Buckle up, America.
President-elect Trump has burst back onto the Beltway political scene, sparking outrage from critics and glee among his loyal followers by tapping controversial characters like Matt Gaetz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Elon Musk for his second-term cabinet.
Just days after scoring a decisive election win, Trump has moved with lightning speed to put forward a host of cabinet picks, some of which shocked political allies and foes alike because of their perceived extreme views or lack of traditional qualifications.
Most of them must now face Senate confirmation hearings early in the new year, which could stir up significant new damaging information about them and expose any divisions among Trump’s Republican allies.
Trump isn’t worried. He has warned GOP lawmakers to toe the line and re-upped threats to use his power to retaliate against critics.
Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political analyst, called the shock-and-awe cabinet roll out “just a taste of what’s to come” in the next four years.
“Trump has been dying to stick it to the establishment and get his revenge and retribution,” Sabato said. “He didn’t waste any time getting started.”
No one can say he didn’t warn them.
President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a House Republicans Conference meeting in Washington on Wednesday. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The incoming president spent months railing against the status quo on the campaign trail, including vows to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, take revenge on his political critics, punish so-called “woke” generals and and shake up the economy.
Republicans were ready for a few off-beat selections and precedent-breaking paybacks to reward his most trusted allies.
But few were expecting the likes of Gaetz, who has virtually no legal experience, to be named attorney general or Fox News host Pete Hegseth to run the Department of Defense, which is arguably the most powerful organization on the planet.
RFK Jr. has denounced life-saving vaccines and also accused giant food and pharmaceutical companies, both major Republican constituencies, of “poisoning” Americans.
Musk, already the world’s richest man and a major beneficiary of government contracts and subsidies, is facing innumerable conflicts as he prepares to head up a new organization aimed at cutting the federal budget.
Here’s what you need to know.
Who are the key picks so far?
The most important picks in any incoming president’s cabinet are secretary of state, chief of staff, defense and the attorney general, who is the nation’s top law-enforcement official.
Trump picked Gaetz as attorney general, Hegseth to lead the Pentagon and a much more conventional pick, Sen. Marco Rubio, to become the nation’s top diplomat.
He has tapped another controversial figure in ex-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence. She has defended Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and has no experience working in the intelligence world.
There were also some more conventional picks, liked GOP presidential candidate Doug Burgum as secretary of the interior, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Florida) as national security adviser and Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff.
Two New York lawmakers also won jobs. Rep. Elise Stefanik was nominated to be UN ambassador and ex-Rep. Lee Zeldin is set to take over the Environmental Protection Agency.
A team for the border and mass deportations
One of Trump’s key campaign pledges was to stop migrants from crossing the southern border with Mexico and to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
He named hardliner Stephen Miller to oversee that effort as the White House deputy chief of staff for policy.
Tom Homan, a tough-talking former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief, has been named so-called border czar. He has vowed to deport anyone who is in the country illegally, including parents of children who are U.S. citizens.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Trump ally who admitted killing her family’s pet dog, has been tapped to lead the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the border patrol and ICE among other key agencies.
One side effect of the raging controversies over other cabinet nominees may be to make the paths to confirmation smoother for Miller and Noem than they might have otherwise been.
Matt Gaetz leaves a House Republicans Conference meeting after Donald Trump spoke at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Why is Matt Gaetz so controversial?
Gaetz is probably the most shocking pick so far because so few people saw it coming.
The ex-Florida lawmaker has no experience as a prosecutor or judge and only practiced law briefly before entering politics, all traditional credentials to become the nation’s top law-enforcement official.
But the biggest hurdle to Gaetz winning his post is his own checkered past.
Gaetz was the subject of a lengthy federal criminal probe into claims that he participated in drug-fueled sex romps with paid female escorts, including at least one who was under the age of consent.
He denies all the allegations. The feds eventually declined to charge him, reportedly over concerns about the reliability of witnesses.
A timely resignation
The Republican-led House Ethics Committee investigated many of the same claims. A young woman told them Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17 and a high school student.
The panel was expected to vote to release its report on Friday. But it scrapped the meeting.
In an odd twist, Gaetz abruptly resigned his seat in the House on Wednesday, the same day Trump announced his nomination. That move would typically make the ethics probe moot because he’s no longer a lawmaker.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that the report should stay secret.
But Republican senators have said they want to see the report as part of their confirmation process.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes a selfie with guests at an evert at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
What about vaccine skeptic RFK Jr.?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long been perhaps the most prominent critic of American public health system and the vaccines that are part of the fabric of American life.
Now, he’s been nominated as secretary of health and human services, overseeing all the nation’s health agencies, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, and the Medicare and Medicaid programs that serve tens of millions of Americans.
Kennedy used his independent presidential campaign to spotlight his outrageous claims including that “no vaccine is safe,” vaccines cause autism and COVID vaccines killed many Americans.
“It’s absolutely chilling,” Dr. Richard Besser, chief of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, told ABC News. “It could impact the lives of everyone living in America.”
RFK Jr. has also harshly criticized Big Pharma and food producers for contributing to Americans’ health woes and rampant obesity, among other problems. But tweaking rules for approving food and drugs could be highly unpopular with major corporations that traditionally exert huge sway — especially over Republican policymakers.
Trump, who has become very close to RFK Jr. in just a few months, has brushed off the concerns as liberal handwringing. He has vowed to let RFK Jr. “go wild” on the health system.
“Nobody’s going to do it like you,” Trump gushed to Kennedy at a Mar-a-Lago banquet on Thursday.
Elon Musk leaves a House Republicans Conference meeting where President-elect Donald Trump spoke in Washington, DC on Wednesday. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The richest man eyes the bottom line — and more
It’s easy to forget that Elon Musk only became a MAGA true believer a few months ago.
The Tesla, Space X and X mogul endorsed Trump after the attempted assassination in July and quickly became one of the once and future president’s key financial backers and omnipresent political allies.
Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, is the world’s richest man. He relies on subsidies for electric vehicles and U.S. government aerospace contracts for billions in profits and could make even more if regulatory agencies do his bidding.
He has been named to lead a new entity dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency along with former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Musk has said he wants to slash the federal budget by as much as one-third. But observers note that the new DOGE, a trolling name that refers to a Musk-promoted cryptocurrency coin, is not actually a government agency and has no actual legal powers.
Musk has also tinkered with U.S. foreign policy in ways that could have dangerous or unpredictable results.
He has regularly spoken to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in recent years and shockingly jumped on a post-election call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Just Friday, reports said Musk has recently met with Iran’s UN ambassador, a back channel that could send a mixed message to Tehran as it squares off against Israel in the Middle East.
President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a House Republicans Conference meeting on Wednesday in Washington. (Getty)
Trump’s plan and how it could backfire
Trump is a master of grabbing attention from friends and foes alike and ignoring criticism to get what he wants.
Republican strategists say the president-elect is betting that any political backlash over his cabinet picks will quickly fade but the benefits from policy victories will endure, especially on immigration or the economy.
“Trump feels emboldened after his dominant national election victory, so he may be more committed than what we traditionally see,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based GOP strategist.
But many political pundits warn that American political history is littered with examples of presidents who overstepped any mandate they might have earned.
For example, former presidents Barack Obama and George Bush both found themselves facing sweeping defeats just two years after winning big victories at the polls. The 2026 midterms could deliver a similar rebuke to Trump.
“Trump enjoys pushing the boundaries of political disruption and his voters want him to push back on who they feel are Washington elites,” said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist and Columbia University professor. “But sowing policy chaos as opposed to stability will likely impact the midterms.”