Trump Chooses Sycophancy Over Qualifications in Cabinet Selections - Horowitz
Rób Horowitz, MINDSETTER™
Trump Chooses Sycophancy Over Qualifications in Cabinet Selections - Horowitz
His most recent selection-- Kash Patel as our next FBI Director-- is a case in point. When Trump attempted to make Patel the Deputy FBI Director in his previous term, then-Attorney General William Barr said he would do so “over his dead body,” writing in his memoir, “Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency.” As a line prosecutor in the Justice Department for several years, Patel lacks the high-level law enforcement and/or prosecution experience that is the usual prerequisite for leading a 35,000-person strong agency central to counterterrorism and crime control.
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Kash Patel’s loyalty to Trump and eagerness to go after his opponents, turning the FBI into the president’s personal police force is the main reason for his nomination. As Kash Patel told Steve Bannon on his War Room podcast, “Yes, we’re gonna come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” he continued, referencing Trump’s false claims that Biden stole the 2020 election. “We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly — we’ll figure that out.”
The president-elect’s choice for Secretary of Defense is similarly unqualified. While Pete Hegseth is a decorated military veteran, deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan during his service in the National Guard as an infantry officer who reached the rank of major, he has no experience in leading a large organization, in military strategy, at this level, or on the global stage. Yet, Donald Trump wants to put him in charge of 1.3 million active-duty troops and a budget of more than $800 billion annually.
One of the weekend hosts on Fox & Friends, Hegseth was chosen because he is good on television, has a demonstrated willingness to echo Donald Trump’s falsehoods, including championing the “Big Lie,” and has already declared we should fire so-called “woke” generals. If Donald Trump had named Mr. Hegseth Pentagon spokesperson, it would have been a good match for Mr. Hegseth’s talents and experience, provided, of course, one can put aside his personal behavior which is now front and center. For Secretary of Defense, it is a Saturday Night Live skit becoming all too real.
Tulsi Gabbard for director of National Intelligence is another manifestly unqualified pick. The former Hawaii congresswoman did not serve on the Intelligence Committee during her brief tenure in the House; nor does she have any other experience with intelligence matters. Perhaps more disturbing, her amplification of Putin talking points on Ukraine and apparent sympathy for Bashar al-Assad who used chemical weapons on his own people, make it unlikely that our allies will be comfortable sharing sensitive intelligence findings with us. "She has defended Russia, she has defended Syria, she has defended Iran, and she has defended China," said Nikki Haley," Trump’s former UN Ambassador who challenged him for the Republican nomination. "DNI has to analyze real threats. Are we comfortable with someone like that at the top of our national intelligence agencies?"
None of this, however, deterred Mr. Trump from seeking to put her in charge of safeguarding our nation's most important secrets and supervising 18 US spy agencies. A former Democrat, Ms. Gabbard’s support for the president-elect in the campaign as well as her willingness to launch unfounded attacks on the intelligence agencies and other Trump opponents as far more important to Donald Trump that her actual capacity to handle a job that is essential to our national security in a dangerous world.
With Matt Gaetz’s ill-advised nomination for Attorney General in the rearview mirror, Patel, Hegseth and Gabbard are the most egregious but far from the only examples of Mr. Trump ignoring the need to nominate people who are up to the jobs they are tasked with as long as the president-elect is persuaded of their craven willingness to do his bidding. All presidents seek to put loyal allies in key cabinet positions, but Mr. Trump is unique in apparently believing qualifications are beside the point. These are also people- if they end up being confirmed--who are incapable of providing the broad perspective and forceful advice required to make sure that national security decisions are carefully considered and made with all relevant considerations on the table.
These cabinet selections are not only bad for the nation; they are poor political choices for the incoming president as well. Despite all the chest-beating, this is an election that Donald Trump won narrowly with less than half the popular vote. He has considerable political capital, but it is far from unlimited. He appears to be determined to waste it attempting to get transparently unqualified nominees confirmed, distracting from his policy agenda.
The most problematic takeaway from this effort, however, is that when it comes to politicizing the national security departments and agencies to becoming personal arms of the president, Donald Trump clearly means business. It will be up to the US Senate to push back and perform their constitutional duties. Otherwise, the rough ride many of us fear will soon be upon us.