Some simpletons have been like "trump was president from 2016-20 and it didn't get out of hand and he wasn't a dictator or a facist so that is evidence that this term will be just more of the same"
Ya, this administration will be nothing like the last one.
One difference this time is that he's elevating people he largely knows and likes, as opposed to strangers boasting impressive credentials and résumés. In his first term, he nominated a retired four-star general, James Mattis, for defense secretary. Mattis had commanded troops in wartime and was considered a blend of soldier and scholar, with a library of thousands of books.
As homeland security chief, Trump at the time chose John Kelly, another retired four-star general, whose son was killed fighting in Afghanistan.
Trump broke with both men, ousting Mattis and parting ways with Kelly after having brought him into the White House to be his chief of staff.
At the time, both Mattis and Kelly were seen as "adults in the room" who would guide a new president who'd never held public office.
That model didn't suit Trump, and he's plainly abandoning it as he shapes a new presidency.
The Gaetz and Hegseth announcements, in particular, drew backlash.
Neither has run anything as complex and consequential as the departments they’d be leading. Hegseth was deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq and served in the National Guard for more than 19 years.
"You need two things: competence and character. You need people who have deep, large, organizational experience, ideally with the public sector. We’re not seeing that with these picks,” said Max Stier, chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group devoted to improving government effectiveness.
Gaetz has been investigated over allegations of
sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl.
A Justice Department official called the Gaetz announcement "
truly stunning”; another labeled it “insane.”
From bitter experience, Trump knows that he needs an attorney general he can trust implicitly, and it might be worth the political capital to battle for Gaetz's confirmation.
Little happened in Trump’s first term that angered him as much as Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to recuse himself and appoint a special counsel to investigate whether there were links between his 2016 campaign and Russia.
“This is the end of my presidency. I’m f—,” Trump said, according to
a report filed by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.
He went on to fire Sessions. And he later feuded with another appointee, William Barr, who angered him by saying the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, as Trump has falsely claimed.
In Gaetz, Trump would get an attorney general who has said Trump won the election that year, as well as an iconoclast who shares his willingness to upset the status quo.
“I don’t care if it takes every second of our time and every ounce of our energy," Gaetz said at a conference of conservative activists last year. "We either get this government back on our side or we defund and get rid of — abolish the FBI, CDC, ATF, DOJ, every last one of ’em if they do not come to heel."
