Trump cabinet latest updates: Trump’s pick of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General stuns Washington – UK Times

Other eye-brow-raising picks include Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary.

“I do think there’s a group of people who think that they are going to be able to screen out people, not on the basis of philosophy so much as on their attitude toward the president,” he said.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency might not be as plain sailing as they would hope.

Their plans to slash government spending and restructure federal agencies face roadblocks, experts have said.

Ramaswamy once said he had plans to cut the federal workforce by 75 percent on “day one,” while Musk has called for a 33 percent cut in federal spending.

Justin Schnitzer, a federal employment attorney, cautions that it won’t happen on day one.

“The maximalist numbers like 75 percent are unlikely to happen at all,” he said.

“Firings on this scale would bring government services across the country to a screeching halt, which would be unpopular with voters across the spectrum. Additionally, federal employees have rights and unjustified mass firings will result in justified mass appeals.”

Meanwhile, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of American Action Forum, told the Hill: “There’s the executive branch that might be in their way. The Congress might be in their way. The Constitution is a bit of an obstacle.”

“Other than that, clear sailing.”

A law professor says Gaetz faces a “monumental challenge” to get confirmed as attorney general.

“If Trump wanted to defibrillate the Justice Department, the Matt Gaetz nomination is the 100,000-volt option,” Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said in a post on X.

“Just a day after the announcement, this is shaping up as one of the most intense confirmation fights in congressional history,” he added.

Melania Trump is enjoying Elon Musk’s sudden constant presence around Mar-a-Lago, despite her husband Donald Trump teasing that the billionaire has overstayed his welcome, according to a source.

The president-elect and the tech billionaire have become somewhat inseparable since Trump was re-elected to the White House last week, with Musk now a fixture at his Palm Beach residence.

While some Trumpworld insiders are said to be rattled by this sudden closeness, a source told Page Six that the incoming first lady is a big fan of Trump’s self-styled “First Buddy” and likes him being around.

It comes as Trump reportedly said: “Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him – at least until I don’t like him.”

Alina Habba, a lawyer who represented Donald Trump in a series of high-profile cases, has confirmed she will not be his White House Press Secretary despite reports she was the possible front-runner.

Panic had already set in at the Department of Justice prior to Matt Gaetz’s nomination to head up the agency.

Now the panic has gone into overdrive.

“This is completely wild. It’s so out of bounds, it’s just shocking,” one DOJ lawyer told Politico. “He’s there for one purpose: to enact retribution. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a grand vision about the future of the department. I can’t imagine how this isn’t going to scare people even more.”

“Everyone I’ve talked to, mostly lawyers, are losing their minds,” one DOJ attorney previously said.

One of Kamala Harris’s campaign aides has shed light on the real reason why the vice president didn’t end up appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

Harris’s team was in talks for her to appear on the most popular podcast in America, but the sitdown ultimately failed to materialize.

Rogan has since claimed that a series of demands from the campaign was the reason why it didn’t go ahead.

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There are two possible options for what could happen next…

He was introduced as the come-back King by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Wednesday, November 13 after meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House earlier in the day.

Watters boasted of his ties to some of those headed for the most powerful jobs in government, with his former Fox News colleague Pete Hegseth tapped to become Trump’s future defense secretary.