Title: Friday Morning Politics: Trump's Cabinet Picks; GOP Holds the House

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good Friday morning, everyone. There are at least two different ways we plan to have conversations on this show about the incoming Trump administration. One is to have straight up policy debates and policy analysis of policies that they implement or policies that they propose. We'll get multiple points of view, we'll kick them around. The other is kind of a Fascism Watch. You all know by now that there's so much concern from Trump's former top national security officials and others that he wants to actually change the nature of governance in the United States from the democracy that it is, imperfect as it is, to more of a strongman, authoritarian model of government with fewer checks and balances.

You know about Trump's previous Homeland Security Secretary and Defense Secretary and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, all using that word fascist to describe Trump or his aspirations. In addition to regular policy debates, we will have a stream of segments here that will be a Fascism watch. Maybe it's all just rhetoric and all just talk and there'll be nothing to see here. I hope that's the case. If it is, that's what our guests and I will say. If it's more scary than that, if Trump and his appointees actually try to break our democracy, we'll be obligated to call it out and call it by its name and we will.

Come here for straight up policy debates and policy analysis, pros and cons, and come here for a Fascism watch as needed. On the latter, here we are just 10 days after the election and there are already two topics in play in the Fascism watch file. At least two that I see. One is that Trump is asking the Senate to voluntarily give up its role in the Constitution of holding confirmation hearings on the members of Trump's cabinet and voting to confirm or reject. Have you heard that? Trump has asked the new Republican Senate majority to let him make so-called recess appointments when the Senate is out of town for a few days, meaning no confirmation hearings for those nominees and no confirmation up or down vote.

They are allowed to do that under the Constitution, but recess appointments are there for rare situations anticipated in 1789 when the Senate would be away for a long time. It took a long time to go back and forth between the home districts in DC in those days. The President sometimes would need to fill a vacancy right away, not as a routine pre-planned approach to all appointees. This would literally be the Senate surrendering one of its constitutional privileges and obligations under our checks and balances system. Trump has requested it, that would hand over that bit of power from the legislative branch to the executive, a potential step toward one branch, one man rule, authoritarian rule.

We'll see if the Republican Senate is willing to just that piece of democracy away. That's the first fascism watch item we can already identify. The other is just a remark that Trump made to a meeting of House Republicans this week. Maybe you heard about it and maybe it's just a joke, maybe it's not, but it's something no president has ever said before. You know, listeners, that the Constitution has a two-term limit for presidents. We probably all know that much. It makes no exceptions for this situation where the two terms are not consecutive. It's a two-term limit on being president at any time in your life.

One big move toward authoritarianism, toward American fascism would be if Trump tries to stay in office after 2028. Well, maybe you've heard this story. It's being reported and not denied that Trump said at this meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday, "I suspect I won't be running again, unless you say he's so good we've got to figure something out." I suspect I won't be running again unless you say he's so good we've got to figure something out.

Is that just a joke or is it a way to begin to crack the door open, to break the Constitution in a very fundamental way? The New York Times reports the comment was met with laughter by the Republican House members who appeared to take it as a joke. A lot of other people aren't laughing. Those include Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman of Brooklyn and Manhattan, who said this about that.

Dan Goldman: Yeah, they always say he's joking. It's always Trump being Trump or he's just joking, but this is his MO. He will drop in something outlandish, claim he's joking, but then he starts to repeat it more and more and it starts to become normalized.

Brian Lehrer: Congressman Dan Goldman, he's going to come on live with us on Monday, but there's that clip for now. Goldman is now moving to get Congress to vote on a resolution simply affirming that the Constitution says what it says. New York Times congressional correspondent Annie Carney reports there is little chance that Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican from Louisiana, would bring such a resolution to the floor for a vote. Annie Carney joins me now to discuss this and some of the news about the nominees who Trump is announcing for top government positions. Annie's recent reporting for the Times focuses largely on the House Republican leadership. Annie, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Annie: Always good to be here. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Was that third term remark joke, if it was a joke, behind closed doors? I don't think we have tape of that, right?

Annie: No, we don't have tape of it, but reporters were in the room to witness it. A pool of reporters got to see the top of his remarks at that.

Brian Lehrer: It doesn't seem like anyone's denying the words as you reported them. Is that the case?

Annie: Dan Goldman's resolution that he introduced this week, he goes through, he lays out about five or six instances when Trump has been making this kind of "joke" going all the way back to 2020. For one example, in May when he was speaking to the NRA, he said, "I don't know, are we going to be considered three-term or two-term? Are we three-term or two-term if we win? Back in 2020, he said, "We'll negotiate, right? Because based on the way we were treated, we probably are entitled to another four after the four we win." I take Goldman's point that he jokes, and he jokes again and eventually it normalizes, and we say, well-- I mean, just looking at the cabinet appointments, he wasn't joking about everything he said he wanted to do on the campaign trail.

Brian Lehrer: We'll get some of the cabinet appointments as we go but go ahead.

Annie: Some of his allies have been echoing it. Lauren Boebert, the Colorado congresswoman, when she won her race this month, she said we have to--

Brian Lehrer: Whoops, did we just lose Annie? Maybe Lauren Boebert has a mute button, you think? Meanwhile, listeners, we'll get the phones going here as we reconnect with Annie Carney. 212-433-WNYC. Your questions or comments on American democracy and joking about the 22nd Amendment or democracy and recess appointments or the Trump nominees so far. We'll have a separate segment on RFK Jr. later in the show, by the way, now officially announced as Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary. Any of the others and the implications and these democracy and authoritarianism or fascism questions, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 call or text. I think we have Annie back. Annie, sorry if that was on our end. Where were you? You want to just pick up where you left off?

Annie: Yes, sorry, I was just saying that some of his allies, like Lauren Boebert of Colorado have echoed this thing when she won. In her statement after she won her reelection, she said, "We need to work now to guarantee Trump's third term." Democrats really don't want this to be covered as a joke. When I wrote about Dan Goldman's resolution, he really didn't want me to use the word Trump joked because he says what evidence is there that he was joking, even if people laughed? Democrats are really on us as journalists to not cover this as a joke. This is the weird alchemy of Trump talk. It's always on the line. That's the difficulty of interpreting his words and covering them. Democrats are certainly trying to get us to not see this at all.

Brian Lehrer: What we can say as journalists, which is alarming enough, is this is an open question as of today. Is Trump just making jokes about breaking the Constitution, or is he making jokes as a way to start opening that door? By the way, I have the text of the 22nd Amendment here, listeners. It says, and this is just the first line, but the rest is detail. The first line says, "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice." Seems pretty straightforward. No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice. It makes no distinction between being consecutive terms or the Donald Trump Grover Cleveland leapfrog model. Seems very clear and unambiguous and already settled law. Since it is already settled law, Annie, what's the resolution Congressman Goldman is introducing supposed to do?

Annie: It's just supposed to state that this is the law, and we all agree that it's the law. It's not doing anything. A resolution is just like reaffirming support, reaffirming that this would refer to Donald Trump. It's pretty obvious. One thing that's funny to me is Trump's term hasn't even started yet, and the first Trump term we talked a lot about the 25th Amendment, which would allow the Cabinet if enough Cabinet members wanted to remove the president. As we see him filling out his Cabinet, that doesn't seem like an amendment

we're going to be talking about this term.

We're already Talking about the 22nd Amendment now with concerns that he would stay longer. This resolution is mostly designed to get people like us talking about it because Republicans won control of the House. Democrats don't control what Bills or resolutions get a floor vote. I don't see Mike Johnson, MAGA Mike, bringing to the floor a resolution that's designed to push back on Trump in any way.

Brian Lehrer: That was a pretty alarming line in your article in the Times that there's little chance that Speaker Mike Johnson would bring the resolution to a vote. Now, that makes it seem like not just Trump, but the Republican establishment as a whole wants to crack this door open a little, that the Constitution might not apply to Donald Trump. Why wouldn't we read it that way? Or why wouldn't this be a simple enough thing for Mike Johnson to get on board with Dan Goldman on? Because it's just saying the 22nd Amendment exists.

Annie: I wouldn't go so far as to say Mike Johnson wants to crack that door open. I think Mike Johnson doesn't want to do anything that looks disloyal to Trump. Giving Democrats floor time to do a resolution designed to push back on Trump's statements would be doing that. There's just no need for him to engage on this right now. I would say he doesn't want to crack the door open on it. He just wants to sweep it under the rug and not think about it right now. Down the line if this happens, we'll see what he does. It's not unusual that a Republican speaker wouldn't give a floor vote for resolution from a member of the opposing party. That's not unusual, even though his resolution is just stating that an amendment to the Constitution exists.

Brian Lehrer: Elizabeth in Washington Heights, you're on WNYC. Hello, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to comment on how Trump uses language and how that has benefited him. He may be joking, but the fact of the matter is that he has slithered into so many of our phrases and then deemed it meaningless or something that we shouldn't care about. The one that I can think about the most is fake news. Fake news used to mean what it meant, fake news, and now it's disinformation or it is a counter to the truth because Trump has taken over that phrase, taken over that word.

We did see a counter with the Kamala Harris campaign regarding freedom and trying to take back that word, but that's another one that has been taken up to mean absolutely nothing. It's nihilistic. I think one thing that we do need to do in this next term and we kind of gave him a freeload on it is making sure that we don't let him take control of these words and not repeat it back so much because it does bleed into our psyche in that way and then it becomes his word. He controls it. Timothy Snyder has a way more eloquent way of saying this in the New Yorker this past week about fascism and language, but that's what I wanted to comment on.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you very much. Good way to start off. Robert in the Bronx is going to recall when something like this kind of sort of happened in New York City. Robert, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Robert: Hi. Yes. Well, I'm driving around the Bronx today, but I actually live in Philadelphia, but I lived in New York when we said okay or somehow it was okay that then Mayor Bloomberg changed the charter, essentially, you'll remember better, and said, "I need another term, and you have to allow me to do this." Who I think is not remembered necessarily as a Republican, but was and anyway, just in this election, after this election, constantly and your show's so good for this, try toggle between local and national and think about the importance of local. I just wonder what a reflection might be on that versus this.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, really interesting thing to raise, Robert. Now I think going from memory here and Annie used to be a New York local reporter, so maybe you can check me on this or maybe I have to look it up, I don't think it was in the New York City charter at that point. I think it was policy. There was a referendum in the '90s where voters I believe chose a two-term limit for mayor and somehow, he got the city council because it was in their interest too. They were also term limited after two terms, and some of them who that was going to apply to didn't want to lose their jobs. He convinced enough of city council to vote to make an exception.

Annie: That's right. The city council voted for it, and he just signed the bill was how he explained it.

Brian Lehrer: But in this case, Congress could not just vote even with Republican majorities to suspend the 22nd Amendment. It's not exactly apples to apples, right?

Annie: No, that's right. I just want to say as concerned about a third-- I mean, we haven't even started the second term yet. I there's it seems like with some of these he wants to take a blowtorch to the regulatory state and dismantle our government. There's questions of what will be left if he wants a third term. That feels like a million years away from where we are right now, given that it's been one week of Trump being back and we're in a new world.

Brian Lehrer: I know. As I said at the top, one of the lenses that I think we have to look at this incoming administration through, I think you agree, is since this alarm was raised by top national security officials of Trump's that he wants to govern as a fascist. That doesn't happen all overnight. It happens bit by bit. Masha Gessen is so good on this and others who've seen it happen in other countries. It happens bit by bit. Yes, there's a lot of policy. There are a lot of nominees and there are policy implications that we're going to get to in a second that we obviously have to focus on.

There's also this. How much is he going to break the democracy? Now we have this question of recess appointments, which we haven't even discussed yet, you and me, and this notion starting because he raised it, and Dan Goldman among others are pushing back of maybe, maybe, maybe not even adhering to the constitutions dictate that a president only serves two terms. Let me take one more call in this thread and then we will shift to talking about the nominees. Tim in Union City has a possible defense against something like this. Is that right? Tim? Hi, you're on WNYC.

Tim: Hi. Hi, Brian. How are you? How is your guest? I'm glad to hear you because I like the sound of your voice. Trump is probably the only person I can imagine has a negative IQ. That's reason enough for my idea, which is a popular recall, which is something that has been done and it is policy in places like California where the voters can chime in and say, "Sorry, this guy is not qualified. He's got to go," and that's it.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Call us again. Yes, there were just some successful, I believe, recall votes in California in this election, but we don't have that in the Constitution. There's no popular national recall vote for president of the United States. Right, Annie? Oh, did we lose Annie again? I guess so. Well, all right, we're going to take a break anyway at this-- No? What? We were going to take a break anyway at this point so here's what we're going to do. We're going to take that little break and then we're going to talk about Trump nominees, starting with Matt Gaetz and going on from there, so stay with us. Friday Morning Politics, 212-433-WNYC. Stay tuned.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Annie Carney, New York Times reporter who's covering mostly House congressional Republican leadership these days. All right, Annie, let's go on to some of the nominees. The most controversial one so far is Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, widely unpopular among his Republican colleagues in the House, never mind Democrats. There's also this House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz, possible sex trafficking or something like that. Here's an example of why Trump would want Matt Gaetz. This is Gaetz in a House Judiciary Committee hearing with Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland, in which Gaetz was pressing the case that the post-January 6th investigations and indictments of Trump are political.

Matt Gaetz: Well, you might not have had anything to do with it, but we've got this contemporaneous evidence in Mr. Pomerantz's book. Pomerantz writes this book, which I'm sure you're aware of, where he says, "We put together the legal eagles to get Trump. We got all these folks together and we assembled them for that purpose." When we on the Judiciary Committee think about attacks on the judicial process, our concern is that the facts in the law aren't being followed. A target is acquired here, Trump, and then you assemble the legal talent from DOJ, Mr. Pomerantz, and you bring everybody in to get him.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, Merrick Garland denied that characterization. Annie, that's the kind of pro-Trump bulldog lawyer Trump wants as his attorney general, right?

Annie: Yes. He wants people who are not going to act like the obstacles that he put in charge of the Justice Department and the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies last time, who were obstacles to his efforts to legitimize his presidency or hold on to power after he was defeated. These three, Justice, Pentagon, intel, are areas where he's just putting in total loyalists. Just this week, Gaetz said he wanted to abolish the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Brian Lehrer: Wait, I hadn't heard this. He said abolish the FBI?

Annie: He suggested abolishing the FBI. Yes. The FBI would report to him if he was the Attorney General. This is an explosive nominee for Trump to put in there. It took everyone by surprise. It just happened on the plane. With Musk there and Matt Gaetz was flying with them and Trump just didn't love any of the other options that were brought to him. It happened in the course of two hours. No vetting. It took everyone by surprise. This is how some of these nominees are coming out right now.

Everyone's making this point that in the first term, Trump didn't know anything about Washington, leaned on what he was supposed to do a little bit more. He listened to Paul Ryan, who was at the time the Republican Speaker of the House. That's just not going to be the dynamic here. He thinks he knows what to do now and he's just going to do what he wants to do. Matt Gaetz is a loyal guy. Trump thinks he looks the part. Here we are. The Matt Gaetz is probably the top question mark hanging over him about is this really going to go through? There's so much baggage. Could this be withdrawn before it even gets to a vote in the Senate? Could he get the votes in the Senate? I'd say that Matt Gaetz's nomination seems the most on the bubble so far.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I have a conspiracy theory about that. Tell me if there's any evidence for this. This is just, you know, a thought bubble, so I present it only as that. Matt Gaetz is going to be so controversial and take up so much oxygen in the media sphere that a lot of other Trump nominees who are also really radical and maybe other policies are going to fly a little bit under the radar because everybody's going to go "Matt Gaetz, Matt Gaetz" for the next two months.

Annie: Yes. I don't think that's why Trump did it. I think Trump did it because he wants Matt Gaetz to be the Attorney General. I don't think it was three-dimensional chess of if I do Matt Gaetz, then no one's going to notice that I did Pete Hegseth. I think you're right about what it will do, which is that when the Matt Gaetz news came after Pete Hegseth news. Pete Hegseth is a Fox News host who was nominated to be Secretary of Defense. After the Tulsi Gabbard News she was nominated to be head of DNI and Kristi Noel. Hegseth, sorry, I'm learning how to pronounce his name, it was like that announcement was like, well, he can't be confirmed, right? Was the chatter on the Hill.

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Annie: Then suddenly it's like, well, the Republican controlled Senate is not going to reject Trump's entire Cabinet. The thinking is, well, that's fine now. We have to save our power to push back on Matt Gaetz. There's just no scenario where Republicans deny Trump like most of the Cabinet he wants. I think you're right about what will happen. I don't think that's why Trump did it.

Brian Lehrer: I have a couple of clips of Pete Hegseth to play in a couple of minutes. On Gaetz, today was supposed to be the day that the House Ethics Committee released its report on his alleged personal behavior, but he resigned from the House this week upon announcement of his nomination because now they can't release that report from the Ethics Committee because he's no longer in the House. If he's going up before the Senate for confirmation hearings, if they actually hold confirmation hearings rather than just pass it through in a recess appointment, here's one thing that some Democrats and Republicans seem to agree on. They want to see the evidence that the House Ethics Committee saw that would have fed that report. Here's Democratic Senator Dick Durbin on that.

Dick Durbin: In light of Donald Trump's selection of former Congressman Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General, I'm calling on the House Ethics Committee to preserve and share their report and all relevant documentation on Mr. Gaetz with the Senate Judiciary Committee. The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetz's resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report. We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people.

Brian Lehrer: That's Democrat Dick Durbin. Here's Republican Senator John Cornyn.

John Cornyn: I don't think any of us want to fly blind because that wouldn't be discharging our responsibilities. Again, part of this is to protect the President against information or surprises coming out later that he and his team weren't aware of.

Brian Lehrer: Annie, can you explain just briefly what it is that the Ethics Committee has been investigating? We know, in fairness to Matt Gaetz, that the Justice Department investigated and decided not to press criminal charges.

Annie: Yes. The Justice Department was looking into allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old. Those allegations would have exposed him to federal sex trafficking laws and paid for it. That could have come with a 10-year prison sentence. Last year, the Justice Department ended it without charging Gaetz with anything. Then the House Ethics Committee restarted an investigation. They had put aside their investigation while the DOJ was conducting theirs, then they started it up again after DOJ concluded theirs. That report, which is supposed to be pretty damning, according to our reporting, again, it was looking into sexual misconduct allegations, drugs, and they were going to release this report on Friday.

This ethics investigation just ends immediately now that he has resigned. The question that everyone on the Hill is asking is, can the Senate Judiciary Committee compel the House Ethics Committee to give them the report? Will the contents of this report become public in some way? Generally, people want to see him get through a confirmation hearing, see senators go through his background check files. People think that there's a lot of baggage there that could end up making this nomination fall apart even before a vote. We will see.

Brian Lehrer: Well, we'll see what happens with that. Of course, I know of somebody who is found liable by a jury of sexual assault and the public didn't care enough not to vote him in for President of the United States. We'll see even if this surfaces about Matt Gaetz, how much of an impact it has on the Republican senators. This brings us to the other democracy question. Trump wants Gaetz and other nominees to not even have to go through Senate confirmation using this provision. For people who weren't listening at the top, I described it in the intro. You can listen later online if you want.

This provision in the Constitution for recess appointments, it's supposed to be for relatively special circumstances when Congress is out of session and there's an important vacancy that comes up, not for originally staffing a new president's Cabinet. The Senate Republicans would have to be compliant and give up this checks-and-balances-authority to Trump voluntarily. Can you tell yet if they will? Has the new speaker-elect or majority leader elect of the House Senator Thune said?

Annie: No, he hasn't said. He has said that he wants to go through the regular-- He basically hasn't said. This is why some of the MAGA people were pushing Rick Scott of Florida to be majority leader because he had said right off the bat he supported Trump's desire to have recess appointments. It would be a shocking development for Thune to- he just got elected to be majority leader and the first thing he would do would be to give up the power of the Senate. He'd have a lot of pushback from inside of his conference. Senators really, at least senators used to really be there for themselves. They like power. They consider themselves a huge check and balance on our system.

Each one of them used to look in the mirror and see a future president. They don't want to give up their power so easily. The new senators coming in are more there because of Trump for Trump. The younger breed of MAGA senators are different. They used to be that you come as a senator, you plan to be there for a really long time and you're there for yourself to enact your own agenda. That's changing. Still, that's the mindset of the Senate. They don't like to be told what to do. They think they're very special and very powerful. Them just handing over a huge part of their power to Trump would be shocking.

Brian Lehrer: Hearing anything about the filibuster in the Senate, might they move to kill that guardrail? In fairness, there were a lot of Democrats and progressive outside groups who wanted the Democrats to end the filibuster when they had slim control of the Senate so they could get things through with less than 60 votes. Is there any talk now? Sometimes Republicans, I'm thinking of those two Supreme Court nominations at the end of Obama and the end of Trump. Sometimes Republicans in the Senate will do things that the Democrats are too restrained to actually do, even though they'd be tempted. Any indication yet that the Republicans will kill the filibuster so they can get a lot of stuff through with 51 instead of 60 votes?

Annie: No. I mean, yes, the filibuster is a huge reason why the Senate is not like the House, that it's not as insane and partisan. The filibuster is part of that. So far, the new Republican leadership has then unequivocal that their filibuster will remain unchanged.

Brian Lehrer: It's not in their short-term interest. Do you know why they've been unequivocal about keeping the filibuster?

Annie: They think it's important. They're unanimous about that. Even Tommy Tuberville, Republican Senator from Alabama, Trumpy guy, said, no, we need to keep the filibuster. I think they understand the long-term implications of that. Maybe short term they get Trump's agenda through, long term, it could hurt them. Some of these senators do fall in line publicly with Trump and can't do anything publicly to break with him and don't ever do so. Privately they are scared of him too. I'd imagine that some of them like the idea that there is at least this guardrail against him just shoving through the entire agenda. Some of these senators have their own qualms that they'll never say publicly, but they do.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, it looks like a parlor game has broken out among some of our listeners with other ways Trump could have a third term other than defying the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution. He could, they say, and I don't know if he could really do these things, but one person wrote he could be named the vice-presidential running mate of the next Republican presidential candidate.

Annie: Can you imagine Donald Trump being the number two to anybody?

Brian Lehrer: Right, I know, but in this theory, in this scenario, that Republican president who would be elected would have agreed in advance with Trump that that person would then resign, so Trump then gets elevated back to president. Another one is Trump runs for House of Representatives, gets elected speaker, and then the president and the vice president resign because the speaker is third in line. I don't want to dwell on these things, but it looks like there's already a parlor game or a little cottage industry of ways that people are figuring out that Trump could try to subvert the intent of the Constitution.

Annie: Sounds like good fodder for fan fiction.

Brian Lehrer: Next, controversial nominee, Fox News host and Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary. Here is Hegseth stating a priority that he would have for the Pentagon.

Pete Hegseth: You got to fire the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and you got to fire this-- Obviously you're going to bring in a new Secretary of Defense, but any general that was involved, General, Admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI woke [beep] has got to go.

Brian Lehrer: That's a Trump talking point at a big Project 2025 priority, ending diversity and many anti-discrimination policies in federal employment generally. Do you know some of what it would apply to in the case of the Defense Department?

Annie: I don't. I haven't been following this one as closely. All Republicans have been on a tear against diversity, equity, inclusion in the military. I think that Hegseth has made comments about not wanting women to serve. He doesn't want any general who got his promotion because he was Black to have gotten that.

Brian Lehrer: Well, except there may be no general-- Just to be fair, you would probably agree with this that there probably aren't generals who got their promotion because they were Black. They were qualified, and then there was an interest in not having an all-white general force.

Annie: Right. This is just part of the broader Republican focus on culture wars and getting wokeness out of the military, out of schools, out of our lives completely. This would mean that someone who believes in those views would be heading up the Pentagon. I think that as extreme as those comments are, I think with him one of the biggest concerns is the lack of managerial experience to head up the Pentagon. This is someone who is a co-host on the morning of Fox and Friends and has served in the military but never has overseen such a broad and complicated department. I think that people have concerns about the ability to do the managing of being Defense Secretary with his resume.

Brian Lehrer: Let's do two more clips here, then we're going to run out of time. Trump talks about trying to end the US involvement in endless wars, but I want to play two clips that make me confused about to what degree that's actually the case. This is former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, his nominee for Director of National Intelligence, from her endorsement of Trump during the campaign.

Tulsi Gabbard: This administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts in regions around the world and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before. That's one of the main reasons why I'm committed to doing all that I can to send President Trump back to the White House where he can once again serve us as our commander in chief.

Brian Lehrer: She talks about pulling back from war, but here again is Pete Hegseth, his nominee for Defense Secretary.

Pete Hegseth: What Western civilization represents today is an understanding that Zionism and Americanism are the front lines of Western civilization and freedom in our world.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, just to give credit, these two Hegseth clips with the music underneath were from Turkish media outlet TRT World. The Dan Goldman clip that we played earlier was pulled from Straight Arrow News just to give credit, as we should do when we get clips from other news organizations. It sounds, Annie, like Hegseth wants to continue arming Israel and having the US involved in the war or the wars over there. Does Trump say end the endless wars except for the Middle East?

Annie: He hasn't said exactly that, but I think that all of his foreign policy picks, it's hawkish isolationism. I think is what these two Marco Rubio Waltz, his National Security Adviser nominee all have in common. They have a hard-line stance on China and Iran. They've changed their positions to be more America first and isolationist like Trump, even though that's not what they used to think. They have a hawkish outlook on some areas of the world and probably being an unequivocal ally of Israel is the position of most Republicans. It's like a hawkishness and an isolationism combined seems to be what all of his foreign policy picks have in common.

Brian Lehrer: That's an interesting term. I hadn't heard it yet. Obviously, this one we will explore in the future as whatever policies take shape. Hawkish isolationism. Annie Carney covers largely the House Republican leadership as well as other things for the New York Times. Annie, thanks a lot for coming on.

Annie: Thank you, Brian.

 

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