Donald Trump shocks the Congress: he nominated a TV presenter, a conspiracy theorist, an alleged rapist and an anti-vaccinator to his cabinet. This is a dream team (nope)

Congressman Mike Waltz may become the US presidentʼs national security adviser. He is called the main opponent of China, and he promises to end carte blanche for Ukraine.

Florida Congressman Mike Waltz has served in the US House of Representatives since 2019. Before that, he spent 26 years in the army and still remains a colonel of the US National Guard. Waltz served in the "green berets" and had many missions to Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa.

As national security adviser to the US president, he will replace Jake Sullivan, who is considered the ideologue of the "escalation management" strategy. Sullivan was close to Biden, so the president listened to his arguments and position. Waltz has every chance to take this position because, unlike many other nominations, he will not need the approval of the US Senate. Trumpʼs decree will be enough.

Almost all the American media call Waltz a "China Hawk." In 2021, he generally stated that the United States was in a "state of Cold War" with the Chinese Communist Party. He called on the US to boycott the Olympics in China because of the repression against the Uyghurs, which Waltz calls genocide. In the House of Representatives, he is a member of the special group on relations with China. Waltz initiated and co-authored many bills that weakened Chinaʼs influence both inside the United States and abroad.

But Waltzʼs views on the war in Ukraine gradually changed. Even at the beginning of the invasion, he strongly criticized Biden for not giving enough help. For example, because the White House is delaying the supply of artillery and missiles to Ukraine.

"Give the Ukrainian military weapons to attack Russian warehouses and logistics so they can win," Waltz wrote in April 2022.

In the summer of the same year, Waltz went to Kyiv as part of a delegation from the US House of Representatives and even met with Zelensky. At this meeting, the Ukrainian president thanked the United States for military assistance, talked about the missile attacks by the Russians, and also presented a plan for the rapid restoration of infrastructure. However, then the election campaign began in the US, and many Republicans began to criticize Biden for any support for Ukraine. Waltz began to call for greater control over spending and for more help from Europe. And already in the summer of 2023, he opposed Ukraineʼs entry into NATO. Waltz did not vote on the latest decisions on the allocation of funds for Ukraine and criticized Biden for his lack of strategy. A year ago, he wrote a column on Fox News with the headline that Ukraine will no longer have "carte blanche" from the US Congress. Now he supports Trumpʼs position that Ukraine and Russia should sit down at the negotiating table and the war should end.

Senator Marco Rubio may become the US Secretary of State. He was once Trumpʼs competitor in the presidential election, but now he supports his ideas.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio entered politics in 2000. At first he worked in his state, and since 2011 he has been steadily re-elected to the US Senate. In 2016, he even participated in the Republican primary to become a presidential candidate. Rubio won only three primaries, so he withdrew his candidacy rather quickly. In those days, Trump criticized him a lot in his signature style: coining the nickname "lightweight" and wondering why anyone would vote for him in Florida.

Rubio has now joined Trumpʼs team and is running for the position of secretary of state (that is, secretary of foreign affairs). He is responsible for foreign policy and international relations. It is Marco Rubio who will have to solve world problems and negotiate any whims of Trump with American allies.

Marco Rubio is called a "hawk", that is, a supporter of the tough US policy abroad. Already after the nomination, he declared that he would stand for "peace through strength." During his time in the Senate, Rubio was an ardent opponent of China, Iran and Russia. For example, Rubio supported the decision to withdraw from the nuclear agreement with Iran, promoted bills to punish China for pressure on Hong Kong and for repression against the Uyghurs. After Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, it declared that Israel could not coexist with "these savages" and therefore they had to be "eradicated".

Regarding the war in Ukraine, Rubio followed the typical path of a Republican who took Trumpʼs opinion into account and wanted to remain on his team. In the first weeks of the great war, he supported Ukraine, criticized Biden for delaying help, called Putin the head of an organized crime group that runs the country. Subsequently, he began to say that China is a bigger problem for the United States than Russia, and that Biden should do everything to ensure that the American military is not harmed while helping Ukraine.

Already in 2023 and 2024, Rubio criticized aid to Ukraine and did not vote for it. He stressed that he is doing this because Democrats are spending little to stop illegal immigration from Mexico. According to him, the war in Ukraine reached a "dead end", and the States financed it. Therefore, the war must be ended, and Russia and Ukraine must sit down at the negotiating table. He did not explain exactly how this should happen, because "there is no need to talk about Trumpʼs negotiating tactics in advance".

The TV presenter Pete Hegseth may become the US Secretary of Defense. He never worked in the Pentagon and was not a politician.

If the previous two candidates are ardent opponents of China, work in the US Congress and have experience in international affairs, the choice of Pete Hegseth surprised Trumpʼs allies. Because he has no political experience at all.

Pete Hegseth is a former American officer and a TV host for the conservative Fox News channel. He served at the Guantanamo Bay base, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hegseth volunteered to join the 25 000 National Guardsmen guarding Bidenʼs inauguration in 2021. But he was suspended because he was among 12 fighters associated with "right-wing groups" or exposed for "publishing extremist views on the Internet". Hegseth himself explained that he was removed because of the " Jerusalem cross " tattoo.

Back in 2016, Hegseth publicly supported Trump in the election and since then has constantly defended him, including on Fox News. Hegsetʼs nomination came as a surprise to Trumpʼs entourage and "shocked" Pentagon employees. He has already declared that he wants to remove the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles Brown, and Trumpʼs team is preparing a list of officers to be fired from the Pentagon. Among them, in particular, are those responsible for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

Pete Hegseth hardly commented on the topic of Ukraine. But if approved by the Senate, Hegseth will have to coordinate the Rammstein format to help Ukraine. At the beginning of the great war, Hegseth said that the lives of ordinary Americans, inflation and crime were more important than the events in Ukraine. At the same time, he called Putin a war criminal and criticized Biden for being slow to provide aid, which was typical of Republicans in those days.

Tulsi Gabbard may become director of national intelligence. Over the past few years, she has switched from Democrats to Republicans and from the very beginning considers NATO to be the cause of the war in Ukraine.

Tulsi Gabbard has also been in American politics for a long time — since 2002. She first worked in local government in her home state of Hawaii before being elected to the US House of Representatives. She has military experience, having served in Iraq and Kuwait.

For a long time, Gabbard was in the Democratic Party and was the deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee. However, she regularly criticized the Democrats, in particular their indecision in the fight against Islamic terrorism, and opposed interventions abroad. In 2020, she tried to run for president from the Democrats, but after the first primaries she withdrew her candidacy and supported Biden.

In 2021, Gabbard resigned from the US House of Representatives and took a more conservative stance on LGBT and abortion issues. She began appearing more often on Fox News, became close to Trump, joined the Republican Party and co-chaired Trumpʼs presidential transition team.

Tulsi Gabbard constantly criticizes Ukraine and believes in conspiracy theories. Even before the great war, she called Ukraine very corrupt and said that there is no democracy in Ukraine because Zelensky closed three opposition channels. On the first day of the great war, Gabbard blamed NATO for Russian aggression. She also supports the Russian fake about American biolaboratories in Ukraine. It wasnʼt until the summer of 2023 that Gabbard accused Zelensky of banning all opposition parties and the Orthodox Church, as well as canceling elections, turning Ukraine into an autocracy.

Gabbardʼs nomination to such a sensitive field as intelligence has already shocked the US allies. Speaking to Politico, many intelligence officials from other countries say this could limit the sharing of intelligence with the United States. Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton called Gabbardʼs nomination "the worst government appointment in history."

Ex-congressman Matt Geitz may become the Attorney General and Minister of Justice. He is accused of rape and pedophilia.

Former congressman Matt Geitz is also from Florida, he entered the US House of Representatives in 2017. Geitz is known for his right-wing views and complete loyalty to Trump. It was he who initiated the resignation of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy.

Geitz also constantly criticizes Ukraine and spreads fakes about the war. He did not vote for the aid bills and accused Biden of spending American money on Ukrainian pensions. Also, Geitz constantly mentions that Zelensky "imprisoned the American journalist" Gonzalo Lira, where he died.

Immediately after the nomination, Geitz decided to leave Congress. So he got out of the jurisdiction of the Committee on Ethics of the House of Representatives, which considered the charges against the congressman. And they were serious: sexual harassment, drug use, distribution of unacceptable photos and videos in the hall of the House of Representatives, transfer of election campaign funds for personal needs and much more. First, the US Secret Service, and then the Department of Justice, investigated the cases involving Geitz. Among the most serious are charges of trafficking children for sexual exploitation. Geitz allegedly also had sex with a 17-year-old girl for money. He also allegedly showed nude photos of his mistresses to other congressmen in the House of Representatives.

In 2023, the US Department of Justice decided not to press charges against Geitz due to a lack of evidence. After that, the Ethics Committee of the House of Representatives began its investigation. They were expected to publish their report in the coming weeks and it was supposed to be "very critical". Now, the Democrats publicly emphasize that they do not plan to approve Geitz for this position, and the Republicans refuse to comment on his candidacy until his nomination officially comes to the Senate.

Robert Kennedy Jr. can become the Minister of Health. He is a well-known anti-vaccinator and conspiracy theorist in the United States.

Robert Kennedy Jr. is a politician, lawyer, and nephew of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. He participated in the presidential campaign this year, was an independent candidate, but in August 2024 he decided to withdraw from the race and supported Trump.

Kennedy Jr. is a well-known conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccinator in the United States. He has been against vaccines since 2005 and claims that they cause autism in children, and during the coronavirus pandemic he called vaccines a way for billionaires to make money. Kennedy Jr. denied the connection between HIV and AIDS and promoted a conspiracy theory about " medical racism " in the United States. During his presidential campaign, Kennedy Jr. spread conspiracies about Ukraine. Kennedy Jr. also told a story that happened to him in 2010. Then he began to experience dizziness and memory loss, so he turned to doctors. They discovered a dark spot in his brain. According to Kennedy, a worm was found in his head, which entered the brain, bit off a piece and died.

The new non-governmental department may be headed by businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. They promise to reform the state administration, but it is not yet clear what powers they will have.

Elon Musk speaks at Trumpʼs campaign event in New York.

Getty Images / «Babel'»

Vivek Ramaswamy speaks at the Republican Party convention.

Getty Images / «Babel'»

Trump also found positions for his associates during the presidential campaign. Especially for businessman Elon Musk, who constantly accompanies Trump. He will co-head the Department of Government Efficiency, which will cut excessive regulation, reduce unnecessary spending and reorganize federal agencies. However, the department itself will not be an official structure, so it is currently unclear what powers it will have.

In recent months, Elon Musk campaigned for Trump, attended his election rallies. Now he is almost everywhere with Trump, is present at phone conversations with foreign leaders and tries to influence personnel decisions. Musk also advocates an immediate end to the war in Ukraine and negotiations.

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy is another participant in the Republican primaries. But after the first polls, he dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump. Among the Republicans who had at least some rating, Ramaswamy was the most against Ukraine. He supported freezing the war in Ukraine, banning it from joining NATO, and recognizing the occupied territories of Ukraine as Russian in exchange for Russia breaking its alliance with China. In addition, he accused Ukraine of being undemocratic, and called Zelensky a "Nazi" in general. But positions in this newly created department will not make Musk and Ramaswamy civil servants, so they will continue to do their businesses.

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