By Ross Douthat / The New York Times
Donald Trump’s nominations of Matt Gaetz to be attorney general and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of Health and Human Services are similar in the degree of opposition that they’re likely to provoke, but I suspect the intentions behind each choice are quite different.
Gaetz is Trump’s passion pick, and according to the Bulwark’s Marc Caputo he aced his interview with the president-elect by ignoring talk of legal niceties and promising to cut a swath through the Justice Department. Despite all the speculation about some kind of multidimensional chess involved in the appointment, it seems likely that Trump very straightforwardly wants Gaetz to be confirmed, and that the former member of Congress from Florida is precisely the kind of figure he desires to have as attorney general.
With Kennedy, on the other hand, the pick feels more like conventional coalition management, with much less personal presidential passion invested in the choice. Trump benefited meaningfully from Kennedy’s endorsement, and those who voted for the former Democratic and third-party candidate represent a distinct faction — crunchy, suspicious, anti-establishment, often erstwhile lefties — within the broader Trumpist tent. So the nomination is best understood as a reward for that support, a largely transactional gesture.
Yes, Trump shares some version of Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism. But it’s doubtful that the president-elect cares deeply about the issue, let alone about how Health and Human Services approaches food additives or pesticides or chronic illness; it’s more likely he just wants to keep Kennedy and his constituency onside.
Which means in turn that he may not be terribly disappointed if the Kennedy nomination goes down to defeat in the Senate. He can say he tried, he did his best, and hand out some ceremonial public-health role as a consolation prize. And if a few Republican senators decide that they need to vote down Kennedy but then can’t also vote down Gaetz; well, that might be an entirely acceptable outcome for the president-elect.
And needless to say, this has been a good 48 hours for Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be secretary of defense.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times, c.2024.
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