A cabinet full of characters

KCRW's Left, Right & Center

KCRW

352865, News

4.2 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

President-elect Donald Trump announced a handful of buzzworthy cabinet appointments over the past few days. Trump has already announced his picks for the secretaries of State, Homeland Security and Defense. Those picks - Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth, respectively - were controversial enough before Trump announced his choice of Florida senator Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. Gaetz’s selection has drawn scrutiny from both sides of the aisle. Was the media meltdown over Gaetz what Trump wanted all along? How will Trump’s picks affect his executive governing?

Another contentious appointment this week was Trump’s announcement of former ICE director Tom Homan as “border czar." Homan has outlined in interviews a plan for mass deportations of migrant families, including people born in the United States. Trump’s stance on immigration and border security were major drivers in his election victory. Many in the GOP see voters election of Trump as a mandate on immigration and support for his mass deportation proposal. But after voters in many states supported Trump for President and voted down Democrats on the ballot, is that true? Did voters really want Trump’s policies, or just his leadership?

Kamala Harris’s presidential defeat inspired plenty of introspection from the Democratic Party. Critics say the Democrats relied too heavily on identity politics and not enough on policy for the win. What role did sexism play in Harris’s loss? Is it as simple as the United States not being ready for a woman president?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to left, right and center, everybody. I am David Green with Sarah Isker and Moelah Lathie.
0:06.8	President-elect Donald Trump has wasted no time shaping the team for his next administration.
0:12.6	He announced some cabinet positions that will require Senate approval and some other positions that will not require approval.
0:20.6	And let's start with Donald Trump's
0:22.7	choice for attorney general, and that would be Matt Gates. In Trump's words, Gates is, quote,
0:28.7	a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney. Gates is a member of Congress who has distinguished himself,
0:34.1	Trump says, through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice.
0:40.3	Let's add some other facts about Matt Gates.
0:42.8	He was the subject of a three-year sex trafficking investigation that did, we should say, end in no charges.
0:48.4	He was also under scrutiny by the House Ethics Committee over charges of sexual misconduct, among other things. And that report
0:55.3	was reportedly due out this past week until Trump picked Gates for Attorney General and Gates
1:02.4	resigned from Congress, which leaves that report in limbo. So let's start with that. Sarah, you worked for
1:09.7	this president in this very department, the Department of Justice. Why do you think Donald Trump wants Matt Gates as the nation's next attorney general?
1:19.5	So there's obviously a lot of people kind of speculating that this isn't a real nomination. I would like to disabuse them of that notion.
1:28.6	This is a real nomination. I believe that Donald Trump has picked Matt Gates to be as
1:33.4	Attorney General. We have some reporting at this point that he interviewed a number of other folks,
1:38.8	and they were all sort of giving high-minded answers about the Constitution and yada, yada, yada.
1:43.6	And Gates ended up on the plane with
1:46.8	Trump. And his answer was, you know, Mr. President, if you let me in there, I'll cut off some
1:54.2	effing heads. And that's who Donald Trump picked. I also think if you take MadGaets in the context of some of these other
2:04.2	nominees, I think you get a sense of what Donald Trump wants for his second term that's a little
2:10.4	different from the first term. You know, the first term, we talk about how he was casting people in
	...

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