There are still 45 days until Donald Trump takes the oath of office, but the steady stream of unqualified and audacious picks for key roles in his administration has already given the American people an insight into how he will govern in his second term.
It has also presented a key test for Senate Republicans: What are they willing to accept to stay in Trump’s good graces? If Trump’s most outrageous Cabinet picks fall apart, will they accept a slightly less offensive replacement or will they insist on nominees that befit the position they’re seeking?
We’re starting to get an idea of the answer.
By and large, the rogues’ gallery Trump has assembled looks worse than even his harshest critics would have imagined. One of the most absurd picks — Matt Gaetz as attorney general — has already fallen apart in the wake of the former congressman’s ethics committee investigation into the alleged sex trafficking of a minor, which he continues to deny. (The Department of Justice declined to charge Gaetz after an investigation into the allegations.)
Trump soon replaced Gaetz with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, and some Senate Republicans who were skeptical of Gaetz quickly began singing her praises.
Senate Judiciary Committee member John Cornyn of Texas, who previously expressed openness to subpoenaing the Ethics Committee for the report on the investigation into Gaetz, said Bondi was “an excellent nomination.”
But in assessing Bondi’s fitness, being better than Gaetz is not enough. Given her track record of loyalty to Trump, including spreading Trump’s lies about the 2020 election results, Bondi must be pushed on her views on judicial independence, as well as Trump’s calls for retribution.
The same is true of former Fox News host Pete Hegseth — tapped for defense secretary — who continues to deny allegations of sexually assaulting a woman in 2017 and concerns from 10 current and former Fox employees who talked to NBC News about his drinking. (Hegseth said the 2017 encounter was consensual and was never charged with any crime.)
That's also the case with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, whom Trump has tapped to lead the Department of Homeland Security, yet “knows nothing” about Homeland Security according to Trump’s own former assistant DHS secretary.
Then-Rep. Adam Kinzinger said Gabbard had embraced "actual Russian propaganda" and called it "traitorous."
And Tulsi Gabbard, who will be director of national intelligence if Trump has his way. After she posted a claim on social media that echoed Russian disinformation, then-Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said she had embraced "actual Russian propaganda" and called it "traitorous." Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., meantime, has said she's "likely a Russian asset."
All of these picks need to be questioned both on their ability to do the job and on where their loyalties lie. And should their nominations fall apart, Trump’s second-string picks cannot merely be accepted for being free of similar allegations. They, too, must be able to do the job and answer to whom they are loyal.
“This is not normal” was a familiar refrain during Trump’s first term. It was repeated by former President Barack Obama. It was splashed in big bold letters across headlines for The New York Times, Vanity Fair and The Washington Post, to name a few. It became a defining mantra for protests against the first Trump administration.
But normalcy is only defined by what a society is willing to accept, and the Senate’s decisions in the coming months will play a key role in how far that window is allowed to shift.
When the Senate officially considers these nominations, it will have been a century since the party controlling the Senate rejected a Cabinet nominee from a president of the same party.
With Trump more normalized than ever, there isn’t an abundance of hope that Senate Republicans will pass this test. If that does end up becoming the case, it falls on us to keep that Overton window of required decency, experience and determination unmoved in the face of circumstances threatening to shift it.
It falls on the public to ensure that “this is not normal” isn’t a hollow mantra, but a mandate.
For more thought-provoking insights from Michael Steele, Alicia Menendez and Symone Sanders-Townsend, watch “The Weekend” every Saturday and Sunday at 8 a.m. ET on MSNBC.
