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This is what 4 of Trump’s cabinet picks think of the agencies they would lead.
As President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to return to Washington, his picks for high-ranking cabinet positions have put into sharp relief his vow to shake up the establishment: Many of his would-be nominees have fiercely criticized the very agencies they are seeking to helm.
But some of the claims they have leveled are faulty to start.
Among the more radical candidates are Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Kash Patel as F.B.I. director and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary for health and human services.
Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News host and veteran, wrote a book decrying the “cultural chaos and weakness” inflicted by top military brass obsessed with “woke” ideologies.
He has said that women should not serve in combat and suggested that top officials involved in the withdrawal of Afghanistan should be removed.
And he has accused the Biden administration and the news media of inflating extremism in the military.
Fox News, Jan. 5, 2024
He was referring to, and imprecisely describing, the findings of a study commissioned by the Pentagon and released in December 2023. The study found “no evidence that the number of violent extremists in the military is disproportionate to the number of violent extremists in the United States as a whole.” But it did find that among veterans, the rate of participation in “extremist ideologies and behaviors” was “slightly higher and may be growing.” It also noted that “racism and sexism continue to be problems in the military.”
In other instances, Mr. Hegseth has singled out what he calls “poisonous ideologies” of climate change and gender parity.
Fox News, June 2, 2024
“Our military is pumping out electric tanks. China is building a military specifically designed to defeat us and our defense industry, because of our generals who’ve given into ideologues, is focused on climate change.”
The Army does have a goal to incorporate hybrid tactical vehicles by 2035, and fully electric ones by 2050. But those are not tanks. Moreover, the impetus has more to do with concerns about fuel supplies in combat and the tactical advantage of silence that an electric vehicle confers.
Ms. Gabbard is known for her outlier positions, especially on foreign policy. Once aligned with the Democratic Party as a congresswoman from Hawaii, she is now a Trump loyalist who has drawn particular scrutiny for embracing talking points that echo disinformation from Russian state media.
If confirmed, Ms. Gabbard would oversee more than a dozen spy agencies and have access to highly sensitive intelligence.
Ms. Gabbard has been critical of the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
Fox News, March 14, 2022
Ms. Gabbard appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” to rebut criticisms that she had repeated an unfounded claim, promoted by Russian state media, that the United States was funding bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine. She argued that she had said “no such thing” but rather that she had merely warned that laboratories conducting biological research could be compromised in a warzone.
Officials had said that the labs in Ukraine may contain pathogens once used for Soviet-era weapons programs, but that the labs did not have the ability to manufacture bioweapons. A United Nations official said the organization was also not aware of any biological weapons program in Ukraine.
A spokeswoman for the Trump transition cited comments that Victoria Nuland, then the under secretary for political affairs at the State Department, had made in congressional testimony in 2022. Ms. Nuland said that Ukraine had biological research facilities and that the government was working with Ukraine on how to prevent materials from falling into Russian hands.
But Mr. Carlson mischaracterized Ms. Nuland’s remarks as an admission of the existence of bioweapons labs — and Ms. Gabbard concurred, despite her earlier precision.
Ms. Gabbard has also accused the “security state” of targeting perceived political enemies.
Fox News, Aug. 11, 2022
“You are not allowed to disagree with the F.B.I. That is the new message. The security state will label you an extremist for daring to challenge or disagree with the regime’s weaponization of law enforcement.”
Ms. Gabbard was referring to and mischaracterizing remarks made by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland about the F.B.I.’s court-approved search of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Florida estate, earlier that month. She played a clip of Mr. Garland saying: “Let me address recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the F.B.I. and Justice Department agents and prosecutors. I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked.”
Ms. Gabbard portrayed the remarks as a “stark warning to anyone who dares to disagree” with the Biden administration and the Washington establishment.
But Mr. Garland was speaking specifically about the search, which occurred in early August 2022 as part of an investigation into whether Mr. Trump had improperly retained classified documents after he left office.
For days, Mr. Garland stayed silent about the search as Mr. Trump advanced numerous false and unsupported claims. Three days later, Mr. Garland announced that the Justice Department would seek to unseal the warrant.
Mr. Patel, a right-wing pugilist, has promised to reshape the F.B.I. by firing its top officials, closing its headquarters in Washington and going after Mr. Trump’s rivals.
His statements reflect a suspicion of the institution he would be in line to run, undermining its work as biased and marginalizing the F.B.I.’s efforts to hold to account members of the pro-Trump mob who threatened the transfer of power.
He has cast the agency as corrupt and its inquiries as politically motivated by mischaracterizing agency procedures and laws.
Shawn Ryan’s podcast, Sept. 2, 2024
Mr. Patel was referring to, and mischaracterizing, several elements of the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago and the federal case against Mr. Trump for mishandling classified documents.
By “bogus WhatsApp warrant,” Mr. Patel appeared to be referring to the disclosure that an F.B.I. agent had procured the warrant by making a sworn statement before a judge using WhatsApp.
The F.B.I. did not “leak” the warrant, as Mr. Patel said; rather, the Justice Department sought to unseal it and a judge approved the request — after Mr. Trump encouraged its release. And it is standard practice for the F.B.I. to take photos of evidence obtained in searches.
The Presidential Records Act of 1978 does not allow departing presidents to “take what they want,” and it is not true that other presidents have done the same thing as Mr. Trump. The law gives the National Archives and Records Administration ownership and control of presidential records. The agency has said that it “assumed physical and legal custody of the presidential records” from every one of Mr. Trump’s predecessors dating to Ronald Reagan.
A spokesman for the Trump transition cited a case in which a conservative legal group sued former President Bill Clinton for access to audiotapes of interviews between Mr. Clinton and a historian. But that case is not particularly relevant to Mr. Trump’s, as a federal judge ruled that the audiotapes were personal records. Mr. Trump was accused of taking classified documents and presidential records.
He has sought to rewrite the history of the Capitol attack, falsely pinning blame on Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the violence.
“War Room,” Oct. 7, 2024
This exchange on a podcast by the right-wing strategist Stephen Bannon referred to footage captured for a documentary about Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker. In multiple clips, released by House Republicans this summer, Ms. Pelosi is seen on the day of the riot huddled with other lawmakers in a secure room, walking briskly down a hallway surrounded by security guards, and sitting in a moving car, all the while expressing frustration about security lapses. She was not actively filming a movie, unbothered by the riot unfolding, as Mr. Patel suggested.
The clips do include Ms. Pelosi saying, in an apparent reference to the Capitol Police’s lack of preparation: “They clearly didn’t know and I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more because it’s stupid that we should be in a situation like this” and “Oh my god, I can’t believe the stupidity of this. And I take full responsibility.”
But securing the Capitol is the job of the Capitol Police and a three-member governing board that includes the architect of the Capitol, one official appointed by the speaker and one appointed by the Senate leader. Moreover, it is the president who is authorized to deploy the D.C. National Guard, not Ms. Pelosi.
The Trump transition spokesman also cited a letter Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote to Trump administration officials. But that letter was dated and posted on Jan. 5, 2021, a day before the riot, stating that the city had not asked for additional law enforcement for planned protests and requesting that federal agencies coordinate with the city police for further deployments. The letter does not contain evidence that Ms. Bowser turned down Mr. Trump’s authorization of additional National Guard troops.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination before endorsing Mr. Trump and joining his transition team, is a leading vaccine skeptic whose views on medicine and health swerve far outside the mainstream.
Like the president-elect, Mr. Kennedy is prone to sharing baseless theories based on little evidence.
In voicing skepticism of vaccines, he has promoted misinformation.
Testimony to Louisiana House, Dec. 6, 2021
“It confirms that this is the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
Mr. Kennedy, in testifying before state lawmakers during the coronavirus pandemic, pointed to a chart that purported to show “19,000 deaths reported from Covid vaccines, more than from all other vaccines combined in 30 years,” citing data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.
But the database allows anyone to post a report, and is not verified. A disclaimer on the vaccine reporting website cautions that “no proof that the event was caused by the vaccine is required in order for VAERS to accept the report.”
At the time of Mr. Kennedy’s comments, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed that six deaths had been caused by the vaccine, out of more than 450 million doses and a far cry from the 19,000 figure, PolitiFact reported.
Mr. Kennedy has advanced a groundless theory that elicited accusations of antisemitism and racism.
Video published by The New York Post, June 15, 2023
On social media, Mr. Kennedy defended his remarks by citing a 2020 study that he said showed the structure of the virus was “most compatible with Blacks and Caucasians and least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns and Ashkenazi Jews.”
But scientists dismissed his claims about the study, which did not say that Chinese people were less susceptible to the virus. The study did say that one receptor for the virus did not appear to be present in Amish or Ashkenazi Jewish populations.
Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, the Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator, said she was fired from the agency Friday after she declined to resign.
She said she did not know who had ordered her firing or why, nor whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knew of her fate. The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The departure reflected the upheaval at the F.D.A., days after the resignation of Dr. Marty Makary, the agency commissioner. Dr. Makary had become a lightning rod for critics of the agency’s decisions to reject applications for rare disease drugs and to delay a report meant to supply damaging evidence about the abortion drug mifepristone. He also spent months before his departure pushing back on the White House’s requests for him to approve more flavored vapes, the reason he ultimately cited for leaving.
Dr. Hoeg’s hiring had startled public health leaders who were familiar with her track record as a vaccine skeptic, and she played a leading role in some of the agency’s most divisive efforts during her tenure. She worked on a report that purportedly linked the deaths of children and young adults to Covid vaccines, a dossier the agency has not released publicly. She was also the co-author of a document describing Mr. Kennedy’s decision to pare the recommendations for 17 childhood vaccines down to 11.
But in an interview on Friday, Dr. Hoeg said she “stuck with the science.”
“I am incredibly proud of the work we were doing,” Dr. Hoeg said, adding, “I’m glad that we didn’t give in to any pressures to approve drugs when it wasn’t appropriate.”
As the director of the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, she was a political appointee in a role that had been previously occupied by career officials. An epidemiologist who was trained in the United States and Denmark, she worked on efforts to analyze drug safety and on a panel to discuss the use of serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most widely prescribed class of antidepressants, during pregnancy. She also worked on efforts to reduce animal testing and was the agency’s liaison to an influential vaccine committee.
She made sure that her teams approved drugs only when the risk-benefit balance was favorable, she said.
The firing worsens the leadership vacuum at the F.D.A. and other agencies, with temporary leaders filling the role of commissioner, food chief and the head of the biologics center, which oversees vaccines and gene therapies. The roles of surgeon general and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also unfilled.
The U.S. Supreme Court
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
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Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The U.S. Supreme Court refused Friday to allow Virginia to use a new congressional map that favored Democrats in all but one of the state’s U.S. House seats. The map was a key part of Democrats’ effort to counter the Republican redistricting wave set off by President Trump.
The new map was drawn by Democrats and approved by Virginia voters in an April referendum. But on May 8, the Supreme Court of Virginia in a 4-to-3 vote declared the referendum, and by extension the new map, null and void because lawmakers failed to follow the proper procedures to get the issue on the ballot, violating the state constitution.
Virginia Democrats and the state’s attorney general then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to put into effect the map approved by the voters, which yields four more likely Democratic congressional seats. In their emergency application, they argued the Virginia Supreme Court was “deeply mistaken” in its decision on “critical issues of federal law with profound practical importance to the Nation.” Further, they asserted the decision “overrode the will of the people” by ordering Virginia to “conduct its election with the congressional districts that the people rejected.”
Republican legislators countered that it would be improper for the U.S. Supreme Court to wade into a purely state law controversy — especially since the Democrats had not raised any federal claims in the lower court.
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Republicans without explanation leaving in place the state court ruling that voided the Democratic-friendly maps.
The court’s decision not to intervene was its latest in emergency requests for intervention on redistricting issues. In December, the high court OK’d Texas using a gerrymandered map that could help the GOP win five more seats in the U.S. House. In February, the court allowed California to use a voter-approved, Democratic-friendly map, adopted to offset Texas’s map. Then in March, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the redrawing of a New York map expected to flip a Republican congressional district Democratic.
And perhaps most importantly, in April, the high court ruled that a Louisiana congressional map was a racial gerrymander and must be redrawn. That decision immediately set off a flurry of redistricting efforts, particularly in the South, where Republican legislators immediately began redrawing congressional maps to eliminate long established majority Black and Hispanic districts.
An explosion and fire drew a large emergency response on Friday to a lumber mill in the Midcoast region of Maine, officials said.
The State Police and fire marshal’s investigators responded to Robbins Lumber in Searsmont, about 72 miles northeast of Portland, said Shannon Moss, a spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Mike Larrivee, the director of the Waldo County Regional Communications Center, said the number of victims was unknown, cautioning that “the information we’re getting from the scene is very vague.”
“We’ve sent every resource in the county to that area, plus surrounding counties,” he said.
Footage from the scene shared by WABI-TV showed flames burning through the roof of a large structure as heavy, dark smoke billowed skyward.
The Associated Press reported that at least five people were injured, and that county officials were considering the incident a “mass casualty event.”
Catherine Robbins-Halsted, an owner and vice president at Robbins Lumber, told reporters at the scene that all of the company’s employees had been accounted for.
Gov. Janet T. Mills of Maine said on social media that she had been briefed on the situation and urged people to avoid the area.
“I ask Maine people to join me in keeping all those affected in their thoughts,” she said.
Representative Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, said on social media that he was aware of the fire and explosion.
“As my team and I seek out more information, I am praying for the safety and well-being of first responders and everyone else on-site,” he said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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