Trump’s RFK Jr nomination condemned as ‘public health catastrophe’ – US politics live | US news

Robert Tait

Fears that Donald Trump’s second presidency will be more extreme than his first have intensified amid a flurry of senior nominations that opponents have criticised as going from bad to worse.

Dismay over some of the president-elect’s early picks escalated to outrage after the far-right Florida congressman Matt Gaetz was unveiled as his selection to be attorney general – a position Trump has previously said he views as the most important in his administration.

The choice provoked disbelief, even among Republicans, and has fueled concerns that Trump is intent on carrying out mass firings at the Department of Justice in retribution for criminal investigations it instigated against him.

Trump reportedly chose Gaetz, 42, after the congressman – who himself was subject to a two-year justice department investigation into suspected sex-trafficking that ended without charges – told Trump: “Yeah, I’ll go over there and start cuttin’ fuckin’ heads.”

Others considered for the post were dismissed as too concerned with legal concepts or constitutional niceties.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are asking Americans who are “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” and willing to work over 80 hours a week to join their new Department of Government Efficiency – at zero pay.

In a new X post on Thursday that doubled as a job announcement and another one of Musk’s trolling attempts, the account for the newly formed Doge wrote: “We don’t need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.”

The name of the department, which is not part of the federal government, harkens back to a meme of an expressive shiba inu dog.

“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants,” the statement added.

In a separate post, Musk chimed in on the callout, saying: “Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lots of enemies & compensation is zero.”

“What a great deal!” Musk, the richest man in the world, wrote with a laughing emoji. He has promised to reduce federal bureaucracy by a third and cut $2tn from US government spending, an endeavor he said “necessarily involves some temporary hardship”.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump announced the appointment of Musk and Ramaswamy to Doge, saying: “Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies – essential to the ‘Save America’ movement.”

Trump went on to describe the newly formed department as the “‘Manhattan Project’ of our time,” referring to the US-led research program during the second world war that sought to create the nuclear bomb, which killed an estimated 214,000 people in Japan in 1945.

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news from Washington over the next few hours.

We start with the news that Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr as US secretary of health and human services has prompted widespread criticisms towards Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has embraced a slew of other debunked health-related conspiracy theories.

In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump claimed that Americans have been “crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies” and that Kennedy “will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”

In response to Kennedy’s nomination, Public Citizen, a progressive nonprofit organization focusing on consumer advocacy, said: “Robert F Kennedy Jr is a clear and present danger to the nation’s health. He shouldn’t be allowed in the building at the department of health and human services (HHS), let alone be placed in charge of the nation’s public health agency.”

“Donald Trump’s bungling of public health policy during the Covid pandemic cost hundreds of thousands of lives. By appointing Kennedy as his secretary of HHS, Trump is courting another, policy-driven public health catastrophe,” the organization added.

For more on that, see our full report here:

In other news:

• The FBI should investigate both Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard before they are confirmed for their cabinet posts, Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton has said. Gabbard, who Trump nominated as director of national intelligence, is known for her tolerant view of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

• Elon Musk reportedly met Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, and discussed how to defuse tensions between Iran and the US, two Iranian officials told the New York Times. As Trump prepares to address conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, Musk, the world’s richest man, has been assisting in discussions with foreign officials, establishing himself as the country’s most influential civilian come January.

• Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are seeking Americans who are “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” and willing to work over 80 hours a week to join their new department, at zero pay. Trump named Musk to co-lead the newly created government efficiency department that sits outside the federal government.

• Advocates have urged state governments to find new ways to defend immigrants and block Trump’s mass deportation plan. California shielded many non-citizen residents from removal in Trump’s first term but immigrants rights groups warn an aggressive, multi-pronged response will be needed.

• A Democratic lawmaker will file a motion specifically mentioning Trump can only serve two terms, after the president-elect joked he would be willing to serve an unconstitutional third term as president while meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday.

• Trump announced his former Georgia congressman Doug Collins as secretary of veterans affairs. Collins ran for Senate in 2020, finishing third in the primary. He also “provided counsel to Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election as Trump sought to challenge Georgia’s election results”.