Three of President Trump’s most controversial choices to lead government agencies will appear in the Senate’s confirmation hearings Thursday, with the fate of their appointments hanging on the votes of a handful of republican senators.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former independent presidential candidate who also threw his support from Mr. Trump, will face his second hearing before a vote in the Senate, after a grill on Wednesday on his Views of vaccines and abortion.
Kash PatelTrump’s FBI’s choice of FBI promised to reshape the office in dismissing his senior officials and has published a list of Trump enemies. And Tulsi GabbardA former democratic member who left his party and adopted Trump, was appointed to supervise the nation’s intelligence agencies.
Here’s what you need to know about candidates.
Kash Patel, candidate for FBI director
Mr. Patel, formerly an unknown republican assistant, has quickly resurrected in less than a decade – largely because of its Personal relationship with President Trump. His loyalty to the President and his adoption of right -wing conspiracy theories are expected to be meticulous during his confirmation hearing.
A right -wing pugilist, Mr. Patel compared the FBI work on public declarations several times, including his prosecution against people charged with January 6, 2021, the attack on the Capitol. He also sought to rewrite the history of this attack, Pin the blame for the riot of the former speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Mr. Patel promised that if he is confirmed, he would reshape the FBI with shots and to close his seat in Washington. He also undertook to continue against the perceived enemies of Mr. Trump, although he declared on a podcast last year that he was not in “revenge march”.
Tulsi Gabbard, director of the national intelligence candidate
Many positions by Ms. Gabbard on Syria, Russia, Ukraine and Mandate Espionage are in contradiction with the establishment of Washington foreign policyAnd have paused for the Republican senators she will need to get the post.
Meetings with which she took Syrian and Lebanese officials As a member of the Congress in 2017 – including with the autocratic chief of Syria at the time, Bashar al -Assad – should be a particular objective in the questions of the senators on Thursday.
She also accused US intelligence agencies of continuing her political competitors of the Biden administration, echoing the complaints without proof of Mr. Trump and his supporters of the armaments of the police.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., candidate for the Secretary of Health
During his first confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Kennedy seemed to have strengthened the support of the Republican senators who had despised his appointment.
Mr. Kennedy, a scion of the democratic political clan, left the Democratic party and joined the entourage of Mr. Trump, bringing his Long history of criticizing vaccinespharmaceutical companies and Nation’s public health institutions in the orbit of the president.
During his audience on Wednesday, Kennedy sometimes showed a limited knowledge of Critical programs like Medicare and Medicaid supervised by the Ministry of Health and Social Servicesthe agency he hopes to manage. And he found it difficult to convince skeptical democrats that he was not “anti-vaccine”.
Democrats in a hurry him on his opinions on vaccines And other health subjects, while the Republicans, and Mr. Kennedy himself, sought to raise his declared objectives to promote nutrition and to fight against an epidemic of chronic diseases.