Trump’s defense nominee Pete Hegseth ripped by Tammy Duckworth as GOP grilled on cabinet picks: Live updates
President-elect also made flurry of nominations on Friday night to form his new administration
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has named Brooke Rollins, founder of the America First Policy Institute, as his pick for secretary of agriculture, completing nominations for his cabinet.
The president-elect wasted little time after Matt Gaetz said he was withdrawing from consideration for attorney general. Hours later, Trump named Pam Bondi, former Florida AG, as his choice to lead the Department of Justice. Bondi represented him in his first impeachment trial.
Trump also announced hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as his choice for treasury secretary, and in a flurry of announcements on Friday night, he named Project 2025 co-author Russell Vought as the White House budget chief.
Trump also picked heads for the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a surgeon general — rounding out his nominees to join Robert F Kennedy Jr in radically transforming the nation’s healthcare and disease preparedness agencies.
On Sunday morning’s political talk shows, Republican lawmakers stepped up to defend some of Trump’s choices, including defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth who has been mired in scandal all week because of sexual assault allegations and views on women in combat roles.
Democratic senator Tammy Duckworth, a veteran, called him “unqualified and dangerous”.
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What to know about Brooke Rollins, Trump's pick for agriculture secretary
GOP senators shrug off Trump’s weaponized Justice Department but also welcome retribution
In an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma downplayed Donald Trump's threats of payback at the Department of Justice over the criminal indictments he faced over election interference and classified documents.
However, he then told Dana Bash: “If someone is in the Department of Justice right now that is actively trying to undercut the president, they should be gone.”
This was a sentiment echoed by Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri, who told NBC’s Meet the Press that one of the president-elect’s first priorities should be to fire any staff at the Justice Department who worked on cases that involved charges against Trump.
“First and foremost, the people involved with this should be fired immediately,” he told Kristen Welker. “And anybody part of this, this effort to keep President Trump off the ballot and to throw him in jail for the rest of his life because they didn’t like his politics, and who continue to cast him as a quote, unquote threat to democracy, was wrong, and so we’ll see where that goes.”
Schmitt framed his stance as a form of “accountability,” telling Kristen Welker, “[The cases] all fell apart under the weight of the law. And so I do think there needs to be accountability. I think that getting it back to crime-fighting is important, but there has to be accountability for these kinds of abuses.”
Watch: Duckworth gives blunt assessment on why Hegseth is ‘unqualified and dangerous’ to head defense
Trump accused of opening door to financial corruption as transition donors kept secret
As President-elect Donald Trump makes his transition to the White House, it’s not just his cabinet picks garnering scrutiny — it’s now also his funding as he’s keeping the donors funding the transition effort a secret.
Trump has not yet signed an agreement with the outgoing Biden administration — a requirement laid out in the Presidential Transition Act that places restrictions on the amount of fundraising cash in exchange for more than $7 million in federal funds for the “orderly transfer” of power.
Because Trump hasn’t signed the agreement, he doesn’t have to work within the confines of the fundraising limits or disclose what interest groups are funding his transition to the White House, The New York Times first reported.
Kelly Rissman reports.
Trump accused of risking financial corruption as transition donors kept secret
Trump hasn’t signed a transition agreement requiring the disclosure of donor names and limiting the contribution amount, ‘opening Trump’s team to financial corruption with no public transparency even before he takes office,’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren said
Watch: Republicans grilled over Hegseth nomination, including sexual assault allegations
Fox News host and veteran Pete Hegseth’s nomination as defense secretary by Donald Trump has caused a stir from the get-go with his views on women in combat roles, his links to Christian nationalists, and his far-right coded tattoos.
This meant there was much to discuss on the Sunday morning shows this week.
During an appearance on ABC’s This Week, Senator Bill Hagerty was asked about Hegseth’s views on women in the military:
Further controversy erupted after when a police report about sexual assault allegations against Hegseth was released later in the week.
Here’s CNN’s Dana Bash and Senator Markwayne Mullin sparring about that on State of the Union:
Sarah McBride says bathroom attacks are misdirection
Incoming congresswoman Sarah McBride appeared on Face the Nation this morning on CBS to talk about Republican attacks on her for which bathroom she should be allowed to use as a trans woman.
McBride said the attacks on her are “an attempt to distract”.
The congresswoman-elect also explained why she ran for office — because of the experience she had caring for her husband as he fought cancer, a battle he ultimately lost.
Meanwhile, over on Fox News, Rep Nancy Mace — who began the whole furor — and the host who interviewed her, misgendered McBride and other trans women.
And over on CNN’s State of the Union, Senator Tammy Duckworth called the new Capitol transgender bathroom “disgusting and wrong” and said that Congress has “a lot more to worry about than where somebody goes to pee”.
Tulsi Gabbard, tapped to serve as Trump’s director of national intelligence, has a history with Russia — it’s even more concerning than you think
In the summer of 2015, three Syrian girls who had narrowly survived an airstrike some weeks earlier stood before Tulsi Gabbard with horrific burns all over their bodies.
Gabbard, then a US congresswoman on a visit to the Syria-Turkey border as part of her duties for the foreign affairs committee, had a question for them.
“How do you know it was Bashar al Assad or Russia that bombed you, and not Isis?’” she asked, according to Mouaz Moustafa, a Syrian activist who was translating her conversation with the girls.
It was a revealing insight into Gabbard’s conspiratorial views of the conflict, and it shocked Moustafa to silence. He knew, as even the young children did, that Isis did not have jets to launch airstrikes. It was such an absurd question that he chose not to translate it because he didn’t want to upset the girls, the eldest of whom was 12.
Tulsi Gabbard’s history with Russia is even more concerning than you think
One expert says her views are ‘so wildly fringe that her potential appointment as DNI is genuinely alarming’, Richard Hall and Andrew Feinberg write
ICYMI: Resurfaced clip shows how Trump has flipped on transgender bathroom policy
Trump’s transition team ‘blindsided’ by new details of Hegseth allegations
Donald Trump’s transition team was taken by surprise when details about the sexual assault allegations against Pete Hegseth, the president-elect’s defense secretary nominee, became public this week.
In yet another example of the transition team being blindsided by claims about Hegseth, members of the team were reportedly startled to see a California police report go public on Wednesday, detailing the 2017 night on which Hegseth was accused of sexually assaulting a woman.
Ariana Baio has the details.
Trump’s transition team was ‘blindsided’ by details of Hegseth assault claim
Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was never formally charged with a crime
ANALYSIS: What do Republican doctors really think of RFK Jr? I asked them
Eric Garcia writes:
Senator Bill Cassidy stood up to Donald Trump in 2021 after the January 6 riot — he was one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump. And in January, he will become chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, making the Republican gastroenterologist from Louisana one of the most influential doctors in America.
But when it comes to Trump’s nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has for years spread lies and misinformation about vaccines, Cassidy wants a second opinion.
Continue reading...
What do Republican doctors really think of RFK Jr? I asked them
‘I think it’s a long answer,’ one Republican tells Eric Garcia
Trump’s inauguration will be held on MLK Day. His daughter Bernice King is glad
The youngest child of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr didn’t want Donald Trump to become the next president — but Dr Bernice King believes Trump’s inauguration taking place on the same day as the federal holiday honoring her father is a small win.
Michelle Del Rey reports on why.
Trump’s inauguration will be held on MLK Day. Bernice King is glad
Civil rights leaders are worried Trump’s administration could roll back the rights of US residents
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