It’s entirely possible that the Republican-led Senate won’t reject any of Donald Trump’s controversial Cabinet nominees, but two of the president’s most outlandish personnel choices are clearly facing headwinds.
Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, for example, is Trump’s choice to serve as the director of national intelligence, which is utterly bonkers for a great many reasons. This has apparently not gone unnoticed on Capitol Hill, where even Republican senators have been unimpressed with the former Hawaii congresswoman.
Gabbard’s confirmation was an opportunity for her to turn things around, and by accounts, she fell far short. In the aftermath of her Senate committee flop, The Washington Post made matters considerably worse for the controversial DNI nominee.
During her sworn testimony last week, Gabbard was asked about her trip to Syria in 2017, which has become highly controversial given her interactions with then-President Bashar al-Assad. But she also met with a cleric named Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, who threatened the United States with suicide bombers.
Asked if she was aware of the threats made by Hassoun, Gabbard said under oath, “I was not and had not heard that until today.” It was against this backdrop that the Post reported:
[D]ocuments reviewed by The Washington Post indicate that Gabbard was aware of Hassoun’s threats soon after she returned from her controversial visit to the country in January 2017. The documents, which appear within a larger trove from Gabbard’s former congressional office, show that Hassoun’s comments on suicide bombers were flagged as problematic by one of her aides in early 2017 and were identified in an external vetting process as the likeliest source of negative publicity about the trip.
While the Post’s reporting hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, Gabbard’s nomination was already struggling. If she lied about her knowledge of a guy with a network of suicide bombers, whom she personally interacted with in Syria, that probably won’t help tip on-the-fence senators in her favor.
As for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the conspiracy theorist’s nomination has faced fierce pushback from literally thousands of physicians, scientists and Nobel laureates. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, however, tried to help even the scales at one of his confirmation hearings, introducing into the record a list of nearly 800 doctors who support Kennedy’s confirmation.
There was, however, a problem: Johnson didn’t do his homework. The Associated Press reported that many of the doctors on the list aren’t actual doctors. There were some physicians on the list, but many of them “have had their licenses revoked, suspended or faced other discipline.”
While that was no doubt embarrassing for RFK Jr. — and Johnson — The New York Times reported on an even more dramatic development: In response to written questions from senators, Kennedy “disclosed he had reached at least one settlement agreement with a company or individual that had accused him of ‘misconduct or inappropriate behavior.’”
According to Mother Jones’ reporting, senators asked two specific questions: “Yes or no, have you ever reached a settlement agreement with an individual or organization that accused you of misconduct or inappropriate behavior?” and “Yes or no, have you ever agreed to or been subject to a non-disclosure agreement with any individual or organization?” Kennedy answered yes to both questions. He did not, however, elaborate, and no one on Capitol Hill — or the public at large — knows what the misconduct is. JD Vance appeared on Fox News over the weekend and said, in a message to his fellow Republicans, “You don’t have to agree with everything Bobby Kennedy has ever said. You don’t have to agree with everything that Tulsi Gabbard has ever said. You are meant to ask, do they have the qualifications and the character to do this job?” Honestly, it’s the first thing the vice president has said in a long while that I agree with. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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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