It was just two weeks into Donald Trump’s second term when the public learned that a man with a history of using racist rhetoric had been appointed to key post at the State Department. Days later, the public learned that a member of Elon Musk’s DOGE operation also had a history of using racist rhetoric.
And now this week the public has learned about Kingsley Wilson, who was recently tapped to serve as the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary. A Mother Jones report summarized Wilson’s record this way: “She’s also an overt internet troll with a long history of bigoted, xenophobic, and deliberately provocative s—posting.”
It’s reached the point where even some congressional Republicans are raising public concerns about the White House’s vetting process. Politico reported:
The backlash over a top Pentagon aide who has touted antisemitic views, white supremacist conspiracy theories and Kremlin-like statements on social media grew wider on Wednesday in a sign of increasing frustration among Republicans about the Trump administration’s seemingly unvetted appointees. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson’s posts — which include comparing the murders of Israeli babies during the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to abortion and spreading the far-right ‘great replacement theory’ — have angered lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska told Politico, in reference to Wilson’s remarks, “It’s horrible, it’s just not appropriate.”
A senior Republican congressional aide added, “We’ve got enough real, serious challenges from outside without having to worry about Pentagon staff who like to spread antisemitism or Russian propaganda. I’m amazed at who this administration has been willing to trust with national security responsibilities.”
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska was more cautious, but even he was willing to state the obvious: “Doing appropriate vetting for all those jobs is very important.”
During Trump’s first term, the president bragged, “[W]e have a great vetting process.” It was absurd at the time, but the boast now looks even worse.
The problem, of course, isn’t that the White House has no vetting process, but rather, that Team Trump has the wrong vetting process.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month, for example, that the Republican operation vetted prospective employees through a series of “loyalty tests,” asking applicants about whether they agreed with Trump’s positions — even on issues wholly unrelated to the jobs they were seeking — and whether they ever worked for a politician who disliked Trump. (The report has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News.) The Washington Post had a similar report on the tests being applied to candidates for top national security positions. The questions asked of several current and former officials up for top intelligence agency and law enforcement posts revolved around two events that have become President Donald Trump’s litmus test to distinguish friend from foe: the result of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to the people, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
For example, the Post’s report, which also has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, highlighted a pair of applicants for positions within the intelligence community, who were asked to give “yes” or “no” responses to questions such as: Was Jan. 6 “an inside job”? And was the 2020 presidential election “stolen”? The same article went on to note that at least two individuals in FBI field offices who were being interviewed for senior positions were asked who the “real patriots” were on Jan. 6. In other words, those seeking jobs in the administration have too often been pressed on their allegiance to Trump and Trumpism instead of being pressed on whether they’ve published racist and antisemitic content online.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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