The Hill

Former President Clinton said that President-elect Trump has done “everything he could” to “destroy” confidence in government.

“He believes that his supporters have no confidence whatever in the federal government, and Lord knows, he’s done everything he could to destroy that confidence,” Clinton told MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart in a Wednesday interview broadcasted on Chris Hayes’s “All In” about the president-elect.

Clinton campaigned for Vice President Harris in the 2024 presidential race. At the Democratic National Convention this summer, he slammed Trump multiple times, stressing the Republican nominee’s penchant for mentioning the fictional character Hannibal Lecter

The former Democratic president told Capehart that the president-elect is “interested in people who are loyal to him 100% of the time, no matter what the issue, no matter what the facts, no matter who gets hurt, he wants people who just say yes and then get after it.”

Some of Trump’s cabinet picks, including former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) for attorney general and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, have been criticized over a lack of experience — with some seeing the choices coming as a result of the two men’s loyalty to Trump.

Trump has also implied the military should be used against Americans. In October, Trump suggested during an appearance on Fox News that the National Guard or military should be employed on Election Day to fight against possible disorder from “the enemy from within,” which he said included “radical-left lunatics”

“We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics,” Trump said at the time, adding, “And I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

The Hill has reached out to the Trump transition team for comment.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) suggested that President-elect Trump appointing former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to serve as the head of the Justice Department (DOJ) is somewhat of a power play against Senate Republicans.

“I think the bottom line here is that there is an element of Trump wanting to sort of subjugate Republican senators here,” Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday.

“I think some of these candidates are essentially Trump challenging the Republican Senate to a crawl moment,” he later added. “And the stakes are getting higher and higher as more and more bad information comes out about these nominees.”

His comments come in the wake of the House Ethics Committee voting to withhold its report on an investigation into Gaetz over accusations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. The report also details the DOJ’s probe of the Florida Republican on allegations around the sex trafficking of minors.

The committee, which held a two-hour meeting Wednesday, is expected to meet again on Dec. 5.

Some Republicans are privately suggesting that Gaetz should consider withdrawing his nomination as attorney general in order to save himself the wrenching ordeal of an embarrassing confirmation hearing — especially if he’s unlikely to be confirmed in the end.

Whitehouse expressed his desire to have the ethics report released during the Wednesday interview, calling it “highly relevant.”

“Look, we should get the House Ethics Report. We should get the Department of Justice files. There‘s precedent for getting the House Ethics report,” he said. “He‘s going to be overseeing the DOJ and the FBI, so what they have on him in House is highly relevant.”

“So, I think the real issue here is how low the Republicans want to go, because this is just going to keep coming out,” The Rhode Island senator added.

The remarks also follow reports that a hacker gained witness testimony related to the probe.

The file, which came from an unidentified person using the name “Altam Beezley,” contained 24 exhibits and is said to include testimony from a woman who said she had sexual relations with Gaetz when she was 17 years old and another woman who said she witnessed the encounter, per The New York Times, which was the first to report on the breach.

Whitehouse suggested that those who want any information released will continue looking in the way of the hacker gaining witness testimony.

“The information in the House Ethics files and in the DOJ report came in from witnesses who are available to us, and we‘re going to keep digging,” he said.

A California woman told police that veteran and media host Pete Hegseth, President-elect Trump’s pick for Defense secretary, sexually assaulted her in 2017 after he took her phone and refused to let her leave a hotel room, a detailed police report said.

Hegseth, known for his previous role as co-host of Fox News’s “Fox & Friends Weekend,” told police at the time that the encounter was consensual and denied wrongdoing, The Associated Press reported.

He was picked by Trump to lead the Pentagon shortly after this month’s election, and his nomination came as a surprise given his relative lack of experience; Hegseth was an infantry officer in the Army National Guard.

The Monterey Police Department confirmed last week that it was investigating sexual assault allegations that came to light after his nomination.

Hegseth’s lawyer argued he was “completely innocent” and was actually the subject of blackmail from the accuser. The attorney noted he paid the woman in 2023 to fend off a potential lawsuit.

Many of Trump’s Cabinet picks are facing scrutiny ahead of confirmation — including former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as attorney general and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence — and Hegseth has received significant backlash over the allegations.

The police report was released after the public records were requested. It details the woman’s alleged experience, which is different from Hegseth’s version, the AP noted. It also included interviews with the alleged victim, a nurse who treated her, a hotel employee, another woman and Hegseth.

The woman sought medical care and said she believed she was sexually assaulted five days earlier but couldn’t remember much because she thought she was slipped something in her drink before winding up in a hotel room.

The Hill has reached out to the Trump transition team for comment, but a spokesperson told the AP that the police report “corroborates” Hegseth’s story, which is “the incident was fully investigated, and no charges were filed because police found the allegations to be false.”

The police did not disclose whether officials believe the allegations are true or false.

According to the report, the woman helped organize an event for the California Federation of Republican Women (CFRW), at which Hegseth was a speaker. She told police she saw him inappropriately touch women throughout the night and the two argued later over “how he treated women.”

After they attended an afterparty in a hotel suite, a group of people went to the hotel bar, and then “things got fuzzy,” she told police.

Once inside a hotel room with Hegseth, he took her phone and blocked the door with his body, she alleged. The report said the woman recalled “saying ‘no’ a lot” and that her next memory was laying down with him over her, bare-chested.

Hegseth told police he attended an afterparty and drank beer, but not liquor, and got “buzzed,” but not drunk. He said the woman led him back to his hotel room, which was surprising because he didn’t intend on having sexual relations with her.

He is the second Trump Cabinet pick to be investigated for sexual misconduct. Gaetz, who resigned from Congress after receiving Trump’s nomination to head the Justice Department, was accused of sleeping with an underage girl, and Congress is battling over releasing a related House Ethics Committee report to the public.

The Associated Press contributed.

Updated at 9:49 a.m. EST

Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly says President-elect Trump is preparing to radically reshape his potential second administration by centralizing policy-making power within the White House and selecting Cabinet members who will strictly follow directives.

During a Wednesday interview on NewsNation’s “CUOMO,” the political commentator compared Trump’s approach to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s leadership style, suggesting the president-elect will create a tightly controlled governing structure where Cabinet members serve primarily as executors of his policy.

“The people that do department heads are going to say ‘yes, sir’ or they’re not going to be OK,” O’Reilly said, highlighting that policy will be primarily developed by senior adviser Stephen Miller, whom he described as “the most powerful man in the country, beside Donald Trump.”

Trump has selected several controversial nominees who have faced significant scrutiny.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Pa.), picked for attorney general, previously faced a Justice Department sex trafficking investigation involving allegations about underage girls, though no federal charges were filed. Democrats on the House Ethics Committee failed on Wednesday to bring the report to the public.

Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who recently joined the Republican Party and is slated for director of national intelligence, has alarmed U.S. intelligence analysts due to her past criticisms of the war in Ukraine and comments perceived as supportive of Russia, and due to secret meetings with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth, nominated for defense secretary, was accused of sexual assault in 2017, though he was not charged after a police investigation.

O’Reilly contrasted this approach with previous Republican administrations, such as those of former Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, where Cabinet members wielded significant policy influence.

He also drew a parallel to President Biden’s administration, suggesting similar centralized control.

NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.

Sports commentator Stephen A. Smith says that “under normal circumstances,” former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) — President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department — would never be confirmed as the nation’s new attorney general.

During an interview on NewsNation’s “CUOMO,” Smith noted that if Gaetz is confirmed, “It cements the thought that what Trump wants, Trump is going to get from all of the Republicans.”

“Once again, we find ourselves deeply divided,” he said.

Smith also critiqued Trump for his choice, adding that as president of the U.S., “your duty is to lead the nation effectively and productively. This requires not only loyal supporters but also highly competent advisers capable of offering the best possible guidance.”

Republicans on the House Ethics Committee voted Wednesday against releasing a report on their long-running investigation into Gaetz, the top Democrat on the panel said.

Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) said the ethics panel, which is evenly split between the two parties, voted at a lengthy closed-door meeting, and no Republican joined Democrats who wanted to release the report.

Gaetz has launched an effort to secure his embattled nomination, meeting behind closed doors Wednesday with GOP senators who have questions about sexual misconduct and other allegations against him.

The Florida Republican’s move came as Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking for “the complete evidentiary file” from the agency’s investigation into allegations of sex trafficking of minors against Gaetz.

The Democratic senators, led by Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), say the allegations against Gaetz are “significant” in light of his associate, Joe Greenberg, having pleaded guilty to the sex trafficking charge for which the Florida Republican was also investigated.

“In order for the Senate to perform its constitutional duty in this instance, we must be able to thoroughly review all relevant materials that speak to the credibility of these serious allegations against Mr. Gaetz,” the senators wrote to Wray.

NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.

Senate Republicans are warning confirmation proceedings for former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) will be like “Kavanaugh on steroids,” referring to the contentious hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.

GOP senators say allegations against Gaetz of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, as well as the findings of the Department of Justice’s probe into allegations of the sex trafficking of minors, are likely to become splashed across the media if he remains President-elect Trump’s nominee for attorney general.

Some Republicans are privately suggesting that Gaetz should consider withdrawing his nomination to save himself the wrenching ordeal of an embarrassing confirmation hearing if he’s unlikely to be confirmed in the end.

“The most humane way not only to Mr. Gaetz but to the dignity of our process, the best thing to do is to convince the president that the votes aren’t there, regardless of his strong-arming, and Gaetz can decide it’s not his to fight for,” said one Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment on the bleak prospects for Gaetz’s nomination.

But the lawmaker acknowledged that Trump may want to use Gaetz to make it easier to get some of his other controversial picks, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services, and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), who is nominated to serve as director of national intelligence, to get through the confirmation process.

“Maybe throwing Gaetz out there to the wolves and having this big frenzy and he goes down then allows for a situation where some of the others who are compromised” get through the Senate, the senator said.  

The senator said a number of Senate Republican colleagues have already raised concerns about Kennedy and Gabbard.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, warned that the details in the FBI’s investigation of Gaetz as well as the information in the House Ethics Committee’s report is likely to become public.

“It’s going to come to us one way or the other. There are no secrets around here,” Cornyn told reporters.

And he warned that a Senate confirmation hearing would be nasty and messy, even worse than the brutal fight over Kavanaugh, who was accused of committing sexual assault as a teenager.

Asked if Gaetz is aware that a confirmation hearing would become very messy, Cornyn said it would be “like Kavanaugh on steroids.”

“He’s a smart guy, I’m sure he realizes that,” Cornyn said.

Gaetz met with Cornyn and other Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Capitol’s Strom Thurmond Room just off the rotunda on Wednesday.

Vice President-elect JD Vance, who is acting as the chief liaison between the Trump-Vance transition team and Republican senators, attended the meetings.

Vance has urged his colleagues to give Gaetz a chance to explain his vision for reforming the Justice Department and not rush to judgement about his fitness to serve.

Gaetz met with Cornyn and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and John Kennedy (R-La.).

A second Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss Gaetz’s embattled nomination said the remarks from Cornyn point to how Gaetz’s personal life could be examined over days of public hearings.

“I think he’s probably trying to send a message to Gaetz and the president that ‘this may be really ugly, do you really want to do this?’” the senator said.

“There are two months, at least, until the confirmation hearing. It’s a lot of time. It’s a lot of information that’ll be out there. The administration will need a plan for how to handle that,” the source warned.

A Senate Republican aide said Trump may decide that it’s not worth spending a lot of political capital on a losing battle over Gaetz.

“It doesn’t look like the votes are there. How much time and energy do you want to spend on this?” the aide said.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, agreed that the Gaetz nomination would only pour fuel on partisan tensions if it comes before his committee next year.

“I absolutely think it’s a multiplier. Given the environment we’re in, yeah,” he said.

Graham, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would try to prevent Gaetz’s confirmation hearing from becoming a “circus.”

But he cautioned that Democrats could call women who said Gaetz paid them for sex as well as a woman who said she had sex with Gaetz when she was 17 to testify before the committee.

“He wasn’t prosecuted for having sex with an underage girl. That tells me something. But having said that, this is not a criminal trial. This is a court of public opinion. Is this the right person for this job?” Graham said.

He said that Gaetz will have an opportunity to tell senators on the Judiciary Committee why he’s the right person to lead the Justice Department and to defend himself against allegations of misconduct.

But he said that Democrats will get a chance to bring forward their own witnesses, as they did six years ago when Christine Blasey Ford testified in detail about how Kavanaugh had groped her and tried to take off her clothes at a party in Bethesda when she was 15 and he was 17.

“That’s to be expected to some extent. I thought what they did to Kavanaugh was ridiculous, but there is a place for people to come in and say why this person is not qualified. Blasey Ford did,” he said. “That’s going to be the process.

“I expect [Gaetz] to be challenged. I expect people to come in and say why they think he did bad things,” he added.

Kavanaugh was ultimately confirmed to the Supreme Court in a mostly party-line 50-48 vote. 

But GOP aides say that Republican senators viewed Kavanaugh much more favorably than they now view Gaetz, whom they blame for pushing former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) out of the Speakership and causing chaos in the House last year. 

Asked if Trump needs to run a cost-benefit analysis to decide whether it’s worth the political cost of trying to push Gaetz through the Senate, Graham said: “I’ll let him decide that.”

Graham issued a statement after meeting with Gaetz urging his Republican colleagues not to take the allegations against him as verified fact.

“I fear the process surrounding the Gaetz nomination is turning into an angry mob, and unverified allegations are being treated as if they are true. I have seen this movie before,” he said, appearing to allude to the bitter fight over Kavanaugh years ago.

For a normal administration, Linda McMahon would be an unusual pick for Education secretary. But President-elect Trump has given no indication he wants a normal administration.

McMahon has little direct experience with education but has been a friend and ally of Trump for decades and is the only person so far the president-elect has selected for a Cabinet secretary slot who also served in his first administration, specifically as head of the Small Business Administration.

Conservatives are cautiously optimistic about the pick, which was announced Tuesday evening, despite some controversies that surround McMahon right out the gate.  

“Speaking on behalf of myself, and, I think, most other people in D.C., I was kind of surprised,” said Max Eden, a research fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. 

“After the first reaction … it’s evolved into a kind of intrigued optimism, because I think there’s a very strong case that she could be a great Education secretary, and that case is that she’s clearly very personally close to Trump, very trusted by Trump, very loyal to President Trump,” Eden said, adding it is likely McMahon will be “extremely competent” in trying to execute what Trump campaigned on, including potentially eliminating the department altogether.

McMahon rose to fame as CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which she co-founded with her husband, Vince McMahon.

Her time directly involved in education has been minimal, apart from a year on the Connecticut State Board of Education and as a member of the board of trustees for Sacred Heart University.

But Trump’s list of nominees is full of people with unusual resumes for their would-be jobs, from potential Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, who is currently a Fox News host.

And critics of current Education Secretary Miguel Cardona say his extensive experience in the field has not translated to success.

Cardona’s Free Application for Student Federal Aid “mess-up literally harmed thousands of low-income families, right?” said Robert Enlow, president of EdChoice. “And he had a huge education pedigree, so I kind of think that she might be the right person for the job, given what’s needed at the Department of Education.”

And others argue McMahon’s time taking her small company and turning it into the massive WWE corporation is experience enough for running the bureaucracy of the Education Department.  

“I kind of got in the sense that she is seen, maybe by Trump, as somebody that could be put into a lot of different departments, probably because she has a history and pretty successful track record in business and running a large organization, and he may think that she is prepared to run any number of large organizations,” said Neal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute.  

“And that is basically what the Department of Education is, it’s a big bureaucracy, and her main job is to make sure that programs are administered successfully, which is more of a management job than it is an education job. So, from what I know of her, I don’t see any reason that she wouldn’t be successful as a secretary of Education,” McCluskey added. 

However, the choice to nominate McMahon has been seen by other experts as a signal that education policy will not be a top concern for Trump.  

McMahon had been floated as a potential Commerce secretary until that position was given to Howard Lutnick, the other co-chair of Trump’s transition team.  

“I think it’s disappointing that President Trump sees the Department of Education as a consolation prize,” said Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.  

“Given that it sounds like that Linda McMahon wanted to get the Commerce Department, and is getting the Department of Education instead — so that, I think, that is an indication that this is not a top priority for the president,” he added. 

McMahon will have huge tasks to fill: Trump has said he is looking to change the definition of Title IX after President Biden added protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. 

The president-elect has also talked about withholding federal funds from K-12 or higher education institutions if he dislikes their curricula — or their bathroom policies regarding transgender students.

But one of the biggest changes Trump is pushing for is no Education Department at all. 

“The other big thing I’m sure people are looking at as well is ‘Is she focused on dismantling the department?’ And I would like to see the department dismantled, but that’s not something either she or Trump can do on their own, it’s going to have to come through legislation in Congress, and until that happens, then her job remains executing the laws that require the secretary of Education to be involved,” McCluskey said.  

Though hardly Trump’s most controversial nominee, McMahon does come with baggage after she was recently named in a lawsuit from her time as head of WWE. The lawsuit alleges she knew about an announcer who was allegedly sexually abusing “ring boys.” 

Those in the education world are still diving into the details of the case, but some are skeptical it will have an impact on her confirmation process. 

“I have not reviewed it in depth at this point, but the first thing that comes to my mind is just more lawfare, right? I mean, this was a suit that goes back to events that occurred in the 1980s and it was filed in October of 2024, a few weeks before she was presumed to, if [Trump] won, take some position. So, I just kind of have a blanket suspicion and skepticism of it without having gone into the details of it myself, so it’s not of [special] concern to me,” Eden said.  

While liberals were never going to be thrilled with Trump’s Education pick, there was a small “sigh of relief” given the other names that were speculated for the position.  

“On one hand, I think she’s utterly unqualified for the position, because she has, essentially, she has very little meaningful experience and expertise in education from what I could see. And in normal times, I think she would look like an outrageous selection for that position,” said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.   

“The second thought, on the other hand, is that a lot of the other names that had been floated as potential candidates seemed more threatening in a lot of ways, and so I think some people are breathing a sigh of relief that she is, at least, not openly a culture warrior who’s going to sort of pick up some of the fights that I think a lot of us have been eager to see fade away,” Valant said. “Now, she might do that. She’s very much an unknown, so I think we still have to learn a lot about her and her priorities and what she might do if she is ultimately confirmed for that.” 

President-elect Trump has sparked a Washington guessing game by selecting several controversial nominees for high-level posts.

The question is whether one or more of his picks will be denied confirmation by the Senate.

Most insiders see four Trump picks in particular as being controversial. 

They are former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as attorney general, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) as director of national intelligence, media personality Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary.

There are, to be sure, other Trump picks that divide opinion, including former World Wrestling Entertainment Chief Executive Linda McMahon to be Education secretary, and TV personality and former Senate candidate Mehmet Oz to administer Medicare and Medicaid.

But it is the initial quartet that are in the vanguard of controversy.

The Washington consensus is that Gaetz is in the most danger.

The list of vulnerable nominees “starts with Gaetz,” said Douglas Heye, a former communications director for the Republican National Committee. “He is on my TV screen right now, and it’s just expected, from what we already know, that the allegations about him are going to be very serious and very alarming.”

Specifically, allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior have swirled around Gaetz for some time.

A previous Justice Department probe produced no criminal charges, and Gaetz denies all wrongdoing. 

But there is enormous scrutiny over a House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz, which officially ended when he resigned his seat immediately upon being nominated by Trump.

The committee has no jurisdiction to investigate people who are no longer sitting members of Congress. But Democratic senators — and at least one Republican — have called for the committee’s report to be released.

Their quest had a setback Wednesday. 

“There is not an agreement by the committee to release the report,” Ethics Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) told reporters following a roughly two-hour meeting of the panel. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had previously expressed his opposition to the report being released.

But that’s unlikely to be the end of Gaetz’s troubles. 

Many in Washington expect the panel’s report to leak. Even if it does not, the past few days have added specificity to the damaging allegations. 

A lawyer representing two women who testified to the panel says his clients were paid for sex by Gaetz. Furthermore, one of those women, according to the lawyer, says she saw Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old when Gaetz was in his mid-30s.

Furthermore, a handful of Republican senators have already expressed significant misgivings about Gaetz, including Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). Republicans will have a 53-47 Senate majority once the new Congress convenes, meaning any Trump nominee can afford to lose no more than three votes, assuming all Democrats also vote against them.

Trump has so far stood behind his pick of Gaetz, and his team insists the former congressman will be confirmed in the end. In an additional show of support, Vice President-elect JD Vance accompanied Gaetz to private meetings with Republican senators Wednesday.

Republican sources nevertheless are consistent in the view that Gaetz is the most likely Trump nominee to fall. 

They also suggest that, if he does, a single rebuff might be as far as Republican senators are willing to go in defying a president-elect who has just won the White House comfortably. Trump is renowned for his willingness to go after people who cross him, including those within his own party.

“It feels to me like they may be able to reject one of his nominees, but maybe not more than one,” said Matt Mackowiak, a GOP strategist and the chair of the Travis County, Texas, Republican Party.

Mackowiak added, in terms of Trump’s most controversial quartet of nominees:

“I think the most likely scenario is that they are all confirmed, except Gaetz. I think the second most likely scenario is that they are just all confirmed. And I think the third most likely scenario is that two or three are not confirmed.”

Still, the Senate is sometimes reluctant to simply cede to the wishes of a president, and much could hinge on whether further damaging information emerges.

In the case of Hegseth, for example, The Washington Post revealed earlier this week that he had paid a woman who had accused him of sexually assaulting her as part of a nondisclosure agreement.

The incident was reported to police at the time, and no charges were pressed. Hegseth’s lawyer has adamantly denied any wrongdoing on his client’s behalf, asserting that the woman was in fact “the aggressor in initiating sexual activity,” and contending that Hegseth paid her to protect his media career.

The mere existence of such a case is bad news for any nominee. But so far, few Republicans seem ready to predict it would lead to Hegseth’s downfall as a nominee.

Kennedy’s nomination is controversial, in a different way, among the wider world, especially within the medical community. Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic with a whole host of provocative remarks, including suggesting a link between vaccines and autism — a claim that has been debunked.

But there are not many signs so far that Republican senators are willing to buck Trump to block Kennedy.

Gabbard, the Democratic-congresswoman-turned-Republican, is in a category all of her own. 

There are no personal peccadilloes around Gabbard akin to the allegations that dog Gaetz and Hegseth. But her history of remarks that are unusually sympathetic to Russia could cause heartburn, especially to Republicans with a more traditional, hawkish view of foreign policy.

None of the quartet can take their confirmation as assured.

But Gaetz seems, by some distance, to be out on the flimsiest limb.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.

President-elect Trump announced Wednesday that he was announcing former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) to be the U.S. ambassador to Canada.

“I am very pleased to announce that former Ambassador, and former Congressman, Pete Hoekstra, has been nominated as my United States Ambassador to Canada,” Trump said in a statement. “Pete is well-respected in the Great State of Michigan – A State we won sizably.”

Hoekstra was a Michigan representative from 1993 to 2011 and served as a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

While in the House, he was considered a Tea Party member and was previously recorded questioning whether then-President Obama was born in the United States.

In 2017, he was confirmed as Trump’s U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands by a Senate voice vote. Two years later, Hoekstra emerged as one of the top choices to serve as Trump’s director of national intelligence, though Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) eventually earned the position.

Earlier this year, the Republican National Committee officially recognized Hoekstra to head the Michigan GOP.

Trump praised Hoekstra in his statement Wednesday and said with his help, in his second term, they will “once again put AMERICA FIRST.”

“He did an outstanding job as United States Ambassador to the Netherlands during our first four years, and I am confident that he will continue to represent our Country well in this new role,” Trump concluded.

President Biden awarded on Wednesday the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Cecile Richards, an abortion rights activist and former president of Planned Parenthood. 

During a private ceremony, Biden said Richards has “led some of our Nation’s most important civil rights causes — to lift up the dignity of workers, defend and advance women’s reproductive rights and equality, and mobilize Americans to exercise their power to vote.” 

Richards left Planned Parenthood in 2018 after leading the organization for 12 years, where she worked to increase affordable access to reproductive health care and helped push the Democratic Party to embrace abortion rights as a key issue.

After her departure, she co-founded a progressive organization called Supermajority that fights for gender equity. Richards also serves as co-chair of the super PAC American Bridge 21st Century. 

Richards was diagnosed in 2023 with a glioblastoma, a rare and aggressive form of brain tumor. The average glioblastoma survival time is only 12 to 18 months. 

Biden’s son Beau died from glioblastoma in 2015. 

The Medal of Freedom is given at the discretion of the president to a civilian who has made an “especially meritorious contribution” to the country.  

“A leader of utmost character, she has carved an inspiring legacy that endures in her incredible family, the countless lives she has made better, and a nation seeking the light of equality, justice, and freedom,” Biden said of Richards.  

Richards is the daughter of Ann Richards, who was the first woman to be elected governor of Texas. 

Biden has previously awarded the medal to dozens of people, including civil rights icons, prominent political leaders like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D), Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), gymnast Simone Biles and actor Michelle Yeoh.