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.
