Trump's picks worry Democrats but thrill many supporters
The Straits Times|November 19, 2024
Critics doubt Cabinet picks' credentials but voters welcome shake-up in Washington
Trump's picks worry Democrats but thrill many supporters

To his detractors, President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet looks like a rogues' gallery of people with dubious credentials and questionable judgment.

His supporters see something different.

"It's a masterpiece," said tattoo business owner Eileen Margolis, 58, who lives in Weston, Florida, of Trump's Cabinet picks, which were unveiled over the past week.

"If it was a painting, it would be a Picasso."

A "brilliant alliance" is how Ms Joanne Warwick, 60, a former Democrat from Detroit, described many of the nominees.

"It's pretty much a star cast," said Ms Judy Kanoui from Flat Rock, North Carolina, who is retired and is a lifelong Democrat who voted for Trump for the first time in November.

Democrats, and even some Republicans, worry that these nominees for top positions in government are inexperienced, conflicted and potentially reckless.

But in interviews with almost two dozen Trump voters around the country, his supporters were more likely to describe them as mavericks and reformers recruited to deliver on Trump's promise to shake up Washington.

In Mr Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the nominee for health and human services secretary, Trump's supporters see a crusader searching for new solutions to chronic illnesses, not a conspiracy theorist promoting questionable and debunked ideas about vaccines and fluoride.

In Mr Matt Gaetz, the nominee for attorney-general, many Trump supporters look past the ethical investigation into allegations that he had a relationship with a 17-year-old girl and possibly violated federal sex trafficking laws, and see a provocateur who is willing to punish the Democrats who unjustly prosecuted the President-elect.

"I think it's so crazy, and I love it," Ms Merrill McCollum, 60, from Bozeman, Montana, said of the nominees.

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