A Fox News ally for the Secretary of Defense. Former Democrat turned global Trump celebrity to oversee 18 spy agencies. A right-wing provocateur for the highest law enforcement post in the United States.

President-elect Donald TrumpAppointments to the government’s top posts came fast and furious this week, and his promise to build a presidential administration fueled by retaliation quickly emerged.

These plans were perhaps best summarized by Matt Gaetzwho wrote about his enthusiasm for the total elimination of federal law enforcement just hours before Trump. announced he had chosen the Florida Republican lead the Ministry of Justice:

“We should bring total pressure against this ARMED government that has turned against our people,” Gaetz wrote on social media Wednesday. “And if that means abolishing all three agencies, from the FBI to the ATF, I’m ready to go!”

Trump couldn’t have said it better himself. And that’s the whole point.

The president-elect’s other explosive picks include Pete Hegseth, a military veteran known for defending Trump on Fox News, for defense secretary; and Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, as director of national intelligence.

“It’s so appalling that they are a form of performance art,” Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, said in an interview, reflecting on Trump’s choices and their fitness for the job.

This parade of loyalists is Trump’s first show of force toward Senate Republicans, who will be under immense pressure to either confirm his nominee or circumvent this process altogether. But it’s also a sort of denial-of-service attack on one of the controls on the presidency: Trump insisted that the next Senate majority leader allow recess appointments, which would give him would give the possibility of unilaterally installing cabinet members.

That newly elected leader, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, told reporters Wednesday that the Senate would “explore all options” to ensure Trump appointees “are moved and they are moved quickly.”

The president-elect, Waldman said, had effectively “provoked his first constitutional crisis” eight days after winning the election.

“He’s going to choose people who are conservative, who are Republican,” Waldman said. “You know, that’s what you get with an election. But these choices seem intended to attract the attention of the Senate.

Not all of Trump’s choices seem intended to undermine the government, as usual. The selection of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state elevates an established foreign policy hawk who has taken a tough approach toward China. And Thune’s election signals that Republicans are willing to resist pressure — at least through a blind vote — to install Trump loyalists like Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a longtime Trump supporter.

But among lawmakers on Capitol Hill, reactions to the nominations — Gaetz’s in particular — were met with a mix of surprise and disbelief.

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Gaetz was “not a serious candidate” and compared him to a disgraced fabulist who was expelled from the House of Representatives last year, saying : “If I wanted to make a joke, maybe I would say right now that I’m waiting for George Santos to be nominated.

By selecting Gaetz and a group of other loyalists, Trump is trying to ensure he can leave the levers of the federal government to people who ultimately answer to him. Not in this group is Jeff Sessions, who was forced out as attorney general during Trump’s first term because he recused himself from the investigation into Russian interference in the election. 2016.

There is no Jim Mattis, who chose to resign rather than comply with Trump’s deliberate crumbling of international alliances. There isn’t even a John Bolton, the former national security adviser who ended up clashing with Trump over making deals he considered reckless with America’s enemies. (On Wednesday, Bolton said on NBC that Gaetz’s choice was “the worst cabinet appointment in American history.”

Timothy L. O’Brien, a longtime Trump biographer, said the selections were his way of ensuring he had loyalty beyond his qualifications for the role.

“He values ​​loyalty over competence, atmosphere over expertise, and buffoonery over maturity,” O’Brien said. “He values ​​that over almost everything else, other than his own survival.”

Indeed, the main theme of Trump’s personnel announcements is that no one will step in to establish guardrails for a president who disregards them.

Instead, the Senate will now have to confirm Hegseth, who Trump praised as “tough, smart and a true supporter of America First” but who may not have the experience to lead the 1.3 million active duty men and women of the United States military. . In Trump’s eyes, Hegseth’s criticism of “woke” behavior within the armed forces and the military’s diversity programs might constitute sufficient nuance.

They will also examine the credentials of Gabbard, who is one of Trump’s most vocal supporters. She has long been popular with Russian state media. Democratic senators are expected to ask him about his decision to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad and his past embrace of Russian arguments.

And they will examine the background of Gaetz, who was recently the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation concluded in 2023. If confirmed, he will lead the Justice Department that led that investigation.

Gaetz was also the target of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee into accusations of drug use, using campaign funds for personal use and sharing inappropriate material on the House floor, among other offenses . He resigned from the House on Wednesday after Trump tapped him to be attorney general, ending the investigation.

While in Congress, Gaetz introduced legislation that would limit sentences for those who participated in the January 6, 2021 attacks on the U.S. Capitol and became notorious for his conflicts with other House members. (Republican House member Max Miller of Ohio told reporters Wednesday that at least the House would be a more peaceful place without Gaetz.)

“The Justice Department generally prosecutes bomb throwers,” Waldman said. “He would be someone whose entire political brand would be that of a bomb thrower, in charge of an agency with extraordinary responsibility and power. »

It will now be up to the Senate to decide if, and how, Trump’s choices will be installed. As a candidate, Trump promised to root out government corruption, fight censorship and exact revenge on the “enemies within” who unfairly targeted him. As president-elect, the cascade of organized, rapid, headline-grabbing choices is designed to show that he meant what he said and that he intends to reorient institutions from functioning in the name from the national interest towards functioning in the name of one’s own.

“There are all sorts of things going on within these agencies that we won’t be able to see, and that are really important to the integrity and the smooth functioning of American life,” O’Brien said. “And they’ll be there with matches, to see what… catches fire first.” – This article was originally published in The New York Times