Donald Trump’s picks for a second term Cabinet were supposed to illuminate what a MAGA presidency free of guardrails would look like.
Many of his picks have been surprising, some controversial. His initial announcements were giveaways to his base — Matt Gaetz, then Pam Bondi for AG; Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence; RFK Jr at HHS. But as the process continues, one familiar theme has emerged: the willingness of the incoming president to spurn committed right-wing ideologues within his party.
The first clue was his selection of Marco Rubio to lead the State Department. A relatively centrist Republican senator who is a supporter of military aid to Ukraine and Israel, Rubio’s pick was seen as a blow to the isolationist wing of the party, which Trump has long been seen as championing.
The Florida senator is facing accusations of being a “neocon” from the likes of Alex Jones, Ron Paul, and even RFK Jr, who The Hill reports is lobbying Trump to select someone else for the job.
Rubio is just one nominee. But several of Trump’s other Cabinet-level picks are also rankling people who were hoping that a Trump victory would mean a return to power for a vision of the American right wing that never took into account the realities of MAGA-world and Trump himself. The Republican Party still struggles to wrestle with how Trump-style populism — sometimes isolationist, sometimes pro-labor, and infrequently consistent — fits in to the GOP’s overall ideology. And vice versa.
Scott Bessent’s nomination for Treasury is another key example. His selection on Friday came despite public lobbying against him specifically carried out by Elon Musk and murmurs about his connections to Democrat-supporting billionaire George Soros on the right. Other Republican figures have sounded off over his pick to run the Labor Department, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, over her support for the union-boosting Pro Act.
But maybe Trump’s worst transgression against the far-right: his pick for Surgeon General. Yes: what is typically an apolitical appointment is now provoking rage among two key groups of voters who backed the incoming president in 2024, the anti-mask, anti-lockdown Covid-skeptic crowd (in all its various shades), and the anti-abortion evangelical and Catholic right. Many of the former crowd in particular gravitated towards Ron DeSantis in the 2024 GOP primary after he emerged as a vocal opponent of mask mandates and other public health guidelines while serving as Florida’s governor in 2020 and 2021.
Dr Janette Nesheiwat’s nomination enrages both camps.
A clip of Nesheiwat appearing on the Fox Business Network is spreading in right-wing circles; in the video, she expresses support for Facebook’s efforts to tamp down on vaccine and Covid conspiracies — a huge no-no for a segment of the population which adamantly refused to comply with mask mandates, social distancing requirements and protested the closure of schools when the virus was killing hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Her Twitter/X post serving as the announcement of her intended appointment was immediately besieged by Trump supporters demanding that she refuse the position.
“Watch your step, Janette. We don’t trust you,” wrote The Blaze host Sara Gonzales.
If this feels familiar, it’s because Donald Trump has spent the past year making various decisions and statements which similarly enraged or otherwise spun up various groups of voters that make up the right flank of the GOP.
That same willingness to disappoint hardline conservative Republicans — at least, the ones who pay attention to the day-to-day of the political news cycle — was evident throughout the 2024 campaign. The anti-abortion right frequently takes the brunt of it; Trump spurned them, and former rival DeSantis, when he refused to endorse Florida’s six-week abortion ban. His stance against legislation to ban abortion at the federal level angered that group, too.
But the comparatively uncontroversial selections for Cabinet positions following a few initial outliers raises another question: is the president-elect attempting to build political capital with the Senate? And for what purpose?
With the Trump administration reportedly plotting a massive day-one push on immigration, one that will likely rely on Congress in some form for changes to law and funding which can only be provided through the Legislative Branch, we may have that answer in the weeks ahead.
