back into the bidding.
The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company already had prevailed in the auction, and had an agreement in hand. Its next step was a shareholder vote.
“They didn’t need to let Paramount back in, but there was a lot of pressure on them to make sure the process wouldn’t be challenged,” Miller said.
In addition, Netflix’s stock had also been pummeled — the company had lost a quarter of its value — since investors learned the company was making a Warner run.
Upon news that Netflix had withdrawn, its shares soared Friday nearly 14% to $96.24.
Netflix Chief Executive Ted Sarandos arrives at the White House on Feb. 26, 2026.
(Andrew Leyden / Getty Images)
Invited back into the auction room, Paramount unveiled a much stronger proposal than the one it submitted in December.
The elder Ellison had pledged to personally guarantee the deal, including $45.7 billion in equity required to close the transaction. And if bankers became worried that Paramount was too leveraged, the tech mogul agreed to put in more money in order to secure the bank financing.
That promise assuaged Warner Bros. Discovery board members who had fretted for weeks that they weren’t sure Ellison would sign on the dotted line, according to two people close to the auction who were not authorized to comment.
Paramount’s pressure campaign had been relentless, first winning over theater owners, who expressed alarm over Netflix’s business model that encourages consumers to watch movies in their homes.
During the last two weeks, Sarandos got dragged into two ugly controversies.
First, famed filmmaker James Cameron endorsed Paramount, saying a Netflix takeover would lead to massive job losses in the entertainment industry, which is already reeling from a production slowdown in Southern California that has disrupted the lives of thousands of film industry workers.
Then, a week ago, Trump took aim at Netflix board member Susan Rice, a former high-level Obama and Biden administration official. In a social media post, Trump called Rice a “no talent … political hack,” and said that Netflix must fire her or “pay the consequences.”
The threat underscored the dicey environment for Netflix.
Additionally, Paramount had sowed doubts about Netflix among lawmakers, regulators, Warner investors and ultimately the Warner board.
Paramount assured Warner board members that it had a clear path to win regulatory approval so the deal would quickly be finalized. In a show of confidence, Delrahim filed to win the Justice Department’s blessing in December — even though Paramount didn’t have a deal.
This month, a deadline for the Justice Department to raise issues with Paramount’s proposed Warner takeover passed without comment from the Trump regulators.
“Analysts believe the deal is likely to close,” TD Cowen analysts said in a Friday report. “While Paramount-WBD does present material antitrust risks (higher pay TV prices, lower pay for TV/movie workers), analysts also see a key pro-competitive effect: improved competition in streaming, with Paramount+ and HBO Max representing a materially stronger counterweight to #1 Netflix.”
Throughout the battle, David Ellison relied on support from his father, attorney Delrahim, and three key board members: Oracle Executive Vice Chair Safra A. Catz; RedBird Capital Partners founder Gerry Cardinale; and Justin Hamill, managing director of tech investment firm Silver Lake.
In the final days, David Ellison led an effort to flip Warner board members who had firmly supported Netflix. With Paramount’s improved offer, several began leaning toward the Paramount deal.
On Tuesday, Warner announced that Paramount’s deal was promising.
On Thursday, Warner’s board determined Paramount’s deal had topped Netflix. That’s when Netflix surrendered.
“Paramount had a fulsome, 360-degree approach,” Miller said. “They approached it financially. … They understood the regulatory environment here and abroad in the EU. And they had a game plan for every aspect.”
On Friday, Paramount shares rose 21% to $13.51.
It was a reversal of fortunes for David Ellison, who appeared on CNBC just three days after that war room meeting in December.
“We put the company in play,” David Ellison told the CNBC anchor that day. “We’re really here to finish what we started.”
Times staff writer Ana Cabellos and Business Editor Richard Verrier contributed to this report.
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