President-elect Donald Trump‘s unconventional selections for his second White House term have shocked Washington and bucked the traditional GOP establishment.
However, that team of disruptors may be exactly what he wants after voters soundly rejected Vice President Kamala Harris and ushered in Republican total control of the White House, Senate, and House.
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Unlike his 2016 win, Trump will return to the White House with day-one experience with how Washington operates and a clearer understanding of the staff who dare to undo the status quo. He also knows who will be loyal to him, as evidenced by those who stood by him when he was in the political wilderness after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Perhaps most emblematic of Trump’s new approach is nominating former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as his attorney general. Picking the firebrand loyalist sent shockwaves through Washington, with some congressional lawmakers calling the selection “reckless.”
“He’s a disruptor, and the Department of Justice needs massive disruption,” said House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN). “And you know, he would, he would shake things up over (the) Department of Justice in a way that need(s) to be shaken up.”
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Other nominees, such as Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as his secretary of defense, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary, and former Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as director of National Intelligence, have also left some experts in the health, defense, and intelligence industries incredulous.
However, Trump’s past comments indicate that the candidates and the shake-ups they may cause are major reasons why Trump wanted them.
Prior to the November election, Trump told podcast host Joe Rogan that the “biggest mistake” of his first administration was the people he surrounded himself with.
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“I picked a few people I shouldn’t have picked,” Trump told Rogan. “Neocons or bad people or disloyal people.”
It was a rare admission from the former president that he shouldn’t have listened to more experienced politicos when he was staffing up his first White House.
For his second administration, Trump publicly said some well-known establishment figures wouldn’t be invited back.
“I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country.”
He also took to Truth Social to throw cold water on another by-the-book leader.
“I respect Jamie Dimon, of JPMorgan Chase, greatly, but he will not be invited to be a part of the Trump Administration,” Trump wrote Thursday.
Instead, Trump is elevating billionaire Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to co-head the new Department of Government Efficiency, despite neither leader having served in political office.
Musk’s nomination comes as a reward after he spent millions of dollars bankrolling America PAC, helping turnout voters in swing states, and Ramaswamy served as a key surrogate after bowing out of the GOP presidential primary.
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“The common denominator across these picks is that of a loyal disruptor. It isn’t just being a supporter of Trump. It’s being trusted to actually not work against Trump and to actually drain the swamp,” said Dennis Lennox, a Republican strategist.
Gabbard, for example, is a former Democrat who disavowed her party to endorse Trump and then later joined the GOP. For her loyalty, Trump tapped her with a plum position to oversee 18 agencies comprising the intelligence community.
“Someone like a Tulsi Gabbard needs Trump a lot more than he needs her. Had Trump (not) elevated her, she would be roaming the political wilderness as a politically homeless, washed-up ex-congressman and unsuccessful presidential candidate,” said Lennox.
Wayne King, president of Old North Strategies, pointed to the public’s hunger for a transformative leader in the United States as the reason why Trump needed to select iconoclastic nominees.
“With the election of Donald Trump, with the increase in the Senate and the House, a trifecta government ran by Republicans, obviously, the American people want everything to change,” said King, the former chief of staff to former North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows. “And Donald Trump is wholesale change, and I think that is very clear the mandate that he has to do.”
Trump himself indirectly alluded to this itch for change during an America First Policy Institute Gala at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday night.
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“The American people have just delivered really something very amazing, the biggest political victory in 129 years,” Trump said about defeating Harris. “So we swept all swing states, we won the popular vote — oh, I love that.”
The president-elect spent months on the campaign trail saying if he wasn’t reelected, the nation would collapse into complete dysfunction. However, now, with a resounding victory, Trump is embracing a mandate to enact drastic change after four years under President Joe Biden.
Gaetz has been a longtime ally to Trump, defending him in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. He has also echoed Trump’s claims of a “deep state” targeting him.
“We ought to have a full court press against this WEAPONIZED government that has been turned against our people,” Gaetz wrote on X before deleting the post mere hours before his nomination as attorney general was announced. “And if that means ABOLISHING every one of the three letter agencies, from the FBI to the ATF, I’m ready to get going!”
Trump very likely enjoys Gaetz’s combative relationships on Capitol Hill, where the firebrand lawmaker led the charge to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Even Kennedy’s less conventional health beliefs were likely a boon to Trump, who tapped Kennedy to lead HHS after the COVID-19 pandemic during his 2020 presidential run. Kennedy’s decision to suspend his campaign, endorse Trump, fight to remove his name from swing state ballots, and then campaign with Trump also boosted his credentials in the president-elect’s eyes.
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Yet, some experts and lawmakers have expressed concern about choosing loyalty over experience.
“Anytime an incoming administration chooses based on something other than the ability to do the job, it’s potentially a risky decision,” said Heath Brown, an associate professor at John Jay College. “Loyalty is also, in Washington, very short-lived. So choosing based on loyalty can also be risky because someone who’s been loyal in the past isn’t always loyal in the future.”
Trump, a former reality TV star, gravitated to those who are media savvy and have the physical attributes to captivate television audiences while defending his vision for the nation. Hegseth, Gabbard, and Gaetz, along with Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), Trump’s pick for national security adviser, and John Ratcliffe, Trump’s nominee for CIA director, all have been fixtures on Fox News.
Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) changed her looks before being tapped as Trump’s secretary of Homeland Security. The South Dakota governor revamped her outfit, wardrobe, and even her teeth as she built her alliance with Trump.
“There’s a lot of things that senior Cabinet officials do,” Brown, author of Roadblocked: Joe Biden’s Rocky Transition to the Presidency, cautioned. “Going on TV is one very small part of what they do and maybe the least important part.”
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King, the former chief of staff, praised some of Trump’s Cabinet picks as “great communicators” but also stressed that they were change agents.
“They know that government has to change, and the American people not only mandated, they are demanding that if you look at the election results,” he said. “And the only way to get change is to have people come in that are change agents, that believe that the federal government is broken and it has to be repaired. And that’s exactly what I believe that Donald Trump is sending the message loud and clear that he’s willing to do that.”
Rachel Schilke contributed to this report.
