Up until now, Donald Trump has controlled the legislature through his obedient Republican majorities, and the Supreme Court has already joined his team. Although Trump’s appointment of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General withdrew, it didn’t signal Republicans’ willingness to alienate Trump. Gaetz’s withdrawal was motivated, at least in part, by his concerns that an Ethics Committee report into his sexual misconduct and illicit drug use would be publicly released.
Still, Trump and his team plan to push through his other nominees who are allegedly sexual predators, such as Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth, who is embroiled in a rape allegation from 2017 that he seemingly kept from the Trump team, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who allegedly sexually assaulted his children’s former babysitter two decades ago.
Senate Republicans will face a difficult test of their courage to reject Trump’s dangerous nominees. One Trump adviser warned, “If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary…. And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it… The president gets to decide his Cabinet, no one else.” The Trump team’s newest threat makes it clear: No dissent among Republicans will be tolerated.
One test will be whether Senate Republicans are willing accept responsibility for excessive Covid deaths in order to avoid Trump’s retaliation. Trump’s chose RFK Jr., who is not a doctor and has no medical training, to head the Department of Health and Human Resources. He’s an avid anti-vaxxer who grossly exaggeraties the side effects of Covid vaccines and will discourage their use even though data show that the unvaccinated are 68 times more likely to die from COVID than the fully vaccinated. RFK Jr. vowed to purge entire departments at HSS if necessary to employ his priorities.
Another such test is whether Republicans will risk a nuclear crisis triggered by Trump and the use of the military against Trump’s “enemy within.” Trump chose Fox News co-host Pete Hegseth, who has demonstrated an unstinting loyalty to Trump, as Defense Secretary. So
Republicans must recall that it took Trump’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Milley to stop him from misusing the country’s nuclear arsenal during the last month of his presidency. Milley called the head of China’s military and assured him there was no threat of an attack to prevent a crises. Trump also told Republican donors he wanted to bomb North Korea with a plane he’d put a Chinese flag on. There will be no Milley there if Republicans confirm Hegseth – only a rabidly pro-Trump Fox News co-host.
Hegseth wrote that if Democrats win an election, there’ll be a civil war and the military “will be forcedto choose sides,” echoing Trump’s threats to unleash the US military, on “the enemy within,” Consistent with his rhetoric, Hegseth sports a tattoo of an American flag that displays an AR-15 assault rifle. Trump and Hegseth are planning to purge generals who push back on Trump’s decisions, leaving them free to use the US military as planned.
Confirming Trump’s pick of Pam Bondi for Secretary of Defense would demonstrate that the Republicans don’t value an independent Department of Justice. Bondi, although fully qualified by her credentials, has shown full obedience to Trump over the years. She’s an election denier, joined Trump’s first impeachment defense, labeled it a “sham” and blamed the prosecutors for Trump’s four indictments, warning that “The prosecutors will be prosecuted…” and that “The investigators will be investigated.”
If the Senate Republicans don’t have the courage to reject Trump’s dangerous appointments, there will be no doubt he’s subjugated our legislative branch and, because the Supreme Court has already joined his team, Trump could do what he admires most in Vladimir Putin, he could do “whatever the hell he wants.”
