MSNBC’s Jen Psaki Tears Apart Trump’s ‘Cartoonish’ Yet ‘Dangerous’ Picks In Blistering Show Open

MSNBC’s Jen Psaki took a carving knife to President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to fill his cabinet in a blistering commentary top open her show this week.

Trump made news this week with cabinet picks that are drawing outrage. Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to be Trump’s attorney general was met with near-universal shock. Trump has also picked former Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) as his nominee for the director of national intelligence.

Psaki kicked off Sunday’s edition of MSNBC’s Inside With Jen Psaki with a thorough dissection of the picks — both from a scandal standpoint and in terms of substantive qualifications:

there’s how Trump is doing it. And the people Donald Trump announced this week for key jobs could each of course fill their own tabloids for weeks with their own scandals. Some those scandals alone should be disqualifying, and we’re going to talk about those and why.

But we also need to look beyond the grabby headlines because these are people who could be sitting in the Situation Room and the Oval Office very, very soon. These are the people who will be advising the president on every crisis that crosses his desk and representing the United States for some of them overseas, and they’re the people who have an impact also on your daily lives.

See, these choices are on the one hand cartoonishly outrageous, but when that dust settles, it’s not really just about the scandals and the personal lives of these nominees and there are many, it’s about what their positions and their lack of experience could do to our health system, our national security and the rights we have in this country.

So let’s start with RFK, Jr., shall we? Did RFK, Jr. produce some of these strangest headlines in the history of presidential campaigns? He sure did. Does RFK, Jr. have a strange — is one way of describing a penchant for carrying dead animals in his car? He sure does.

But RFK, Jr. is also one of the most dangerous purveyors of inaccurate information about vaccines that our country has ever seen. The HHS secretary oversees the CDC, the NIH, and the FDA — so basically in human terms, our vaccines, our medicine and our food.

His nomination and confirmation would mean that the guy who founded one of the nation’s most prominent anti-vaccine groups would be in charge of the agency that makes recommendations on vaccines. The guy who’s said he would stop research into infectious diseases would be in charge of the agency that studies infectious diseases. So that’s what’s coming on that front.

And then there’s Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick to run the Justice Department. Is Matt Gaetz one of the most clownish members of Congress? Of course, he is.

Was he previously investigated or allegations of sex trafficking a 17-year-old girl? He was. And even though he was never charged, that alone should, of course, disqualify him for any cabinet position, especially you know the top law enforcement job in the country.

But if he gets confirmed, a guy who has spread conspiracy theories about January 6 and champion the cause of the rioters will oversee all January 6 cases. The guy who has said he is ready to abolish all three letter agencies from the FBI to the ATF will be in charge of those very agencies.

So that’s what’s coming — part of what’s coming if Matt Gaetz is attorney general.

And then there is Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence. Is Tulsi Gabbard prone to say things like Putin Zelenskyy and Biden should have ended the Ukraine war by using, quote, the aloha spirit? She is and that’s pretty odd.

But Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence would mean an apologist for Vladimir Putin will oversee 18 intelligence organizations, including the CIA and the NSA. It means our allies would look at our intelligence services potentially and see someone at the top who has shown a greater fondness for dictators and our adversaries than our friends.

And some of those allies will see someone they might think twice about sharing their own secrets with. We don’t know. That’s what’s coming with Tulsi Gabbard top our national intelligence services.

And finally, there’s Pete Hegseth, a veteran and a cable news host who has gone viral for axe-throwing mishaps and saying things like he can’t remember washing his hands once over the last decade, which that is gross.

But more recently, the headlines have revolved around a sexual assault allegation against him. And while he was never charged, his lawyer says he agreed to pay his accuser for a non-disclosure agreement, and yes, all of that — well, mainly the last piece should be disqualifying on its own.

But also consider the much bigger picture here again. His confirmation would mean someone who champions service members accused of war crimes would oversee our military, someone who has said the military should not have women in combat roles will be in charge of lots of women in lots of combat roles. Secretary of defense leads the largest organization in our government, with millions of employees, including active service members, and a $900 billion budget.

Their job is not at all to decide whether the military is woke or not, whatever that means. But that’s what a Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will see it as.

So, look, my point here is this, there’s a lot of information coming at us fast and furious about all of these picks, maybe Trump is testing his power over Republicans in the Senate by putting these people forward, maybe. Or maybe he thinks that Matt Gaetz and RFK, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, and Pete Hegseth are the best people for these jobs. Maybe he thinks that.

Whatever the motivation, we can’t just focus on the latest shocking headline, and that shouldn’t be the only messaging, because it’s easy to assume these personal scandals will prevent them from getting these jobs. But with this Republican Party, we just can’t count on that. So it’s important to understand what could be coming and, of course, how it could impact all of your lives.

Watch above via MSNBC’s Inside With Jen Psaki.