Evidently not many nominees for positions in the forthcoming Trump Administration

By Stephen Macaulay

The headline on the Politico emailed newsletter is striking:

“Trump’s nominees under the microscope”

Microscope?

Mr. Magoo could readily see that this is a barrel full of unqualified misfits.

The nominees under that microscope are:

• Paul Atkins. He’s nominated to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC is charged with ensuring securities exchanges, brokers and dealers follow federal US securities laws. Last year Sam Bankman-Fried, who had headed FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, was found guilty of fraud and conspiracy related to the collapse of FTX. According to Politico Atkins said on a podcast last year, “The collapse of FTX was this international debacle that happened because, I think, the US didn’t make our rules accommodating to this new technology.” I should have thought of that excuse when I got a speeding ticket: the speed limit was not accommodating to my need for speed.
• Mehmet Oz. Dr. Oz was a thoracic surgeon, so he did more than play one on his television show. He retired from his position at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in 2018. His TV show, which ran for 13 seasons, ended in 2022. He ran for senator for Pennsylvania in 2022, having conveniently purchased a home in the state in 2021. He lost. But now he is nominated to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Like the man who nominated him, Dr. Oz was a fan of hydroxychloroquine as a COVID treatment. After that, it is probably just as well he retired from his medical practice, unless his patient is. . . 
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He’s been nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has had some issues with COVID, too. In his case, he suggested in a speech, “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people.” He went on to suggest that Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese “are most immune.” Now it is well known that Kennedy is an anti-vaxxer, so his heading up of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is troubling, to put it mildly, given the fact that vaccinations are well known to have minimized diseases including polio, diphtheria, and smallpox. Hydroxychloroquine, incidentally, was taken in pill form.
• Pete Hegseth. Although the foregoing are ridiculously unqualified for the positions they have been nominated for, Hegseth trumps them all. The man is dubious at best. There is the sexual assault allegation. He has responded that it was consensual. If that’s the case, why did he pay the person in question to remain silent? As Mitt Romney said to CNN during the Trump-Stormy Daniels case, “You don’t pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you.” Truth is more powerful than hydroxychloroquine. Subsequent reports indicate inappropriate behavior toward women was exhibited by Hegseth. He is said to drink too much, which would be fine (well, not totally fine, but he is clearly a “dude”) were he to do it in the security of his own home, not on the job, as reports indicate he has. Overall, it doesn’t seem as though he is a good role model. His greatest level of managerial experience is with the Concerned Veterans for America, which he was with from 2012 to 2016. While his departure seems to have had something to do with some of the aforementioned issues, it is worth knowing the CVA, under Hegseth’s tenure, had 159 employees and had peak donations of $15 million in 2016. The Department of Defense has 2.87 million employees and an $849.8-billion budget. So in terms of employees, the CVA had 0.0055% of what the DoD has. And if $15 million is what the CVA had to work with when Hegseth was there, know that’s 0.0018% of the current DoD budget. It would take more than a few nights at a Holiday Inn Express to have the know-how regarding the vast gulfs between those two metrics.
• Kash Patel. While I would argue that anyone who wears a large lapel pin that reads “K$H” is disqualified from doing anything but working the floor of a furniture warehouse outlet, Patel’s various and many comments about coming after members of the media who have been perceived to have been mean to Donald Trump is somehow not in keeping with the role of the chief law-enforcement official in the US. After all, the chief document related to laws in the US, a.k.a., the Constitution, has as its very first amendment: “Congress shall make no law. . .abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Now while the FBI director is in the Executive Branch, not the Congressional, it seems fairly clear that unless journalists are legitimately defaming someone (this requires proof that said information is false), obstructing justice (lawful proceedings) or, well, treason (as in levying war against the US or providing aid and comfort to the enemies of the US), it seems that Patel’s approach may exceed his remit.

Again: It doesn’t take a microscope.

And to the extent that senators fall back on thinking like this, exhibited by Bill Hagerty, (R-TN) on “Meet the Press,” December 1: “President Trump is entitled to name his appointees. That is exactly what he's doing, and I'm going to support this appointment,” ocular devices of any kind aren’t needed.

The appointment in question was that of Patel. When Kristen Welker of NBC News had previously quoted former Trump-appointed attorney general Bill Barr on the prospect of Patel becoming deputy FBI director during Trump’s first term — “Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency” — Hagerty pushed back with, “Listen, I think you should have the Biden administration look at itself. What is the qualification of Tony Blinken to become secretary of state?”

As Welker didn’t have the opportunity to answer, let’s do that. Blinken began his public service career in 1993 in the State Department as special assistant in the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs. Under the Clinton Administration he was on the National Security Council staff. He spent six years as Democratic staff director for the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In the Obama Administration he was principal deputy national security advisor and deputy secretary of state.

Seems like a lot of qualifications. Probably not a good example had Welker had the opportunity to cite Blinken’s resume.

Hagerty summed up his position on the Trump nominees by telling Welker, “I plan to support President Trump's candidates because the American public needs to see dramatic change… .”

Whether they are qualified or not doesn’t seem to matter. Trump wants them. Trump will get them.

Hagerty and presumably a number of his colleagues in the Senate are not going to be 

deploying microscopes.

They’ll just pull out a rubber stamp.

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