WASHINGTON: Conspiracy theories about vaccines. Secret meetings with dictators. An enemies list.
\nPresident Donald Trump\u2019 s most controversial Cabinet nominees \u2014 Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel \u2014 flooded the zone Thursday in back-to-back-to-back confirmation hearings that were like nothing the Senate has seen in modern memory.
\nThe onslaught of claims, promises and testy exchanges did not occur in a political vacuum. The whirlwind day \u2014 Day 10 of the new White House \u2014 all unfolded as Trump himself was ranting about how diversity hiring caused the tragic airplane-and-helicopter crash outside Washington\u2019s Ronald Reagan National Airport.
\nAnd it capped a tumultuous week after the White House abruptly halted federal funding for programs Americans rely on nationwide, under guidance from Trump\u2019s budget pick Russ Vought, only to reverse course amid a public revolt.
\n\u201cThe American people did not vote for this kind of senseless chaos,\u201d said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, earlier.
\nIt was all challenging even the most loyal Republicans who are being asked to confirm Trump\u2019s Cabinet or face recriminations from an army of online foot-soldiers aggressively promoting the White House agenda. A majority vote, in the Senate which is led by Republicans 53-57, is needed for confirmation, leaving little room for dissent.
\nHere are some takeaways from the day:
\nTulsi Gabbard defends her loyalty \u2014 and makes some inroads
\nGabbard is seen as the most endangered of Trump\u2019s picks, potentially lacking the votes even from Trump\u2019s party for confirmation for Director of National Intelligence. But her hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee offered a roadmap toward confirmation.
\nIt opened with the chairman, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, swatting back claims that Gabbard is a foreign \u201casset,\u201d undercover for some other nation, presumably Russia. He said he reviewed some 300 pages of multiple FBI background checks and she\u2019s \u201cclean as a whistle.\u201d
\nBut Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the panel, questioned whether she could build the trust needed, at home and abroad, to do the job.
\nGabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, defended her loyalty to the US She dismissed GOP Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, when he asked whether Russia would \u201cget a pass\u201d from her.
\n\u201cSenator, I\u2019m offended by the question,\u201d Gabbard responded.
\nPressed on her secret 2017 trip to meet with then-Syrian President Bashir Assad, who has since been toppled by rebels and fled to Russia, she defended her work as diplomacy.
\nGabbard may have made some inroads with one potentially skeptical Republican. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, asked whether Gabbard would recommend a pardon for Edward Snowden. The former government contractor was charged with espionage after leaking a trove of sensitive intelligence material, and fled to residency in Russia.
\nGabbard, who has called Snowden a brave whistleblower, said it would not be her responsibility to \u201cadvocate for any actions related to Snowden.\u201d
\nPicking up one notable endorsement, Gabbard was introduced by one of the Senate\u2019s more influential voices on intelligence matters, Richard Burr, the retired Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee.
\nRobert F. Kennedy Jr. pressed again on vaccine safety
\nKennedy faced a second day of grilling to become Health and Human Services secretary, this time at the Senate Health committee, as senators probed his past views against vaccines and whether he would ban the abortion drug mifepristone.
\nBut what skeptical Democratic senators have been driving at is whether Kennedy is trustworthy \u2014 if he holds fast to his past views or has shifted to new ones \u2014 echoing concerns raised by his cousin Caroline Kennedy that he is a charismatic \u201cpredator\u201d hungry for power.
\n\u201cYou\u2019ve spent your entire career undermining America\u2019s vaccine program,\u201d said Sen. Chris Murphy D-Connecticut \u201cIt just isn\u2019t believable that when you become secretary you are going to become consistent with science.\u201d
\nSen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, took the conversation in a different direction reading Kennedy\u2019s comments about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in which he said in a social media post: \u201cIt\u2019s hard to tell what is conspiracy and what isn\u2019t.\u201d
\n\u201cWow,\u201d Kaine said.
\nKennedy responded that his father, the late Robert F. Kennedy, told him that people in positions of power do lie.
\nBut Kennedy\u2019s longtime advocacy in the anti-vaccine community continued to dominate his hearings.
\nSen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., choked back tears when she told Kennedy that his work caused grave harm by relitigating what is already \u201csettled science\u201d \u2014 rather than helping the country advance toward new treatments and answers in health care.
\nBut Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, immediately shifted the mood saying his own sons are fans of the nominee and he thanked Kennedy for \u201cbringing the light\u201d particularly to a younger generation interested in his alternative views.
\nPressed on whether he would ban the abortion drug mifepristone, Kennedy said it\u2019s up to Trump.
\n\u201cI will implement his policy.\u201d
\nA combative Kash Patel spars with senators over his past
\nKash Patel emerged as perhaps the most combative nominee in a testy hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee as the nominee to lead the FBI.
\nConfronted with his own past words, writings and public comments, Patel, a former Capitol Hill staffer turned Trump enthusiast, protested repeatedly that his views were being taken out of context as \u201cunfair\u201d smears.
\nSen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, read aloud Patel\u2019s false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election and another about his published \u201cenemies list\u201d that includes former Trump officials who have been critical of the president.
\n\u201c\u2019We\u2019re going to come after you,\u2019\u201d she read him saying.
\nPatel dismissed her citations as \u201cpartial statement\u201d and \u201cfalse.\u201d
\nKlobuchar, exasperated, told senators: \u201cIt\u2019s his own words.\u201d
\nPatel has stood by Trump in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol and produced a version of the national anthem featuring Trump and the so-called J6 choir of defendants as a fundraiser. The president played the song opening his campaign rallies.
\nDuring one jarring moment, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asked Patel to turn around and look at the US Capitol Police officers protecting the hearing room.
\n\u201cTell them you\u2019re proud of what you did. Tell them you\u2019re proud that you raised money off of people that assaulted their colleagues, that pepper sprayed them, that beat them with poles,\u201d Schiff said.
\nPatel fired back: \u201cThat\u2019s an abject lie, you know it. I never, never, ever accepted violence against law enforcement.\u201d
\nPatel said he did not endorse Trump\u2019s sweeping pardon of supporters, including violent rioters, charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
\n\u201cI do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement,\u201d Patel said.
\nIn another Cabinet development, Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee advanced Trump\u2019s budget nominee Russ Vought toward confirmation after Democrats boycotted the meeting in protest.
\nVought was an architect of Project 2025 and influential in the White House memo to free federal funding this week, which sparked panic in communities across the country. Advocacy organizations challenged the freeze in court, and the White House quickly rescinded it, for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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