President Donald Trump is forming a new and unprecedented type of Cabinet.
As Scott Hibbard, a DePaul political science professor, sees it, the group will “respond to whatever Donald Trump’s will is.”
After the Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard this week, six unconfirmed nominees remain.
Newly appointed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and White House Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought are among those who’ve been confirmed.
Hegseth served in the military and then worked as a Fox News television commentator and host for 10 years.
“He has experience in the military but not expertise,” Molly Andolina, another DePaul political science professor, said. “Running the Department of Defense, which is a behemoth … requires significant leadership experience.”
Unlike Hegseth, Russell Vought is an expert in his field and has a deep resume. He is also an architect of Project 2025, a plan to reshape the U.S. government by centralizing power into Trump’s hands.
“He’s going to be a big player,” Hibbard said. “It’s an enormous amount of influence.”
Two other high-profile confirmations are Kennedy, a 2024 presidential candidate and environmental lawyer, and Gabbard, a former member of Congress.
Kennedy, confirmed for the role of Secretary of Health and Human Services, is an anti-vaccine activist who has also made claims like “Wi-Fi degrades your mitochondria and opens your blood-brain barrier.”
“Not the type of person who you want to lead the HHS’,” Hibbard said.
Kennedy ran in the last presidential primary as both a Democrat and an Independent before endorsing Donald Trump.
Gabbard, confirmed as Director of National Intelligence, is raising panic and confusion among some political scientists and security experts.
Thomas Henkey is a security expert of 15 years and a part-time lecturer at DePaul. He has worked on physical security planning alongside conducting homeland security and counterterrorism analysis.
He believes that America, in its current state, has more than enough resources to counter outside threats.
“As a nation, we are perfectly capable of defending our interests from foreign threats if we choose to do so,” Henkey said.
“The most serious threat to national security is internal, not external,” Henkey said. “It is when a politician or political party sees their own interests or hold on power benefiting from aligning with foreign adversaries that the threat becomes existential to our democracy.”
Henkey said that Gabbard is a representation of that threat.
“Tulsi Gabbard (is) the least qualified director of national intelligence since the role was created in 2005,” he said.
Henkey and Hibbard both mentioned Gabbard’s unauthorized 2017 visit with now-former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and her active pushing of Russian propaganda.
“The United States will clearly and inarguably be less safe with Gabbard performing this role,” Henkey said.
Kash Patel is the unconfirmed nominee for FBI director. The FBI director is not a member of the presidential Cabinet but leads the FBI in all manners. Patel is a lawyer, prosecutor and former chief of staff to the secretary of defense.
Hibbard called him a conspiracy theorist and worries about Patel’s past statements. One of these statements is a promise to “go out and find the conspirators, we are going to come after the people in the media,” referencing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“I now fear that they will be weaponizing the Department of Justice,” Hibbard said.
Marco Rubio, a former U.S. senator and newly appointed Secretary of State, brings to the Cabinet an air of normalcy, the professors say.
They see him as more qualified than other Cabinet members, though the former senator from Florida has been criticized for walking back critical statements of Trump.
What he does have in common with the prior nominees is an inability to refuse Trump and a habit of walking back critical statements, including calling Trump a “con artist” in the 2016 Republican primary.
Elon Musk is not technically a member of Trump’s cabinet but was given ownership of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and is considered a special government employee. While its authority is uncertain, Andolina said the agency has disproportionate power.
“Elon Musk’s appointment and the role he has assumed or been given is an atrocious example of working outside the boundaries of Cabinet appointees,” Andolina said.
Andolina and Hibbard are both alarmed by Trump’s obsession with loyalty and power over service to the Constitution and democracy.
“It’s all very distressing for someone who believes in democracy, checks and balances and the system we have designed to govern ourselves,” Andolina said.
“We are in the middle of a constitutional crisis. This is like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Hibbard added.
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