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    What will Trump 2.0 mean for the global world order? | Stephen Wertheim

    Many assumed that Donald Trump’s second term as president of the United States would turn out like his first. But this time looks to be different. In his opening weeks, the US president has taken a flurry of actions he never attempted before, wielding sweeping tariffs against the US’s neighbors, upending portions of the federal workforce, and attempting to change constitutionally enshrined citizenship laws through executive order.The early signs on foreign policy are no exception. In his inaugural address, Trump said next to nothing about the issues that have dominated US foreign policy for decades – matters of war and peace in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Instead, he spoke of expanding US territory in the western hemisphere (and going to Mars), harking back explicitly to the 19th-century tradition of manifest destiny. Astoundingly, Trump mentioned China solely for the purpose of accusing it, inaccurately, of operating the Panama canal. When he turned beyond the Americas, Trump’s most telling line signaled restraint: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”Then Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, made even more pointed and intriguing remarks. Rubio ran for president in 2016 vowing to usher in a “new American century”, the mantra of post-cold war neoconservatives. But days ago, sitting for his first lengthy interview as America’s chief diplomat, he emphasized the need for a foreign policy grounded in the US national interest and said:“So it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was not – that was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the cold war, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet. We face that now with China and to some extent Russia, and then you have rogue states like Iran and North Korea you have to deal with.”For a US secretary of state to announce that the world is now “multipolar”, or is inevitably heading in that direction, is historically significant. Hillary Clinton also used the m-word in 2009 at the start of her tenure in the same role, but she invoked it less than affirmatively: Clinton professed a desire to move “away from a multipolar world and toward a multipartner world”. Rubio, by contrast, meant that a world of multiple poles or powers is to be accepted, not resisted. He also implied that US foreign policy had long been off course, having taken unrivaled American dominance to be a normal or necessary condition when in fact it was destined to disappear. At the end of the cold war, Rubio explained: “We were the only power in the world, and so we assumed this responsibility of sort of becoming the global government in many cases, trying to solve every problem.”The message: no longer.Still, no longer could lead down any number of roads. Read against the Trump administration’s Americas-centric start, Rubio’s comments have provoked dread – or excitement, depending on the perspective – that the United States will radically reduce its political-military role beyond the western hemisphere even as it asserts its power within the Americas.For traditional figures in Washington, the fear is that Trump 2.0 will give China and Russia a free hand to command “spheres of influence” in their regions, so long as they permit the United States to police its own sphere. For advocates of US restraint overseas, the hope is that Trump will deliver on his promises to end the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, shift more responsibility for defending Europe on to the shoulders of European allies, and seek to find a stable if competitive mode of coexistence with China. If Rubio thinks the world is now multipolar, presumably it follows that the United States should abandon the approach it pursued in the bygone age of unipolarity – a grand strategy of “primacy” or “hegemony”, as scholars call it.Perhaps. Rubio, though, was not nearly so conclusive. Throughout the interview, he referred to the governments in Moscow and Beijing in adversarial terms, which hardly suggest a willingness to grant them spheres of influence. Nor is there a straight line from acknowledging the loss of unipolarity to abandoning primacy. Even in a crowded, competitive landscape, the United States could try to remain militarily stronger than every rival, retain all its globe-spanning defense commitments, and maintain a large troop presence in Asia, Europe and the Middle East simultaneously. Those are the elements of primacy. Rubio did not renounce any of them. The United States, in short, could still pursue primacy without enjoying unipolarity.Indeed, in associating multipolarity with the existence of “multi-great powers”, Rubio may have meant to affirm the outlook of the first Trump administration, which adopted “great power competition” as a watchword. For Trump 1.0, as for the Biden administration that followed, the rise of China and the assertion of Russia did not compel Washington to pare back its military commitments and presence. Quite the contrary. Over the two presidencies, Nato enlarged to four new countries, the US military presence in the Middle East (excluding Afghanistan) remained stable, and the United States deepened security cooperation with Ukraine, Taiwan and others.So far, the appearance of formidable rivals has done less to discipline US ambitions than to furnish US global primacy with a new rationale – to stand up to the aggressive and revisionist activities of America’s adversaries. As Rubio put it: “China wants to be the most powerful country in the world and they want to do so at our expense, and that’s not in our national interest, and we’re going to address it.”But Rubio did signal more restraint than a continuation of business as usual. Just after his remarks on multipolarity, he noted that the second world war ended 80 years ago and that “if you look at the scale and scope of destruction and loss of life that occurred, it would be far worse if we had a global conflict now.” Since the end of the cold war, US leaders have invoked the second world war almost exclusively to exhort the country to lead the world. Rubio, by contrast, did so to caution against the dangers of overreach. He continued:“You have multiple countries now who have the capability to end life on Earth. And so we need to really work hard to avoid armed conflict as much as possible, but never at the expense of our national interest. So that’s the tricky balance.”Quite so. In recent years, the risk of conflict between major powers has grown acute. The war in Ukraine – in which one major power is fighting directly on its borders and the other heavily arming its opponent – had no parallel during the cold war. A US-China military conflict over Taiwan would be ruinous. In a country unused to paying noticeable costs for foreign policy choices, and a world that no longer remembers the last general war, Rubio delivered a salutary message.The policy test, however, is still to come. If the new administration is serious about avoiding catastrophic wars, without exposing core US interests to great power predation, it will make a determined, sustained diplomatic effort to end the war in Ukraine and minimize the risks of escalation if initial talks do not succeed. It will explore politically difficult ways to reach a modus vivendi with China, including by offering assurances that the United States does not seek to keep Taiwan permanently separate from the mainland, a red line for Beijing.The new administration’s opening moves suggest some intention to find a more sustainable and less confrontational approach toward the world’s major powers. But if unipolarity is dead, the lure of primacy remains very much alive.

    Stephen Wertheim is a senior fellow in the American statecraft program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School and Catholic University More

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    Trump cabinet criticized as hodgepodge team unified only by ‘absolute fealty’ to him

    During Donald Trump’s first administration, his vice-president became the target of an angry mob amid calls for him to be hanged. His top diplomat was fired via Twitter and branded “dumb as a rock”. His first attorney general was given his marching orders and called “very weak” and “disgraceful”.Despite it all, Trump has had no trouble recruiting a team eager to serve when he returns to the White House in January, even if his initial pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, was forced to back out amid allegations of sexual misconduct.Trump’s cabinet for his second term is nearly complete just three weeks after his stunning election victory over Kamala Harris. To his Maga (Make America great again) followers it is a team of all the talents, poised to enforce an agenda of mass deportations, gutting the federal bureaucracy and “America first” isolationism.To critics with memories of Trump’s first cabinet, however, it is an ideological hodgepodge glued together only by unquestioning fealty to the incoming 78-year-old commander-in-chief. Some have compared it to the gathering of exotic aliens in the Star Wars cantina. Others predict they will soon be fighting like rats in a sack as different factions compete for Trump’s attention.“The same thing that happened last time will happen this time,” said Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group. “He cannot resist chaos. It is his drug. He will eventually start doing what he always does and turn on different people and start sandbagging his own choices for these various jobs.“It’s that pattern he has. He comes out one day and says, ‘I love so and so,’ and then the next he’s talking to his friends saying, ‘Hey, you think Tillerson’s doing a good job or is he screwing me over?’ Those things are patterns we’ve seen in Trump’s personal life, his business life and his prior administration. An 80-year-old man is not going to be a changed person.”Eight years ago, Trump arrived in Washington as a political neophyte in need of a helping hand. He appointed a cabinet that included traditional conservatives of whom he knew little. This time, he returns as a former president who has transformed the Republican party and prioritises unwavering loyalty and adherence to his agenda over qualifications and experience.This was most obvious sign of this was the selection of Gaetz for attorney general, a position key to Trump’s plans to deport undocumented immigrants, pardon January 6 rioters and seek retribution against those who prosecuted him over the past four years. Gaetz’s replacement, Pam Bondi, is a longtime ally who declared after Trump was criminally charged that the “investigators will be investigated”.View image in fullscreenThere was a similar motivation behind the choice of Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, for defence secretary despite him having no track record in government. Hegseth fits with a drive to purge perceived “woke” policies from the military. He has denied allegations made in a police report that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2017 at a conference in California.Trump’s selections are sending mixed economic signals. The nomination of the Wall Street billionaire Scott Bessent to head the treasury implies an attempt to reassure markets (it is also notable because Bessent used to work for George Soros, the target of countless rightwing conspiracy theories). But Howard Lutnick, nominated for commerce secretary, has praised the president-elect’s proposed use of tariffs. Vice-president-elect JD Vance is also among those pushing a more protectionist agenda on trade.And Trump’s pick of Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a congresswoman from Oregon, as labor secretary could be one of the rare selections that draws bipartisan support. She is considered one of the most union-friendly Republicans in Congress, and her selection was viewed as a way for Trump to reward union members who voted for him.On foreign policy, Trump made a relatively conventional choice in Marco Rubio for secretary of state. The Florida senator has advocated in the past for a muscular foreign policy with respect to foes including China, Iran and Cuba. But the president-elect also intends to put Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat who has previously made statements sympathetic to Russia, as director of national intelligence.Other picks include Brooke Rollins, president of the America First Policy Institute thinktank, as agriculture secretary; Doug Burgum, a wealthy former software company executive, as interior secretary; and Linda McMahon, former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, as education secretary – overseeing an agency that Trump pledged to eliminate.Then there is Robert Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaccine activist and sceptic of established science. Kennedy’s career as an environmental lawyer could put him at odds with Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” philosophy and figures such as Lee Zeldin, set to lead the Environmental Protection Agency with a mandate to slash environmental regulation. Kennedy has also been condemned by Mike Pence, the former vice-president, and other social conservatives for supporting abortion rights.Outside the cabinet, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s “Department of Government Efficiency”, while lacking official authority, signals a strong push for drastic budget cuts and deregulation. And despite campaign trail denials, Trump has embraced Project 2025, a controversial plan from the Heritage Foundation thinktank, by appointing figures such as Russell Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe person who will have to make sense of it all is Susie Wiles, a longtime Florida political operative who will become the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff. She will hope to avoid the fate of chiefs of staff who failed to last the course of Trump’s first term as, like a sports coach, she seeks to make disparate players gel into a cohesive whole.In an analysis for the New York Times, David Sanger, who has covered five US presidents, identified “a revenge team”, “a calm-the-markets team” and “a government shrinkage team”, commenting: “How these missions will mesh and where they will collide is one of the biggest unknowns of the incoming administration.”But others argue that the cabinet’s range of experiences and worldviews will pale into insignificance when set against their devotion to the Trump cult. Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “Regardless of whatever individual ideological leanings these people have had at varying points in their adult lives, it’s largely irrelevant because the only litmus test we have seen put forward is absolute fealty to Donald Trump.“As we have seen in the Republican party overall, absolute fealty to Donald Trump overshadows any ideological belief. We could take almost every issue that used to be a part of the Republican party and show how the party has moved to a diametrically opposite position. This is not a party governed by ideology any more. It is governed by personality. It is governed by loyalty to Donald Trump.”Bardella, a former Republican congressional aide, added: “They’re all going to get in a room and they’re just going to go: ‘Here’s what we think. What do you think, boss? Oh, OK, well, that’s what we’re all going to do.’ The idea that there’s going to be ideologically rooted debate, vigorous debate happening in the Trump administration is absurd. It’s laughable.”Notably, Trump’s cabinet is more diverse than in his first term, although it again has only three people of colour in secretary positions. Rubio would be the first Latino to serve as America’s top diplomat; Bessent could become the first openly gay Republican cabinet member confirmed by the Senate; Gabbard would be the first director of national intelligence from the Pacific Islander community.But seasoned Trump watchers detect no method in the madness and suspect that the former reality TV star will once again act on impulse and thrive on conflict. Chris Whipple, the author of The Gatekeepers, a book about White House chiefs of staff, said: “I don’t think there’s any evidence that Trump has learned anything about governing since his first term.“There’s a lot of wishful thinking among a lot of commentators that OK, he’s had four years in office, he learned a lot, he’s had all this time to plan with Project 2025 and the America First Policy Institute and he’s got his act together. I just don’t think that’s true. I don’t see any evidence that there’s any sort of plan here other than ‘this guy looks good for that job, and Robert F Kennedy Jr has got a cool last name’.” More

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    Trump’s cabinet picks are agents of his contempt, rage and vengeance | Sidney Blumenthal

    “Shock” suddenly became the most commonly uttered word in habitually nonplussed Washington DC. After Donald Trump had attempted to subvert the certification of a presidential election, incited a mob, absconded with national security secrets, was convicted as a felon, and waged his Nazi-esque “poison in the blood” campaign, his brazen cabinet appointments are so mind-boggling that even hard-bitten cynics gasp.Sheer hypocrisy would have drawn a yawn. But Trump’s cabinet selections would have startled even the character of Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca, who feigned surprise at discovering gambling in the backroom of Rick’s Café before pocketing his winnings: “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”If Russia occupied the United States, it would not impose a collaborationist regime of such hare-brained incompetents. Kleptocrats would be expected as commissars, but not patent lunatics. Hitler, for his part, murdered the Nazi radicals in the Night of the Long Knives to solidify his rule over the conservative establishment.Trump declared he would be a dictator on “day one”. But before day one, he has decided to empower some of the most fringe characters floating around his Maga movement. The outrageousness of his nominees is intended above all to force the subjugation of those remaining Republicans who insist on their independence. He has posed a battle royale with the Republican Senate to determine whether it will buckle under his mafia test to recess-appoint his madcap cabinet. He wants to break the Senate and crush it under his heel as his first act. Humiliation is the essence of his idea of power.Trump’s cabinet appointments are agents of his contempt, rage and vengeance. The motive for naming his quack nominees is located in his resentments from his sordid first term for which he pledged retribution. He sees the US government in its totality as a bastion of his “enemies within”. He intends to shatter every department and agency, root out expertise that might contradict his whims, demolish the balancing power of the Congress that could inhibit him, and trample the law that might stand in his way.Wrecking the government is not only Trump’s technique for gaining submission and compliance, but is his ultimate purpose. He will achieve vindication by tearing down anything he feels was used to restrain his destructive impulses or tried to hold him accountable for his past crimes, whether it is the military, the justice system or science itself.Before the election, Trump developed two elaborate plans, one if he lost and the other if he won. In either case, he would attack the federal government. He had learned lessons from the failure of his January 6 coup. His preparation throughout 2024 to declare the election stolen and force a constitutional crisis was the underside of his campaign.In advance, he organized an extensive network of lawyers and political operatives to deny he lost, refuse to certify the election in districts and states to the point of preventing an electoral college majority, and throw the election to the House of Representatives, where the Republicans held the margin from control of state legislatures to cast 26 states for him.In March, Trump ousted the chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, because she would not divert the committee’s resources into an election-denial operation and fund his legal expenses. He inserted his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as the new head. She fired 60 staffers, but named Christina Bobb, a former far-right One America Network TV presenter, who was a key cheerleader of the fake elector scheme in 2020, as senior counsel of its election integrity unit. In April, she was indicted along with 17 other Arizona Republicans for fraud, forgery and conspiracy. Trump was named “Unindicted Co-Conspirator No 1”. Bobb’s indictment only elevated her standing as a Trump loyalist.A week after Trump’s election, he appointed the outside counsel for Bobb’s effort, William McGinley, Trump’s cabinet secretary in his first term, as his new White House counsel. In Trump’s first term, his White House legal counsel, Don McGahn, had resisted his pressure to provide him with cause to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, and his successor, Pat Cipollone, objected to Trump’s schemes to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump at last has an in-house lawyer to tell him how to do what he wants.Joe Biden welcomed Trump to the Oval Office on 13 November in a show that the transfer of power was peaceful. Biden’s message was to re-establish a constitutional standard, contrasting with Trump’s graceless refusal to meet with him after January 6. But the atmosphere of normalization was illusory. Biden acted as though by his example regular order could have a chance of restoration. His gesture was nostalgic.Minutes after Trump left Biden’s presence, he announced his nomination of Matt Gaetz to be attorney general. Ding, dong. The clock struck 13, again and again.But Trump had given fair warning.Trump rolled out his team of travesties in the spirit he had promised. “Well, revenge does take time. I will say that. And sometimes revenge can be justified,” Trump said in June on Dr Phil’s Fox News show. When Fox News host Sean Hannity followed up, trying to prod Trump into softening his threats, Trump rejected the opportunity. “When this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them,” he said.Trump’s plan upon winning, now unfolding, is to launch a full-scale assault on the federal government from the top down. He has no need to smash into the Capitol with the Proud Boys, whom he has promised to pardon as “hostages”.Certain common characteristics run through his cabinet of curiosities and horrors to mark them collectively unique among any cabinet of any president – alleged sexual misconduct and abuse, drug addiction, megalomania, authoritarianism, cultism, paranoia, white supremacy, antisemitism and grifting. Some nominees meet all these qualifications, others only two, three or four. For a few, it’s just plain and simple self-aggrandizing corruption.Each of Trump’s appointees is there to savage a target on Trump’s hitlist. When he came to Washington he was a relative blank slate, despite hauling a baggage train of scandal from New York. Back then, Trump blithely spoke of getting away with shooting someone on Fifth Avenue. Now, it’s Pennsylvania Avenue, where six people died as a result of January 6. Trump has been in the business of making enemies of anyone trying to enforce the law. The federal cases against him will be dropped to follow the ruling of the US supreme court that he has absolute immunity for “official actions”. Liberated from accountability, Trump is building his government on revenge.Quite apart from his appointees’ dearth of managerial experience and competence, they represent the antithesis of the core mission of the departments and agencies they have been named to oversee. They are not being appointed to run them efficiently, but to rule and ruin.The greatest influence in public life exercised by Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host and former national guard officer before Trump named him as secretary of defense, was in 2019 when he privately lobbied Trump and publicly advocated on Fox for pardons for three military officers convicted of war crimes, which Trump granted.Hegseth has denounced women in the military; they make up 17.5% of active duty personnel and more than 20% of reserves. He has called for the firing of the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Charles Q Brown Jr, who is Black, saying that any general “involved in any of the DEI, woke shit has got to go”.Hegseth was one of 12 national guard members who were removed from Biden’s guard detail at his 2021 inauguration after he was deemed “an inside threat”. Hegseth’s body is covered with tattoos – a Jerusalem cross, a symbol of the First Crusade, inked across his chest, and the crusader slogan “Deus Vult” (“God wills it”) on his arm among other crusader markings. This iconography has become popular with far-right Christian nationalists and white supremacists. The Deus Vult cross flag was carried by insurrectionists at the Capitol on January 6. When the tattoos were spotted by his national guard master sergeant, who wrote of the “disturbing” symbols to the commanding general of Washington, Hegseth was kept far from Biden.The Associated Press first reported the story of Hegseth’s exclusion from proximity near the president. JD Vance attacked the news organization, tweeting: “disgusting anti-Christian bigotry from the AP”.In 2017, Hegseth was the subject of a police investigation for rape in Monterey, California. His second wife had divorced him in September for his affair with a Fox News producer whom he had impregnated. She would give birth to a daughter in August. In October, Hegseth attended a meeting of the California Federation of Republican Women, drank at the hotel bar in the evening, and, visibly intoxicated, was assisted to his room by a female member of the group, who attended the event with her two young children and husband. Something happened. She was bruised. Hegseth claimed they had consensual sex. The police did not press charges.According to a memo given to the Washington Post by a friend of the accuser, also present at the meeting as a participant, the alleged victim and her husband hired a lawyer “to ensure Hegseth didn’t get off without punishment”. Hegseth wound up paying her an unspecified sum of money in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement.Revelations of Hegseth’s alleged behavior have not elicited censure from Trump, but expressions of sympathetic support for the would-be #MeToo victim. “Mr Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed,” stated the Trump transition response. Hegseth’s lawyer attacked the woman: “She was the aggressor. She was sober, he was drunk. She took advantage of him.”Hegseth appears to Trump as the ideal man to purge the military. Trump’s transition team has drafted an executive order for a “warrior board” to remove any general or admiral “lacking in requisite leadership qualities”. Trump complained to his chief of staff Gen John Kelly that he wanted “my generals” to be more like “Hitler’s generals”.Hegseth would be his enforcer of politicizing the military so that it never questioned any illegal behavior, like violating the War Crimes Act, or refusing an order to open fire on American protesters. “Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?” Trump said to Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs, in the presence of the secretary of defense, Mark Esper, about demonstrators after George Floyd’s murder in 2020. Hegseth would not be the defense secretary to advise Trump against invoking the Insurrection Act to impose martial law as Mike Flynn, his disgraced former national security adviser, suggested to him shortly before January 6.Tulsi Gabbard, the former congresswoman nominated to be the director of national intelligence, who flipped seamlessly from far left to far right, has been steady as a rote pro-Russian propagandist, hailed on Russian state media as “our girlfriend”, and has been identified with a secretive Hare Krishna-affiliated sect called the Science of Identity Foundation that mixes vegetarianism, homophobia and Islamophobia.Gabbard is there to wreak havoc on Trump’s phantom nemesis, the “deep state”. His first director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, a former Republican senator from Indiana, closely observed Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin, which he told Bob Woodward was “so strange”, “so subservient”. “Is this blackmail?” Coats wondered.Trump recalls that his first impeachment was the result of a whistleblower complaint from an analyst from the office of the director of national intelligence, who filed a memo about a phone call Trump had with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which he sought to coerce him into manufacturing political dirt about Biden in exchange for defensive Javelin missiles already approved by the Congress. “I would like you to do us a favor,” said Trump in what he insisted was a “perfect phone call”.Trump was furious at the exposure of his blackmail. “I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistle-blower the information because that’s close to a spy,” he said. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right?” Now he will send Gabbard to terminate the “spies” of the “deep state”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRobert F Kennedy Jr, nominated as secretary of health and human services, is an opponent of the scientific method for which he reflexively substitutes a priori conspiracy theories. He has grifted millions on bogus claims that vaccines cause autism. “There is no vaccine that is safe and effective,” he said. A decades-long heroin addict and self-confessed sex addict, he has a family who has tried to lift him out of his turmoil, staging interventions for years to have him professionally treated for his psychological troubles, but have been reduced to despair. He claims that his family members have succumbed to “hypnosis”.During the campaign, a family babysitter emerged to accuse Kennedy of numerous sexual assaults. He claimed he had “no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely”. He said in an interview: “I’m not a church boy.” Meanwhile, he was reportedly involved in an affair with Olivia Nuzzi, a writer for New York Magazine, which cost her her fiance and job. Three other women stepped forward to claim they had sexual affairs with him after meeting him through his anti-vaccine group, the Children’s Health Defense, and at the same time he was involved with Nuzzi, which he denied.But RFK Jr, is promoted by Tucker Carlson and his trailing entourage of lost boys, Don Jr and JD Vance. Carlson and Don Jr persuaded Bobby to drop his third-party candidacy and to endorse Trump. On 31 October, at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, Carlson interviewed Trump and asked him pointedly whether he would appoint Bobby. On 1 November, RFK Jr appeared on the Tucker Carlson Live Tour, where he told a rapturous crowd that in answer to his prayers for the fulfillment of his personal destiny: “God sent me Donald Trump.”Before the election, Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal editorial page confidently informed its readers that Trump’s bizarre statements and inclinations were not to be taken seriously, and that in any event would be blocked by “checks and balances”. After Trump was elected, the Journal has been stunned by the nominations of Gaetz and RFK Jr. “Good luck making sense of this nomination,” it editorialized about Bobby. “Matt Gaetz is a bad choice for attorney general,” ran another thundering piece. Murdoch is out in the cold. The TV host he fired, Tucker Carlson, is the kingmaker.In naming RFK Jr, Trump is reacting to his conflicts during the Covid-19 pandemic, when he wished to ignore it, dismissed mask-wearing and suggested injecting Clorox. He despised the scientists who told him his ideas would not work. He hated his chief medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, and coronavirus response coordinator, Dr Deborah Birx – “all these idiots”, said Trump.Trump also fired Dr Rick Bright, the director of the Center for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority in charge of vaccine development, for refusing to approve the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19, which Bright protested was one of several “potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections”. Bright testified in May 2020 before Congress that the Trump administration had “no master plan”, that the country faced “the darkest winter in our history” and that in the absence of national leadership, “our window of opportunity is closing.”Trump has not appointed RFK Jr for his famous name, though he must receive gratification from possessing for himself this piece of the Kennedy legacy, however tarnished. Bobby Kennedy Jr is there because he says that he will fire 600 experts at the National Institutes of Health, the foremost medical research center in the world – “all these idiots”. And Tucker Carlson vouches for him.The tangled resentments of Trump’s appointees are cardinal virtues, especially when they overlap with his own grievances. Trump, the adjudicated rapist, credibly accused by dozens of women of sexual assault, whom the sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein called his “closest friend for 10 years”, identifies with Matt Gaetz fending off investigations of his alleged sex crimes. After Trump confided in Reince Priebus, his first chief of staff, that he would pick Gaetz, Priebus concluded: “So, he [Trump] feels like he has gone to hell and back 10 times. So, this is also a big middle finger to the DoJ and the FBI.”At the end of the first Trump administration, Gaetz desperately sought to secure an all-purpose pardon to cover him from the then ongoing federal inquiry into alleged sex trafficking of minors to his alleged participation as a co-conspirator in Trump’s coup. He approached, among others, the deputy White House legal counsel, Eric Herschmann, who testified before the January 6 committee. “The pardon that he was discussing, requesting was as broad as you could describe,” he stated. “From beginning – I remember he said, from the beginning of time up until today for any and all things. He had mentioned Nixon, and I said Nixon’s pardon was never nearly that broad.”In October 2023, Congressman Gaetz provoked the removal of Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House. “I’ll give you the truth why I’m not speaker,” McCarthy said. “It’s because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old.”On 13 November, Trump named Gaetz attorney general. The next day, Gaetz resigned from Congress. The day following that, the House ethics committee report on Gaetz’s alleged sex crimes was scheduled to be released. But because Gaetz is no longer a member of the House, Speaker Mike Johnson, serving as Trump’s handyman, “strongly requested” that it would violate House rules to make the report public despite precedents to the contrary. He warned it would “open a Pandora’s box”, presumably of other dark secrets about Gaetz and perhaps other nominees.Democratic and Republican senators on the judiciary committee that will hold confirmation hearings have asked for the report. It remains bottled up.Trump does not attempt to hide his intention to “dismantle government bureaucracy” and “send shockwaves through the system”, as he tweeted in his appointment of “the Great Elon Musk” and Vivek Ramaswamy (no “Great” preceding his name), assigned to rampage through the entire government as a “Department of Government Efficiency”. Musk has a long history of conflicts with government regulatory agencies and outstanding unresolved investigations, including a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into inside stock trading. Musk’s commission is transparently a case of self-interest.“Doge”, as it is called, after “dogecoin”, a cryptocurrency that Musk has been hawking, is not at all a department, which would require FBI background checks. Musk orbits on a cocktail of LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, “often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign nondisclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter”, according to people who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. He speaks privately to Vladimir Putin. During the campaign, he turned Twitter/X into a cesspool of disinformation, a good deal of his own fabrication and streams of it from Russian troll farms. Inexplicably, he continues to hold a security clearance as a government contractor that has not been suspended under review during the Biden administration.Ramaswamy, a venture capitalist and libertarian ideologue who ran for the Republican nomination for president on a platform of abolishing numerous federal agencies from the IRS to the FBI, is completely inexperienced in government affairs, which he has been tasked to reform. He has made confusing, possibly conspiratorial claims about 9/11 and suggested that January 6 was “an inside job”. During his campaign, he stated that his goal was to fire 75% of the federal workforce in short order. Merely a charlatan and a demagogue, Ramaswamy does not stand out as especially peculiar among the wholly unqualified Trump nominees.Trump’s appointment of Doug Burgum, the billionaire governor of North Dakota, as secretary of the interior and “energy czar”, fits the profile of old-fashioned plunder. In April, Burgum gathered oil and gas executives at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump flagrantly asked for $1bn in campaign contributions in exchange for tax breaks and favorable policies.Harold G Hamm, chair of Continental Resources, an independent oil company, who is an investor in a proposed $5.2bn pipeline in North Dakota, helped Burgum organize the meeting. Burgum’s family holds land that profits from Hamm’s business. “Obviously it’s no secret that I helped gather the industry up, oil and gas producers and the entire industry,” Hamm said. He handed Trump a list of more than 100 policies he wanted implemented. “I couldn’t be more thrilled by president-elect Donald Trump’s victory,” Hamm remarked. Then, Trump named as secretary of energy a fracking equipment company executive, Chris Wright, who has declared: “There is no climate crisis.”The volatile elements of petroleum, public lands and leasing deals evoke a scenario from a century ago, of a cabinet appointed by a president who promised to restore the country to its greatness in a “return to normalcy”. During the Warren G Harding presidency, the secretary of the interior, Albert B Fall, accepted kickbacks from oil companies in granting oil leases and became the first cabinet member to be sentenced to prison. It was the worst cabinet scandal in history. Make Teapot Dome Again.Trump seeks to install his cabinet by circumventing the Senate. He insists that the Republican leadership forgo its constitutional duty to advise and consent and instead allow his picks to assume their positions as recess appointments. Trump is also blocking the FBI from conducting background checks. His cabinet nominations have become his instrument for intimidation. He intends to sweep aside checks and balances for one-man rule.The appointment of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as secretary of state illustrates the kind of behavior Trump wishes to encourage among Republican senators. During the 2016 Republican primaries, Rubio derided Trump for his “small hands”, a signifier for his genitals. “You know what they say about men with small hands?” Rubio jibed.But after Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in New York for paying hush money to an adult film actorto influence the 2016 election, Rubio leaped to blame Biden falsely for Trump’s prosecution. Rubio tweeted: “Our current President is a demented man propped up by wicked & deranged people willing to destroy our country to remain in power.” He added, with flaming emojis: “It’s time to fight [fire] with [fire].”Subservience has now received its reward. Rubio, “Little Marco”, the most conventional of Trump’s cabinet choices, is an example to them all.

    Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth More

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    Trump 2.0: are his cabinet picks more extreme than in 2016?

    Donald Trump has wasted no time in assembling his incoming cabinet, issuing a flurry of nominations this week that – in some cases – have further heightened fears that his return to the White House will lead to an extremist agenda.The roster of names has inevitably drawn comparisons with Trump’s 2016 victory, when he was reported to have devoted relatively little attention to a transition effort. Back then, his picks were described as “conventional” and the incoming cabinet was said have been broadly in line with that of a traditional Republican.Eight years on and the shape of the Trump 2.0 White House so far has spurred serious concerns about public health and reproductive rights, and left military leaders “stunned” and former intelligence experts “appalled”.Some senators have already expressed doubt that some of Trump’s nominees will garner sufficient votes to be confirmed – even in the Republican-majority chamber which holds the power to deny his appointments.So how do Trump’s cabinet nominees in 2024 compare with those he made in 2016?Secretary of health and human servicesIn 2016, Trump appointed Tom Price, an orthopedic surgeon and prominent critic of Obamacare but he was sacked a year later for using at least $400,000 of taxpayer money for private jets. He was replaced by Alex Azar, former executive at pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, prompting outcry over the proximity of Big Pharma to Congress.On Thursday, Trump said he will nominate Robert F Kennedy Jras the US secretary of health and human services. The scion of the Democratic dynasty rose to national prominence as a persistent and influential vaccine denier, and one rights group responded to his nomination by calling him “a clear and present danger to the nation’s health” . He has amplified unfounded claims that vaccines are tied to autism in children, promoted the false idea HIV is not the cause of Aids and baselessly linked certain antidepressants to a rise in school shootings, and the use of a certain herbicide to a rise in young people coming out as transgender.Secretary of defenseView image in fullscreenTrump’s pick of James Mattis in 2016 was well received by those in establishment defence circles, who reportedly had faith that he would “moderate” Trump. The retired marine general also had deep wells of support on Capitol Hill and Trump himself said he had been impressed by Mattis’s forceful argument against torture. His resignation less than two years into Trump’s first term was described by some analysts as “the last proverbial adult in the room” leaving.This week Trump named national guard veteran and Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth for the role. Hegseth served as a prison guard at Guantánamo Bay detention camp, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan, before becoming an outspoken rightwing critic of the military. He has called for a purge of generals for pursuing “woke” diversity policies.Pentagon officials were said to be stunned by the choice and the Army Times quoted an unnamed senior military officer as saying there are concerns that Hegseth – who has minimal managerial experience – will be able to manage a government department with a budget of more than $800bn.Secretary of stateView image in fullscreenIn 2016, Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Rex Tillerson – the head of the biggest oil company in the world – as secretary of state triggered alarm among environmentalists and critics of Russian influence. As president and chief executive of ExxonMobil, Tillerson had a history of close business ties to Vladimir Putin.At the time, senator Marco Rubio said he had “serious concerns” about the nomination. In his time in the role, Tillerson clashed with Trump over Iran, North Korea – and the response to Russia’s nerve agent attack on British soil, which the then secretary of state said would have consequences. Trump went on to fire him in March 2018 and Tillerson later that year warned of a “crisis of ethics and integrity” in America.Trump’s choice of Marco Rubio for the role in 2024 was arguably the most hawkish option on his shortlist. The senator has in past years advocated for a muscular foreign policy with respect to China, Iran and Cuba. Over the last few years he has softened some of his stances to align more closely with Trump’s views, but his selection was greeted with relief by many in foreign policy circles.Attorney generalView image in fullscreenTrump’s 2016 pick of senator Jeff Sessions to be chief law enforcement officer for the government was backed by many Republicans, but criticised by rights groups who accused of him of making racist comments in the past.His tumultuous time in the role saw him recuse himself from an investigation into Russia’s role in the election and clash with Trump over the justice department’s independence. He was sacked in November 2018.Congressman Matt Gaetz’s nomination this week has been variously described as “silly”, “the worst in American history” and unlikely to be confirmed by the senate. Robert Weissman, the co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen said “Gaetz has demonstrated contempt for the rule of law, truth and decency” and was “singularly unqualified to lead an agency that enforces civil rights laws and environmental protection statutes.”A loyal Trump follower, Gaetz’s nomination comes a little over a year after the justice department decided not to charge him as part of a sex trafficking investigation. He also faced investigation from the House ethics committee over allegations that he “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use”. He has denied all wrongdoing.National security adviserView image in fullscreenIn 2016, the pick of retired three-star army general Michael Flynn to help shape foreign and military policy in the White House drew sharp criticism for his ties to Russia and comments about Muslims.In the end, Flynn lasted just 23 days in the job and resigned after it was revealed that he had misled the vice-president, Mike Pence, about his communications with the Russian ambassador.Congressman Mike Waltz has been seen as a more conventional pick for the role in 2024. A former Green Beret, Waltz has been a leading critic of China who has voiced the need for the US to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.Director of national intelligenceView image in fullscreenThe choice of Dan Coats – a former senator, ambassador and lobbyist – as director of national intelligence in 2016 was seen by many Republicans as the elevation of a dependable conservative voice. Coats went on to clash with his boss on several issues and was eventually fired three days after Trump’s now-infamous phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy which resulted in his first impeachment.On Wednesday, Trump named Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic representative who left the party in 2022 and who has little direct experience with intelligence work, for the role. Gabbard endorsed Trump for president in August.In the past she has criticised the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine in its war against Russia and publicly doubted the intelligence community – which she is now set to lead – after it concluded that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad carried out a chemical attack that killed dozens of his own citizens.Former intelligence officer and Democrat representative Abigail Spanberger said she was “appalled at the nomination” adding she was “deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security.”Secretary of homeland securityView image in fullscreenIn 2016, Trump picked former Marine Corps Gen John Kelly to run the cabinet department responsible for enforcing US immigration laws, as well as a number of important agencies including the coast guard and the Secret Service. His nomination was greeted warmly on both sides of politics, including from the top Democrat on the Senate homeland security committee.Kelly went on to serve as Trump’s chief of staff, but later fell out with the president. Last month he claimed his former boss “falls into the general definition of fascist” and recalled the former president repeatedly lauding Hitler’s achievements when he was in the White House.This week Trump chose Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, for the role. She rose to national prominence after refusing to impose a statewide mask mandate during the Covid pandemic. In January she said the US was “in a time of invasion” and offered to send razor wire and agents to help shore up the border.Noem was reportedly on Trump’s shortlist for the role of vice-president, but was removed after an outcry over her admission that she once shot dead a pet dog, as well as a family goat. More

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    Line up to kiss the ring! How to join the brownnosers sucking up to Trump | Arwa Mahdawi

    Let the humiliation Olympics begin. As Donald Trump readies himself for his revenge tour, world leaders and business moguls are falling over themselves to show the incoming president how much they admire him. Even if it means making an embarrassment of themselves in the process.While it’s only natural for the rich and powerful to try to ingratiate themselves with the incoming president of the United States, the extent to which people are lining up to kiss the ring is remarkable. This isn’t just diplomacy as usual: it speaks to Trump’s unapologetically transactional politics. He has made it very clear that loyalty will be richly rewarded and promised to ruthlessly pursue his enemies. As a result, we appear to have entered into a golden age of brown-nosing.Step one in transforming yourself into Trump’s lapdog: delete any previous criticism of the former president that you may have ill-advisedly put out back when you still had a spine. See, for example, Australia’s ambassador to the US, the former prime minister Kevin Rudd, who appears to have stayed up all night recently hitting the delete button on Twitter.“[Trump is] the most destructive president in history,” Rudd declared on Twitter, now X, in 2020, for example. “He drags America and democracy through the mud.”That tweet, along with others critical of the former president, has now been wiped clean. In a statement posted on his personal website last week, Rudd explained he had made those remarks back when he was a political commentator and deleted them to “eliminate the possibility of such comments being misconstrued as reflecting his positions as Ambassador”.A more honest explanation might be that Rudd is terrified Trump will come up with a nasty nickname for him (Rudd the dud?) and impose enormous tariffs on Australia as payback.You can press the delete button as much as you like, but the internet has a very long memory. So, if you can’t completely delete your way into Trump’s good books the next step is to deny and defuse. Technically, you may have made some nasty comments about Trump in the past but you didn’t mean them and, anyway, you’ve seen the light now.This appears to be how the British foreign secretary, David Lammy, is dealing with the fact that, during his days as a backbench MP, he described Trump as a “tyrant” and “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”. Lammy has also called Trump “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic” and “no friend of Britain”.Seems pretty unambiguous. According to Lammy, we should forget all that because it is “old news”. In an interview with the BBC, Lammy added that he’d made those comments when he was a silly backbencher and he knows better now. “[W]hat you say as a backbencher and what you do wearing the real duty of public office are two different things,” Lammy explained. “And I am foreign secretary. There are things I know now that I didn’t know back then.”What exactly does the older and wiser Lammy now know? Perhaps that he really likes having power and doesn’t want anything as silly as having consistent morals to jeopardize it?To be fair, it seems that a lot of people are now finding out a lot of important facts about Trump that they didn’t know before because JD Vance has also made good use of Lammy’s “older and wiser” defence. In the lead-up to the 2016 election, Vance called Trump an “idiot” who was “unfit for our nation’s highest office”. He also characterized the man who would become his boss as “America’s Hitler”. The incoming vice-president has of course, now realised that he was “wrong about Donald Trump”.And he is in powerful company: you would struggle to find a titan of industry who hasn’t criticized Trump in the past and who isn’t rapidly backtracking now. The Apple CEO, Tim Cook; the Google CEO, Sundar Pichai; the Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella; and the former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos are among the high-profile business figures who have radically changed their tune when it comes to Trump.The Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has also undergone a Trumpian metamorphosis. He once accused Trump of inciting violence and undermining the law; now he is lining up with the rest of the tech bros to gush about how excited he is to work with the Trump administration. Does Zuck always fawn over incoming presidents? No, he doesn’t. As Popular Information has noted: “Zuckerberg offered no congratulatory message at all to Biden after his 2020 victory.”More broadly, Zuckerberg, who has been busy drastically revamping his wardrobe and public image, seems to have decided that Trump is a figure to admire and emulate. He called Trump a “badass” in July, after the former president survived an assassination attempt. Then, during a recent conference, Zuckerberg said the biggest mistake of his career was apologizing too much. Trump, after all, has proved you can get away with anything; that power puts you above the law.Weaseling your way into Trump’s good books may be humiliating but it comes with a big payday: the president-elect is already busy doling out favours to friends. Elon Musk, for example, who spent over $100m getting Trump elected has been tapped to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. This allows Musk, whose companies have received more than $15.4bn in government contracts, to be a lot more efficient about rerouting public funds into his private purse.Meanwhile Trump is assembling his cabinet, and it is has become apparent that the most important qualification for office is a history of saying nice things about the president-elect. Pete Hegseth, for example, a Fox News personality and military veteran with no meaningful foreign policy experience has been picked to be secretary of defense. The New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who stood by Trump when he faced impeachment and became one of his staunchest cheerleaders, is being rewarded for her sycophancy with a gig as ambassador to the United Nations. Like Hegseth, she also has no meaningful foreign policy experience but she will support Israel and Trump no matter what they do, which is all that matters.The South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, will reportedly lead the Department of Homeland Security. She doesn’t have a huge amount of experience in this area, nor does she represent a border state, but she does have a lot of experience in trying to curry favour with Trump. Noem, who is famous for once shooting her family dog, has echoed Trump’s hardline immigration rhetoric and plied the president with gifts. In 2020, the New York Times reported that Noem welcomed Trump to her corner of the country with a “a four-foot replica of Mount Rushmore” that included his face on it. Noem also moderated the famous campaign town hall in Pennsylvania where Trump stopped taking questions and, instead, danced (along with Noem) to his favourite songs.Then there’s “Little Marco”. Trump levelled some very personal attacks against Marco Rubio and the senator responded in kind back in 2016. Since then, however, Rubio has fallen into line and groveled at Trump’s feet enough that it seems he’s being forgiven for mocking the size of Trump’s hands and saying “he’s gonna make America orange”. Rubio is reportedly being considered for secretary of state.So there you go: we are officially a quid pro quo economy now. It’s no wonder that Trump’s former critics are all suddenly reinventing themselves and tech bros are lining up to say how “excited’ they are to work with the Trump administration. What’s a little bit of brown-nosing, when you’re rewarded with a giant pot of gold? More

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    Trump’s early second-term choices fuel fears of extremist agenda

    Donald Trump may have won a second term in the White House just last week, but his recent administration appointments have already heightened fears among some who believe his return to the White House will lead to an extremist agenda.On immigration, Trump has chosen loyalists and hardliners: Stephen Miller will serve as deputy chief of staff for policy and Department of Homeland Security adviser; Tom Homan as “border czar”, and Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor, will lead the Department of Homeland Security.Miller, previously a Trump adviser, played a significant role in crafting Trump’s immigration policies in his first administration, including the Muslim ban. Homan was the former acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under Trump’s first administration and a supporter of the family separation policy. Noem has been a vocal and strong Trump ally for the better part of a decade.This trio is likely to help bring to fruition Trump’s campaign promise of the mass deportation of millions of undocumented migrants living in the US.On Wednesday, Trump stunned many by announcing that he would be nominatingRepublican congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida, one of his most prominent defenders, to serve as attorney general. Gaetz represents a conservative district in the Florida Panhandle, and became known nationally last year when he was a key player in the putsch that ousted Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House.Gaetz was also the subject of a federal sex-trafficking investigation that ended in 2023 when the Biden justice department declined to bring charges. Gaetz had insisted throughout he was innocent of any wrongdoing.Trump also nominated former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to serve as director of national intelligence.Gabbard, who served in the US military in Iraq, spent four terms as a Democratic congresswoman representing Hawaii, and ran for president in the Democratic primary in 2020, before quitting the party in 2022, and becoming a supporter of Trump.On Tuesday, Trump shocked the Pentagon and the wider defense world by appointing the army veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as the new defense secretary.A staunch conservative, Hegseth opposes what he calls “woke” military programs aimed at promoting equity and inclusion and has questioned the role of women in combat. He has also advocated for pardoning service members accused of war crimes.He reportedly formed a friendship with Trump during his appearances on Fox & Friends.Speaking with Politico, Eric Edelman, who served as the Pentagon’s top policy official during the Bush administration, said that Trump’s choices so far revealed that he “puts his highest value on loyalty” adding that one of the main criteria appeared to be “how well do people defend Donald Trump on television?”Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Independent Veterans of America, criticized Hegseth’s appointment on X, describing the Fox News host as “undoubtedly the least qualified nominee for SecDef in American history” and “the most overtly political”.“Brace yourself, America,” he added.Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who previously claimed “there is no such thing as a West Bank”, was chosen as the next US ambassador to Israel, indicating a return to an explicitly pro-Israel administration reminiscent of Trump’s first.The Jewish Democratic Council of America criticized Huckabee’s nomination, stating that his “extremist views” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would not advance US national security or prospects for peace.Signaling a more combative US position toward the United Nations, the New York representative Elise Stefanik has been chosen to be the next ambassador. Stefanik has called to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.Stefanik gained attention last year after her aggressive questioning of three university presidents over antisemitism on campuses.Gerry Connolly, a Democratic representative, criticized the appointment of Stefanik, telling the Hill it was a “gift to Vladimir Putin” and adding that “she abandoned Ukrainians in April” and “this further signals Donald Trump and Maga’s retreat from the global stage”.On Saturday, Trump announced that Michael Pompeo, the former secretary of state who has criticized the former president and his policies over the years, and Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador who challenged Trump in the Republican primary, would not be part of his second administration.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe rejection of Haley and Pompeo may also be viewed as the rejection of two individuals who have backed US support for Ukraine.John Ratcliffe, a close ally of Trump and former director of national intelligence, has been appointed as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.Ratcliffe served as director of national intelligence at the end of Trump’s first term, during which he faced accusations from Democrats and former officials of declassifying intelligence to aid Trump and attack political opponents such as Joe Biden, a claim his office has denied.Lee Zeldin, the former New York congressman, has been chosen to serve as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, leading to criticism from environmental groups.As a representative, Zeldin voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, which directed billions of dollars to expand clean energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and also opposed climate-related legislation, according to the environmental advocacy group League of Conservation Voters.Ben Jealous, Sierra Club’s executive director, called Zeldin an “unqualified, anti-American worker who opposes efforts to safeguard our clean air and water”, adding that his appointment “lays bare Donald Trump’s intentions to, once again, sell our health, our communities, our jobs, and our future out to corporate polluters”.Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, a former Republican presidential candidate, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency, Trump said, which aims to cut federal bureaucracy by roughly a third.Although not a government agency, it will operate externally to drive significant reforms and introduce an entrepreneurial approach to government.Musk’s appointment drew criticism from Public Citizen, a progressive consumer rights non-profit.“Musk not only knows nothing about government efficiency and regulation, his own businesses have regularly run afoul of the very rules he will be in position to attack,” co-president Lisa Gilbert said in a statement.Marco Rubio, the Florida senator known for his hardline policies on China, Iran and Venezuela, is expected to be appointed as Trump’s secretary of state, and Trump has asked Mike Waltz, a congressman, retired Green Beret and a longtime ally known for his tough stance on China, to become his national security adviser.Notably, Rubio has received support from John Fetterman, the Democratic senator who stated on Tuesday that despite their political differences, he believes Rubio is a strong choice and looks forward to voting for his confirmation.Other appointments have included Susie Wiles, Trump’s 2024 campaign manager, as chief of staff; the real estate investor and longtime friend and Trump donor Steve Witkoff to be his special envoy to the Middle East; and William Joseph McGinley, who served as cabinet secretary in the first term, as White House counsel, among others.In his announcement, Trump said McGinley would help him “advance our America First agenda” while “fighting for election integrity and against the weaponization of law enforcement”. 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    Is Donald Trump a foreign policy dove? If only | Mehdi Hasan

    “If Kamala wins, only death and destruction await because she is the candidate of endless wars,” declaimed Donald Trump at a rally in Michigan, on the Friday before the election. “I am the candidate of peace.” In a typically ridiculous rhetorical flourish, Trump added: “I am peace.”Nevertheless, despite the ridiculousness, the president-elect in recent weeks succeeded in connecting with plenty of of anti-war voters tired of the United States’ “forever wars”. He went to Dearborn, the “capital” of Arab America, attacked Kamala Harris for campaigning with the pro-war Cheneys, and came away with an endorsement from a local imam who called him the “peace” candidate.In fact, I have lost count of the number of leftists who have told me in recent months: “Trump didn’t start any new wars.” Sorry, what? Trump spent his four years in the White House escalating every single conflict that he inherited from Barack Obama. Many have forgotten that Trump bombed the Assad government in Syria twice; dropped the “mother of all bombs” on Afghanistan; illegally assassinated Iranian general Qasem Soleimani on Iraqi soil; armed Saudi Arabia’s genocide in Yemen; and made John Bolton his national security adviser. Few are even aware that Trump launched more drone strikes in his first two years in office than Obama, dubbed “the drone president”, did across eight years in office.But this time, we were told, it would be different. This time Trump meant it. No more war! No more neocons! Some took heart from Trump’s very public rejection of arch-hawks Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley. Others signal-boosted efforts by RFK Jr, Don Jr and Tucker Carlson to block neoconservative figures from joining the new Trump-Vance administration. “I’m on it,” bragged Trump’s eldest failson.It was all for naught. “I am peace”? Really? Consider who Trump now plans to nominate as his secretary of state: Marco Rubio. The Florida senator was once an outspoken critic of the president-elect, calling him a “con man”, “the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency”, and questioning the size of his manhood. Fast forward almost a decade and Rubio has happily bent the knee to Trump in order to become fourth in line for the presidency and to take charge of US diplomacy.The slight problem is that Rubio isn’t a fan of diplomacy; he’s a fan of war. An ardent hawk, Rubio defended the invasion of Iraq during his first Senate run in 2010. He has since backed regime change everywhere from Cuba to Venezuela to Iran to Syria. In 2019 he voted to oppose withdrawing US forces from both Syria and Afghanistan. Over the past year, he has been one of the strongest supporters in Congress of Benjamin Netanyahu’s assault on Gaza, dismissing widespread Palestinian civilian casualties as the fault only of Hamas, and saying that Israel cannot coexist “with these savages … They have to be eradicated.”“I am peace”? At Rubio’s side, running the Trump transition team at the state department, is Brian Hook, a long-standing Iran hawk and co-founder of the John Hay Initiative, an anti-isolationist Republican group. He was the architect of the “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran during Trump’s first term. And, as I revealed for the Intercept in 2018, Hook was in charge of the the state department’s policy planning staff when one of its internal memos called for an “Islamic reformation”.“I am peace”? Trump wants Elise Stefanik to be the new US ambassador to the United Nations. The New York congresswoman is perhaps best known for being a Trump sycophant par excellence but she is also a long-standing Republican hawk whose first job out of college was working in the Bush White House. She later went on to be employed by two of the most hawkish thinktanks in Washington DC, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI). The FDD is obsessed (obsessed!) with regime change in Iran, while the FPI, which was co-founded by neocons Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan and closed down in 2017, loudly pushed for an expansion of the war in Afghanistan.Stefanik is also a blind supporter of Israel’s war on Gaza, backs an uninterrupted supply of US weapons to the Netanyahu government, and has slammed Joe Biden for being too tough on the Jewish state. In May, she gave an address to the Knesset in which she called for a “total victory” against Hamas.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I am peace”? Trump is appointing Florida congressman Mike Waltz as his national security adviser. Waltz, a former Green Beret, is perhaps the leading China hawk in Congress. Like Stefanik, Waltz is also an alumnus of the Bush administration and an enthusiast for the “war on terror”. As late as 2017, he was still calling for a “multi-generational war” against terrorism and suggesting the US should be ready for “a lot more fighting” in Afghanistan. That sound dovish to you? In fact, here’s the best (worst?) part: he served as counterterrorism adviser to the most hawkish vice-president in US history, the prince of darkness himself: Richard B Cheney. Got that? Trump spent the last few weeks of his presidential campaign attacking Dick and Liz Cheney, suggesting the latter should be forced to face “nine barrels” on the battlefield, and then just days after winning the election tapped the elder Cheney’s former counterterrorism adviser to be his own national security adviser. File it under: You. Cannot. Make. This. Stuff. Up.“I am peace”? Trump is sending former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee to Israel as his ambassador. Huckabee is a Christian evangelical so extreme that he believes there is “no such thing as a West Bank” and “no such thing as an occupation”. He compared Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal to the Nazi Holocaust and was such a proud supporter of the Iraq war that he even criticized George W Bush for setting a timetable for withdrawal!“I am peace”? Trump’s pick for defense secretary is Fox host Peter Hegseth, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dubbed “Trump’s war whisperer”, Hegseth called for the US to disregard the “rigged” rules of war in order to attack Iranian religious and cultural sites in 2020, and also helped persuade Trump to pardon three soldiers accused or convicted of war crimes in 2019. How do you get more hawkish than a supporter of a literal war criminal?In Washington DC, as the saying goes, personnel is policy. Trump is surrounding himself with hawks so you can be assured that his will be a very hawkish administration. Again.But this is the Trump playbook: run as a dove, govern as a hawk. It’s what he did in 2016 and again this year. Attack neocons; get elected; hire neocons.So “Donald the dove”, as Maureen Dowd of the New York Times once put it? If only. Whether it is on domestic policy or foreign policy, Trump remains a conman. Don’t take my word for it. Take his new secretary of state’s.

    Mehdi Hasan is the CEO and editor-in-chief of the new media company Zeteo More

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    Trump advisers reportedly consider ‘warrior board’ to remove military leaders; Mike Huckabee named US envoy to Israel – live

    Donald Trump’s transition team is working on an executive order that would create a new body tasked with naming military leaders who should be demoted, the Wall Street Journal reports.The reported proposal for a “warrior board” staffed by former military officers loyal to the president-elect is the latest sign that Trump may make due on his threat to retaliate against leaders at all levels of government who have broken with him, or who are perceived as disloyal.Here’s more on the proposal, from the Journal:
    If Donald Trump approves the order, it could fast-track the removal of generals and admirals found to be “lacking in requisite leadership qualities,” according to a draft of the order reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. But it could also create a chilling effect on top military officers, given the president-elect’s past vow to fire “woke generals,” referring to officers seen as promoting diversity in the ranks at the expense of military readiness.
    As commander in chief, Trump can fire any officer at will, but an outside board whose members he appoints would bypass the Pentagon’s regular promotion system, signaling across the military that he intends to purge a number of generals and admirals.
    The draft order says it aims to establish a review that focuses “on leadership capability, strategic readiness, and commitment to military excellence.” The draft doesn’t specify what officers need to do or present to show if they meet those standards. The draft order originated with one of several outside policy groups collaborating with the transition team, and is one of numerous executive orders under review by Trump’s team, a transition official said.
    The warrior board would be made up of retired generals and noncommissioned officers, who would send their recommendations to the president. Those identified for removal would be retired at their current rank within 30 days.
    Karoline Leavitt, the Trump-Vance Transition spokeswoman, declined to comment on this draft executive order but said “the American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver.”
    The House is scheduled to vote today on a bill targeting non-profit organizations deemed to be supporting “terrorism”.Civil rights advocates have raised alarm that bill, which was first introduced in response to nationwide protests on college campuses against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, could be used against pro-Palestinian groups as well as those that environmental groups, reproductive rights groups and other human rights organizations during the upcoming Trump administration.The language in the bill would give the Treasury Department broad authority to determine which organizations are “terrorist-supporting” without requiring evidence, and allow the agency to revoke tax-exempt status from those non-profits.Republicans drafted the policy as part of a popular measure to prevent the IRS from issuing fines and tax penalties to Americans held hostage by terrorist groups. The measure, which is being fast-tracked in the House, would need a two-thirds majority in the Senate to pass.“This bill requires no oversight. No due-process. No justification. In Trump’s hands, it would be a weapon of mass destruction against dissent,” said Andrew O’Neill, legislative director of the group Indivisible. “The vote today requires a two-thirds threshold to pass, so Democrats really do have agency here. The question is whether they’ll use it to stand up against authoritarian overreach, or if they’ll sit back and hand Trump more power.”“Passing this bill would hand the incoming Trump administration a dangerous new tool it could use to stifle free speech, target political opponents, and punish disfavored groups,” said Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU. “The freedom to dissent without fear of government retribution is a vital part of any well-functioning democracy, which is why Congress must block HR 9495 before it’s too late.”Donald Trump’s transition team is working on an executive order that would create a new body tasked with naming military leaders who should be demoted, the Wall Street Journal reports.The reported proposal for a “warrior board” staffed by former military officers loyal to the president-elect is the latest sign that Trump may make due on his threat to retaliate against leaders at all levels of government who have broken with him, or who are perceived as disloyal.Here’s more on the proposal, from the Journal:
    If Donald Trump approves the order, it could fast-track the removal of generals and admirals found to be “lacking in requisite leadership qualities,” according to a draft of the order reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. But it could also create a chilling effect on top military officers, given the president-elect’s past vow to fire “woke generals,” referring to officers seen as promoting diversity in the ranks at the expense of military readiness.
    As commander in chief, Trump can fire any officer at will, but an outside board whose members he appoints would bypass the Pentagon’s regular promotion system, signaling across the military that he intends to purge a number of generals and admirals.
    The draft order says it aims to establish a review that focuses “on leadership capability, strategic readiness, and commitment to military excellence.” The draft doesn’t specify what officers need to do or present to show if they meet those standards. The draft order originated with one of several outside policy groups collaborating with the transition team, and is one of numerous executive orders under review by Trump’s team, a transition official said.
    The warrior board would be made up of retired generals and noncommissioned officers, who would send their recommendations to the president. Those identified for removal would be retired at their current rank within 30 days.
    Karoline Leavitt, the Trump-Vance Transition spokeswoman, declined to comment on this draft executive order but said “the American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver.”
    At the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre is taking questions from reporters who are asking for an idea of what to expect when Joe Biden meets Donald Trump tomorrow.But the US press secretary does not have much to say. Responding to a reporter who wanted to know if they would discuss foreign policy issues such as US assistance to Ukraine and Israel, she said:
    I’m not going to get into the details of what’s going to be discussed tomorrow. That’s not something I’m going to get into here.
    What about concerns about Trump’s contacts with foreign leaders, many of whom have spoken to him by phone since he won the election? Jean-Pierre didn’t have much of a comment on that question, either:
    He’s the president-elect. Every president-elect receives calls from world leaders, takes calls from world leaders, has calls from world leaders. It is not unusual. [I] don’t have a comment beyond that, any specifics or details. That’s something for the … Trump transition.
    Donald Trump plans to begin his second presidential term with a bang, the Guardian’s Robert Tait reports:Donald Trump will mark the first day of his return to the White House by signing a spate of executive orders to reinstate signature policies from his first presidency that were revoked by Joe Biden, according to his incoming chief of staff.Susie Wiles’s disclosure came in a closed-door meeting in Las Vegas of the Rockbridge Network, a group of conservative donors co-founded by Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, the New York Times reported.She did not specify which policies were likely to be reintroduced in the flurry of signing that is expected on Trump’s first day back in the Oval Office.But several of Trump’s higher-profile executive orders that Biden revoked include leaving the Paris climate agreement, withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO) and banning entry to citizens from a list of predominantly Muslim countries.Did a majority of Latino men support Donald Trump, as some national exit polls suggest?No, according to the researchers behind the 2024 American Electorate Voter Poll, a survey of more than 9,400 voters that emphasizes accurately representing Black, Latino and AAPI voters.“The national exit polls are wrong about Latinos in general and Latino men in particular. They did shift more Republican, however a majority of Latino men continued to vote Democrat in 2024,” said Matt Baretto, a co-founder of BSP Research, told reporters on a call in which he presented the survey’s findings.“We’re extremely confident that our sample is accurate – that it is an accurate portrait of Latino men and Latino women and that it is balanced to measure the demographics and that it was available in Spanish at every stopping point in the survey.”According to the survey, Hispanic men supported Kamala Harris over Trump by a 13-point margin, compared with the 34-point margin among Hispanic women. Among Hispanic men under 40, Harris held an only four-point margin.Baretto said it was “incorrect, categorically” to suggest that any cohort of Latino men supported Trump over Harris.Even as he acknowledged Trump had made clear gains with Hispanic voters, he noted that Democrats performed worse this election cycle with “every single racial and ethnic group” than they did four years ago.The poll also found an uptick in support for Harris among Puerto Ricans, particularly in Pennsylvania, which Hispanic organizers attributed to a surge in fundraising after a shock-jock comic made disparaging comments about the island during Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.“The participation rate of Puerto Ricans and Latinos in Pennsylvania increased noticeably after the Madison Square Garden rally – a nine-point shift in Latino voter sentiment in Pennsylvania towards Harris,” said Frankie Miranda, president and CEO at Hispanic Federation, on the call.“The effect is undeniable, but it took a fluke very late in the game to get the attention of the campaigns and funders to provide investment desperately needed to ensure mobilization.Newly elected senators are in Washington DC for orientation, and true to form, West Virginia’s Jim Justice brought along his bulldog, Babydog.The dog has been by Justice’s side throughout his term as West Virginia’s governor, and the senator-elect was hoping to bring Babydog into the Senate chambers. But Axios reports that is against the rules:
    Justice was told by Senate floor staff that only service dogs are allowed onto the floor of the Senate, and that even in that case there would need to be an analysis on potential allergies.
    Justice had no such problems at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee this past summer, where Babydog was by his side throughout.Mike Johnson has congratulated congressman Mike Waltz on being selected as Donald Trump’s national security advisor.“Congressman Mike Waltz is a brilliant and faithful patriot, who has served our country as a Green Beret and a member of Congress. It has been his life’s mission to help protect the United States, and he will continue to do so as the President’s National Security Advisor,” the Republican House speaker said.He added that the Florida congressman is “the perfect person to advise President Trump and defend our interests on the world stage. I look forward to continuing to engage with him as Congress works to implement America First national security policies under the new Trump administration”.Waltz just won re-election to his district just north of Orlando, and his departure from Congress will trigger a special election to replace him. But Democrats are unlikely to win in Waltz’s district, which is sharply Republican.A new Louisiana law that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public classroom by the beginning of 2025 has been temporarily blocked after a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction on Tuesday.The judge said the law was “unconstitutional on its face” – and plaintiffs were likely to win their case with claims that the law violates the US constitution’s first amendment, which bars the government from establishing a religion and guarantees the right to religious freedom.The ruling marks a win for opponents of the law, who argue that it is a violation of the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state.They also argue that the poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments would isolate students, especially those who are not Christian.Proponents say that the measure is not solely religious, but that it has historical significance to the foundation of US law.Donald Trump has announced that he will nominate Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, to be the US ambassador to Israel.Huckabee “loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him,” the president-elect said in a statement on Tuesday.“Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!” Trump added.Huckabee, who served as Arkansas governor from 1996 to 2007, is two-time Republican presidential hopeful and father to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the current governor of the state and Trump’s former White House press secretary.He is an outspoken settlement backer; in 2018, he said he dreamed of building a “holiday home” in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.Several hundred White House staffers loudly cheered for the vice-president, Kamala Harris, who was arriving for her lunch with Joe Biden.Staffers shouted “MVP”, for Madame vice-president, as she got out of her SUV and clapped and waved, per pool report.“We still have a lot of work to do,” Harris addressed staffers. “So thank you all very much.“Listen, we do the best work anybody could do, which is to dedicate ourselves to the people, to public service, to lifting folks up, knowing we have the power, and when we do that work, we make a difference, and you all are a part of doing that work every single day, and I am so grateful to each of you.“So let’s get back to work, because we still have work to get done. And I am sending all my love and thanks. Thank you, everyone.”Joni Ernst, the Republican senator for Iowa, has privately expressed interest in becoming Donald Trump’s defense secretary, according to multiple reports.If nominated and confirmed, Ernst, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, Iraq War veteran and member of the Senate’s armed services committee, would be the first woman to serve in the role.National security leaders have told Ernst that she would be a good fit for the job, but those conversations have not yet escalated to anything official, Notus reported.A source told the Washington Post on Tuesday that the idea started “gaining a life of its own yesterday”, but it’s not clear whether Trump will consider her for the role.Donald Trump has issued a statement announcing his appointment of Mike Waltz to serve in his cabinet as the national security adviser.Waltz “has been a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy agenda, and will be a tremendous champion of our pursuit of Peace through Strength!” the president-elect said in a statement on Tuesday.Waltz, a Republican congressman representing east-central Florida and Trump loyalist who served in the national guard as a colonel, has criticized Chinese activity in the Asia-Pacific and voiced the need for the US to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.Waltz is a combat-decorated Green Beret and a former White House and Pentagon policy adviser. He was first elected in 2018, replacing Ron DeSantis, who ran for governor, in Florida’s sixth congressional district.Waltz served multiple combat tours in Afghanistan, and he was awarded four bronze stars. He was one of the lawmakers appointed in July to serve on a bipartisan congressional taskforce to investigate the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.The judge who presided over Donald Trump’s hush money case has paused legal proceedings at the request of prosecutors and the president-elect’s attorneys, both of whom pointed to his victory in last week’s presidential election. Republicans are getting ready for Trump’s visit to the White House, with House speaker Mike Johnson saying he planned to have Trump address his lawmakers. Speaking of Congress, we still do not know for sure which party will control the House for the next two years. Counting of ballots in key races remains ongoing, though Republicans seem on track to keep their majority.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

    Samuel Alito, a long-serving conservative justice on the supreme court, has no plans to step down, the Wall Street Journal reported. If he changes his mind, Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate could confirm a replacement and likely prolong the court’s conservative supermajority.

    Trump will reportedly oppose a US law that could lead to popular social media app TikTok being banned, despite bipartisan support for the measure.

    Despite taking office with Republicans in control of Congress in 2017, Trump’s first years in office were marked by legislative chaos. Johnson vowed that won’t happen again when Trump returns to the White House in January.
    As Donald Trump appoints his cabinet, and searches for a treasury secretary, the billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson – a key backer of the president-elect – has withdrawn his name. He had been widely tipped as a likely candidate for the role.“Although various media outlets have mentioned me as a candidate for secretary of the treasury, my complex financial obligations would prevent me from holding an official position in President Trump’s administration at this time,” Paulson told The Wall Street Journal in a statement.He pledged to remain “actively involved” with Trump’s economic team, however, and in helping to implement the incoming administration’s policy agenda.Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Bob Casey still is not conceding, despite grim signs for the Democratic senator’s prospects of re-election.The Associated Press has already called the race for Republican challenger David McCormick, but ballot counting is ongoing. In a new statement, Casey signaled he is waiting for that process to finish:
    My priority has always been standing up for the people of Pennsylvania. Across our Commonwealth, close to seven million people cast their votes in a free and fair election. Our county election officials will finish counting those votes, just like they do in every election. The American democratic process was born in Pennsylvania and that process will play out.
    I want to thank the election workers across our Commonwealth who have been working diligently over the weekend. Their work will ensure Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard.” More