Donald Trump’s Most Controversial Cabinet Picks Face Skeptical GOP Senators
HuffPost
The confirmation battles over Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be a test of how much Trump has changed the Republican Party.
WASHINGTON ― If two of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees represent the political gains he’s made over the course of his decade in politics, it would be a pair of former Democrats who endorsed him in 2024 and are now up for top jobs in his administration: Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Both Gabbard, a former Hawaii congresswoman nominated to be director of national intelligence, and Kennedy, the anti-vaccine activist who is Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, have confirmation hearings scheduled this week. And the dual symbols of Trump’s expanding coalition face resistance from what remains of the old-line Republican Party, potentially enough to sink their nominations.
The opposition shows the limits of Trump’s purported ideological transformation of the GOP. Conservative groups are running television ads attacking Kennedy for his support of abortion rights, while the Senate GOP’s national security hawks are skeptical of Gabbard’s past criticism of federal surveillance programs and her fondness for dictators.
“There’s obviously significant questions that we all probably ask in private that will come before the committee,” acknowledged Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who supports both nominees.
Republicans might ask Gabbard about pro-Russia statements she’s made and her secret meeting with former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in 2017.
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