Trump’s Top Picks: An Illuminating Rorschach Test

Suppose one were to think of Donald Trump’s picks for top positions in his forthcoming Administration as a Rorschach Test. In that case, a psychologist might conclude that the soon-to-be- inaugurated President-elect is more impressed with persona and appearance than competence and accomplishment.

Matt Gaetz, who was Trump’s first choice to become Attorney General of the United States, had just about every attorney and every thinking person beyond adolescence in the United States scratching their head. It was a breathtaking choice that would have elevated Gaetz, who had no prosecutorial experience and no relevant experience as an attorney, to be the nation’s top prosecutor and the administrator of the Justice Department’s more than 100,000 attorneys. The choice of Gaetz made no sense whatsoever unless Trump thought Gaetz would be the only attorney he could find who would go after those who wound up on the President’s enemy list—Trump’s so-called enemies within.

That Trump would have selected someone like Matt Gaetz to be the nation’s top prosecutor would be laughable were it not so sad. Gaetz, who, under certain circumstances, would be responsible for prosecuting sex offenders who had engaged in sex with underage girls, could have himself been the target of such a prosecutor’s investigation. Gaetz is widely reported to have engaged in sex with seventeen-year-old girls. If that vile allegation is accurate, and if that perversion occurred in Florida, Gaetz would be guilty of statutory rape, given that the legal age for sexual intercourse in Florida is eighteen.

If Gaetz was showing photographs of his young female conquests to fellow Republicans on the floor of the House chamber as has been widely reported, it seems inconceivable that word would not have gotten back to President-elect Trump. Trump should be determined to find who among the House Republicans knew of Gaetz’s irresponsible, if not illicit, behavior and failed to inform him.

Trump has picked Robert Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services—as bizarre a selection as one can imagine. This outspoken anti-vaccine personality will now be the voice of modern healthcare in America. Who knows, perhaps bloodletting will soon be back in fashion. Kennedy wrote that Dr. Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, and the pharmaceutical industry conspired to undermine public health.

Kennedy’s unfounded claims that vaccines cause autism have alarmed many public health authorities, as have his threats to sue medical journals and fire hundreds of employees at the National Institutes of Health. They fear he could undo generations of sound public health policy.

Kennedy says he wants to fire hundreds of senior officials in the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health “on day one.” Accordingly, President-elect Trump has urged him to “go wild.”

President-elect Trump said, “Mr. Kennedy will restore the nation’s public health agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research and beacons of transparency to end the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Great and Healthy Again! We will demolish the deep state,” the president-elect often said at his campaign rallies. “We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.” This is almost dystopian.

President-Elect Trump has selected Fox News host Pete Hegseth to run the US Defense Department, the largest federal agency. While Hegseth served honorably and with distinction in the nation’s military, he is today best known as a popular Fox News host. Hegseth has no real administrative experience and will oversee the Pentagon's 23,000 military and civilian employees and its two million armed service members.

Hegseth has urged firing several generals, such as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and ending military diversity programs. He has advocated getting women out of combat roles, a position that would put him at odds with Tulsi Gabbard, who served during the US war in Iraq and is still an Army reservist.  

Another Fox News alumnus and former congressman from Wisconsin, Sean Duffy, has been selected by Trump to administer the Department of Transportation as its new Secretary, overseeing the nation’s highway and rail systems, airways, and seaports.

Then there’s Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump has selected as Director of National Intelligence. This is another strange choice by Trump. Gabbard collects criticism like magnets attract iron. She has consistently treated the likes of Bashar-al Assad of Syria and Russia’s Vladimir Putin with kid gloves. Gabbard curiously blamed the Biden Administration and NATO for Russia’s Ukraine aggression, claiming Biden and NATO provoked Russia's aggression by ignoring what she called Russia’s "legitimate security concerns" about Ukraine possibly becoming a member of NATO.

Gabbard, who, if confirmed, will oversee 18 US intelligence agencies, seems to have a strange affinity for dictators. Gabbard posits that al-Assad is not an enemy of the United States. She has defended Russian air attacks in Syria, which were conducted on behalf of Assad and were not focused on terrorists, as Assad has claimed.

This brings us to Dr. Hehmet Oz, a once prominent cardiothoracic surgeon who has become an Oprah Winfrey guest star and vitamin TV salesman. Trump has selected Oz to oversee the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which administers health insurance to 160-plus million Americans. While Oz has been a formidable spokesperson for various over-the-counter health products, his new role in administering an enormous federal agency like CMS seems nonsensical, even for a wizard like Oz.

President-elect Trump has picked tough-talking Tom Homan to be his Border Czar. “No one’s off the table. If you’re here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder,” Homan has warned. “You’ve got my word. I will run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.” How would he deal with families in which children were born in America and, therefore, American citizens even though their parents came here to work as undocumented migrants?

“Deport them all,” Homan declared.

Mike Huckabee, the former Governor of Arkansas who has been named Ambassador to Israel, will bring an evangelical worldview to Jerusalem, the site of the US embassy in Israel. Trump’s choice of Huckabee signals that there will be no more talk of a two-state solution in the Middle East, given Huckabee’s position that there’s no such thing as a Palestinian.

It has been an interesting week, leaving us with many more questions than answers.

Please share our weekly commentary with others.

Of Thee I Sing 1776. Subscribe here:

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe

Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on Liz Cheney’s book, “Oath and Honor,” as well as my commentaries regarding:

U.S. Representative Jim Jordan,

Brian Kemp and Those Republicans of Georgia,

The Trump Indictments,

The Fox Corp Settlement,

The CNN Trump Town Hall,

The Hunter Biden plea deal,

The New American Cult of Personality,

And my interviews with William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston, and my discussions with —

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author;

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center;

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation;

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway;

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon;

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite;

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels;

Senator Barbara Boxer;

Senator Joe Lieberman;

and former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Novels by Hal Gershowitz