You know it’s a surreal time in Washington, D.C. when Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is the Democrat making the most sense. While his party has a collective “freakout” over Donald Trump’s potential hires, the Senate’s resident hoodie-wearer was asked if he’s as panicked as his colleagues about the president-elect’s Cabinet choices. “It’s still not even Thanksgiving yet,” he told CNN. “And if we’re having meltdowns, you know, every tweet or every appointment or all of those things, I mean, it’s going to be four years.”

And yes, while Trump probably did have fun “trolling” Democrats with some of these picks, as Fetterman said, they’re not the only ones with reservations. At least three of the president’s nominees are giving both parties heartburn heading into the holidays: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Matt Gaetz, and Pete Hegseth. Welcome to the job, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.). You’ve just been handed a political nightmare.

Philip Wegmann, White House Correspondent for Real Clear Politics, said this all clears up one thing: “This is Donald Trump’s transition and no one else’s.” Wegmann, who joined Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Saturday’s “This Week on the Hill” thought — like many people — that the president-elect was “playing it safe” with his first string of announcements. “There was a bit of bipartisan consensus behind a pick like, say, Florida Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. That’s someone who is certainly well-qualified for that position. … And then came some of these more unconventional picks. Pete Hegseth for Department of Defense Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, and then most recently, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. What that tells you is that it is Donald Trump, fundamentally, who is making these decisions — and him alone. It’s not an advisor. It’s not any outside group. It’s him.”

The only decision he couldn’t control was Thune’s promotion. While Trump didn’t weigh in personally on the Republican leadership race in the Senate, plenty of his surrogates did. And in the end, the pressure they exerted didn’t sway the more insulated chamber. “The reason why I think that we should still put a pin in this and watch closely,” Wegmann said of Thune and his party, “is that there’s sort of a bubbling frustration among the right flank. … With how things are going … Republicans are of the opinion that Donald Trump has a mandate after winning the Electoral College and also the popular vote. And so, the question is, when someone like Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has shown that he is ready to move the ball down the field, are Senate Republicans also going to be team players here?”

While Senator Marco Rubio, Lee Zeldon, and others are “no-brainers” for the administration, as Perkins called them, there are other question marks, like South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R), who, apart from the hysteria her dead puppy created, lost plenty of fans when she caved on popular girls’ sports protections. As Wegmann acknowledged, Noem has had “a bit of a fall from grace certainly.” But, he predicted, “I’m not certain that we’re going to see Republicans abandon ship here.” Heading Homeland Security may seem like a big job, but “I think she is seen sort of as a key piece here who’s going to compliment Tom Homan, the border czar.”

Although Gaetz may lead the pack of controversial picks, equally triggering to Democrats (and many conservatives) is the nod for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Health and Human Services (HHS). “You want to talk about a realignment?” Wegmann asked. “RFK Jr. represents so much of what is new from Donald Trump, because of Trump’s ability to reach out to Independent voters who are perhaps homeless among the two-party system,” he pointed out. “But let’s not forget RFK Jr. [is] a Catholic individual, but he also supports abortion rights. He’s very skeptical of pharmaceutical companies, but he’s also anti-Big Bank, anti-Big Business. He’s an environmentalist. This is one of these guys who sort of breaks the mold. And Democrats, I don’t think many of them are going to lend their support to RFK Jr. at HHS. I’m curious to see if there will be many Republican defections.”

If former Vice President Mike Pence got a vote, it would be an emphatic no. “The Trump-Pence administration was unapologetically pro-life for our four years in office. There are hundreds of decisions made at HHS every day that either lead our nation toward a respect for life or away from it, and HHS under our administration always stood for life,” Pence insisted on Friday. “I believe the nomination of RFK Jr. to serve as Secretary of HHS is an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration and should be deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have supported the Republican Party and our nominees for decades,” he declared.

Perkins, for his part, said he’d be “willing to sit down and talk” with the moderate but admitted he has “reservations.” “For me, the sanctity of human life and that moral fabric of our nation, that foundation, is absolutely critical. I’d have to have some assurances there for now. Put me in the skeptical column when it comes to RFK.”

The nomination that has had the most heads spinning is Gaetz’s, which took even his own party by surprise. As Axios tells it, the announcement was met with “audible gasps by House Republicans” in the conference meeting last week. “The reason why this is interesting,” Wegmann believes, “is that if you talk to Gaetz allies, they’ll say that in preparation for this contentious confirmation battle, he’s burning the ships like Cortez. … If you talk to folks who are a bit more cynical, the timing here is very curious. The House Ethics Committee was preparing to release a report concerning [the] activity of Mr. Gaetz and an allegedly underage girl,” he explained, “and by leaving Congress that effectively stymies that effort. … [T]hat was sort of the speculation that perhaps he was leaving early to avoid that accountability.”

Of course, as both men made clear, once a member leaves Congress, they are no longer under the jurisdiction of the Ethics Committee, so the investigation is — for all intents and purposes — dead. But there is the very real possibility that Democrats could leak it out as the nomination advances. What Wegmann has heard is that the report is a “grenade,” and it’s “only a matter of time before it explodes.” Democrats, after all, “have an incentive for this information to get out there, but they don’t want it to go off right now. They want to wait until it’s able to inflict maximum damage. Then there are some Republicans who would rather this information get out earlier, so the president-elect can either reexamine his choice or perhaps Gaetz can bow out.”

The “conference-splitter,” as Axios called him, got a cool reception from senators like Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and others who don’t seem anxious to give Trump a pass on this one. “This shows why the advice and consent process is so important,” Collins said, hinting that she won’t be so quick to let the president-elect bypass the traditional vetting with recess appointments. Murkowski stressed that Gaetz wasn’t even “a serious candidate.” “If I wanted to make a joke, maybe I would say now I’m waiting for [disgraced former Congressman] George Santos to be named.”

Of the three nominees who are most outside the box, Fox News’s Pete Hegseth is probably getting the most movement support. Several columnists are making the argument that the young veteran is plenty experienced, despite the Left’s shrieks to the contrary. The rumblings over his personal life have certainly given his detractors fodder, but others believe he is skilled enough — and determined enough — to overhaul the military and purge the Defense Department of four years of social experimentation.

Still, the thought “makes the Left go crazy,” Wegmann admitted. “But this is someone who was in the Armed Services for 20 years. He has won medals, and his nomination makes sense if you look at his book, if you look at the Shawn Ryan interview. This is someone who is absolutely on fire for reforming the Pentagon and going after sort of the woke excesses there. I think that’s why Donald Trump picked him. And Hegseth will be prepared for that confirmation hearing. You don’t get to be on TV every weekend if you’re not quick on your feet. I think he’s got a good shot.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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