Nikki Haley criticizes Trump Cabinet picks Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Former ambassador to the United Nations and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley criticized President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to award high-profile positions in his administration Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbardboth potential candidates for the nomination have faced some pushback because of their backgrounds.
In selecting Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Haley criticized him for his lack of expertise in health care and for being a former Democrat.
“Who is RFK Jr? He’s not a health person, he’s raising questions about what’s in our food, and I’m right there with him,” Haley said on SiriusXM’s “Nikki Haley Live.” However, she added, “That’s not his background. He has no education, training or practice in health care at all.” She also repeatedly called him a “liberal democrat.”
Kennedy had a long record of criticism vaccinedespite his recent claims that he is not anti-vaccination. But public health experts object to his long record misleading statements Questions the safety of vaccines and fears he could upend decades of hard-fought victories in improving vaccines vaccination rate be opposed to fatal disease.
Haley, who challenged Trump in the Republican primary and later endorsed him, also criticized Gabbard, the former congresswoman who represents Hawaii and Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, over her past comments about human rights abuses in Syria “Disgusting”. Echoing Russian propaganda.
“This is the work of an honest broker without any overt policy bias,” Haley said. “In 2017, she traveled to Syria to take a photo with[Syrian President Bashir]Assad while he was slaughtering his own people… that was disgusting to me.” Haley added, “Everything she said was It’s a Russian talking point, Russian propaganda.”
Gabbard defends her 2017 Meeting with Assad as a “fact-finding mission” at the time, although she later described him as a “brutal dictator”. In 2019, she also expressed her opposition to U.S. intervention in the Syrian civil war, saying that Assad “is not an enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.” The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gabbard has no experience in the intelligence field and opposes U.S. intervention in the war in Ukraine.
Once Trump formalizes the nomination, the Senate is expected to provide advice and consent during the confirmation process. Trump plans to nominate former Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general, quit His name was removed from consideration Thursday as the House Ethics Committee investigates allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use against him.
