MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin on Sunday said a “striking pattern” is emerging among Donald Trump’s picks for roles in the president-elect’s upcoming second term.
“We’re seeing a whole lot of political losers, people defeated in elections in just about every way imaginable,” Mohyeldin noted.
The anchor explained how onetime presidential candidates Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. all fit that bill. Trump has nominated the trio, respectively, as secretary of state, director of national intelligence and to lead the Health and Human Services Department.
“It’s not just people who have tried to compete with Trump for the White House and failed,” Mohyeldin continued. “Trump has also welcomed figures into the fold who lost key races for the Republican Party.”
They included Mehmet Oz, Linda McMahon and Lori Chavez-DeRemer, he said.
“It might seem odd for Trump to choose so many political losers,” said Mohyeldin. But Trump “has repeatedly said the biggest mistake of his first term was choosing the ‘wrong people’” who sometimes “pushed back against his policies.”
Trump’s batch of second-term picks are getting “new political life” and so will be “entirely malleable and dependent on his will,” he added. “This allows Trump to tighten his control during his time in the White House.”
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