Trump’s Cabinet picks panned in Washington but thrill many of his voters

WASHINGTON - To his detractors, President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet looks like a rogues’ gallery of people with dubious credentials and questionable judgment.

His supporters see something different.

“It’s a masterpiece,” said tattoo business owner Eileen Margolis, 58, who lives in Weston, Florida, of Trump’s Cabinet picks, which were unveiled over the past week.

“If it was a painting, it would be a Picasso.”

A “brilliant alliance” is how Ms Joanne Warwick, 60, a former Democrat from Detroit, described many of the nominees.

“It’s pretty much a star cast,” said Ms Judy Kanoui from Flat Rock, North Carolina, who is retired and is a lifelong Democrat who voted for Trump for the first time in November.

Democrats, and even some Republicans, worry that these nominees for top positions in government are inexperienced, conflicted and potentially reckless.

But in interviews with almost two dozen Trump voters around the country, his supporters were more likely to describe them as mavericks and reformers recruited to deliver on Trump’s promise to shake up Washington.

In Mr Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the nominee for health and human services secretary, Trump’s supporters see a crusader searching for new solutions to chronic illnesses, not a conspiracy theorist promoting questionable and debunked ideas about vaccines and fluoride.

In Mr Matt Gaetz, the nominee for attorney-general, many Trump supporters look past the ethical investigation into allegations that he had a relationship with a 17-year-old girl and possibly violated federal sex trafficking laws, and see a provocateur who is willing to punish the Democrats who unjustly prosecuted the President-elect.

“I think it’s so crazy, and I love it,” Ms Merrill McCollum, 60, from Bozeman, Montana, said of the nominees.

Ms McCollum said she voted for Trump after becoming frustrated by bureaucracy, identity politics and the rising cost of living. She is excited by his appointments of people whom she sees as outsiders to Washington, a place she got to know while working there during tours in naval intelligence.

“What we’ve been doing in the past really hasn’t worked,” she added.

Not everyone is thrilled with every nominee.

Some said the choice of Mr Gaetz, a polarising figure in both parties, could prove an unnecessary distraction and expressed doubts that he would be confirmed. Others thought the Cabinet was not anti-establishment enough, pointing to Mr Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who has been tapped as secretary of state.

Mr Brian Kozlowski, a 40-year-old lawyer in Orlando, Florida, said that even after Trump’s resounding victory, his own expectations were relatively low that his candidate would be able to bring about lasting change in Washington. But the Cabinet appointees have made him hopeful.

“It’s an actual fulfilment of a politician dispensing with the norms,” said Mr Kozlowski.

“The No. 1 thing to me, and a lot of Trump voters, is getting rid of the swamp,” he added. “This is what is shocking some people – it may actually be happening.”

Among the nominees most praised in the interviews was Mr Kennedy, who often speaks of addressing the rise in chronic health conditions.

Many health experts are alarmed by Mr Kennedy’s unfounded claims that vaccines cause autism and by his threats to sue medical journals and fire hundreds of employees at the National Institutes of Health. They fear that as health secretary, he could undo generations of sound public health policy.

But voters who support Trump said they admired Mr Kennedy’s focus on environmental toxins and his break with his famous family over his unorthodox views.

Ms Warwick said she bets “there’s a bunch of people shaking in their boots” about Mr Kennedy’s selection. But in the end, she said, Democrats might like some of his policies.

Perhaps more than any other policy stance, Mr Kennedy’s criticism of vaccines resonated with Trump supporters, many of whom said they were still angry about the mandates and business and school shutdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic. They blamed them on President Joe Biden, not Trump, who was president when the pandemic started.

The more criticism the Cabinet nominees elicit, Trump voters said, the more it proves that Washington is scared of change.

Ms Donna Hutz, 60, from Hubbard, Ohio, said she has been happy about every appointment announced so far, particularly that of Mr Gaetz, a former Florida member of Congress who resigned last week after Trump announced his nomination. Ms Hutz believes the allegations against Mr Gaetz are false, which makes her root for his success even more.

The Justice Department under Mr Biden declined to file charges in the case, and Mr Mike Johnson, the House Speaker, said he objected to releasing a report on an ethics committee’s investigation into the allegations because Mr Gaetz resigned from Congress.

“It’s not what he’s done, it’s what was done to him,” said Ms Hutz, a portfolio manager at an information technology company.

She said the backlash to some of Trump’s appointments does not surprise her because, in her view, his opponents have been blinded by the media.

“They’re losing it, and I’m enjoying every minute of it,” Ms Hutz said of Trump’s critics.

Some people worried that the Cabinet would not work quickly enough to end the conflicts in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.

Mr Cole Graham, 30, took issue with the selections of Mr Rubio and Mr Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host who was tapped to run the Pentagon. Mr Graham, who lives in Arizona, said those men appeared “too war hawkish”.

“I do not support further encroachment of Israel into Gaza or into the West Bank,” he said. “I was hoping we might be able to take a step back.”

Many Muslim voters backed Trump to protest against the Biden administration’s unwavering support for Israel in its war against Hamas.

One of those voters, Mr Khaled Saffuri, a Palestinian American from Fairfax County, Virginia, said he worried that Mr Rubio is “pro-Israel to no limit”.

But Mr Saffuri believes that if Trump keeps his campaign promises, he will step in to end the war.

“I didn’t think he was going to appoint angels,” said Mr Saffuri, 65, who leads a foundation involved in foreign policy issues. NYTIMES