Donald Trump is facing unexpected opposition from one of his most loyal media supporters, after his favorite newspaper rejected several of his cabinet picks.
In an editorial published Tuesday, the New York Post described two of Trump’s Cabinet picks as “dreadful.”
“While most of the Cabinet picks have been excellent, and some of them risky but promising, [Matt] Gaetz and [Tulsi] Gabbard are dreadful,” the newspaper wrote. “We plead that he rethinks them.”
Former Florida Rep Matt Gaetz was nominated to be attorney general, while former Democratic Rep Tulsi Gabbard was nominated to be director of National Intelligence.
Gaetz is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for alleged sexual abuse and illicit drug use, allegations he denies. Immediately after his nomination, Gaetz resigned from Congress, temporarily blocking the release of the committee’s report on him, days before it was set to go public.
Gaetz is also accused of having sex with a 17-year-old girl on a game table at a July 2017 party, according to the woman’s lawyer. Gaetz had been sworn in to his first term in the House in January of that year. He has denied any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, Gabbard previously ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, and has been accused of amplifying Russian propaganda.
Evan Vucci/AP
“They’re distracting chaos agents who won’t accomplish what Trump wants them to, and will most likely backfire on his agenda,” the Post wrote of Gaetz and Gabbard.
The newspaper has also been critical of Trump’s pick for secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has previously falsely claimed that vaccines cause autism, among other conspiracy theories. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): “Many studies have looked at whether there is a relationship between vaccines and ASD [autism spectrum disorder]. To date, the studies continue to show that vaccines are not associated with ASD.”
In an opinion article published on Thursday, the editorial board of the New York Post denounced Kennedy Jr. as “nuts” and suggested that the nomination could be explained by a worm that he claimed ate part of his brain spreading to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
“We sat down with RFK Jr. back in May 2023, when he was still challenging President [Joe] Biden for the Democratic nomination,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote. “We came out thinking he’s nuts on a lot of fronts…it’s hard to see how he’s the guy to lead HHS and its staff of 83,000 to practical solutions.”
The board continued: “Donald Trump won on promises to fix the economy, the border and soaring global disorder; his team needs to focus on delivering change on those fronts—not spend energy either having to defend crackpot theories or trying to control RFK Jr.’s mouth. We fear the worm that he claims ate some of his brain some years ago is contagious and there’s been an outbreak at Mar-a-Lago.”
The Post has often reported favorably on Trump during his time as a local property magnate and later reality TV star. After Trump took office in 2017, Axios reported that according to sources close to him, the Post was his preferred paper, with a friend describing it as “the paper of record for him.”
A month before the 2020 presidential election, the Rupert Murdoch-owned title endorsed him, but distanced itself from Trump after he made unfounded accusations that the election had been stolen due to widespread voter fraud.
Two years later, in September of 2022, Trump responded to a Post editorial on his Truth Social platform and complained that his “favorite newspaper” had now turned against him. The newspaper endorsed the president-elect this year.
But the right-wing tabloid may now be turning the tables on the president-elect.
The newspaper criticized Gabbard for being “sympathetic to dictators in Syria and Russia.” Three days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Gabbard posted on X calling for Ukraine to remain neutral, outside military alliances like NATO. In March 2022, she shared a video claiming there were over 25 US-funded biolabs in Ukraine, based on a disputed Moscow claim, which the U.S. and Ukraine denied. Meanwhile, she has opposed U.S. intervention in Syria and criticized former Democratic President Barack Obama‘s administration for supporting the Syrian opposition movement against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2015.
Gabbard has often been described as having an isolationist stance on foreign policy, meaning she prefers for the U.S. not to intervene in global conflicts.
According to the New York Post, her “isolationism” may cause a problem for Trump.
“There’s a real fear that Gabbard won’t provide President Trump with the intelligence he needs, but rather downplay threats with the intention of isolationism,” they wrote.
The editorial continued: “Trump has shown that he can balance the demands of a threatening world while working to avoid dragging America into another unnecessary war. He can only do that if he’s given frank assessments by a dispassionate intelligence officer. Tulsi Gabbard is not that person.”
The Post also criticized Gaetz, arguing that although may provide the “disruption” to the Department of Justice (DOJ) that Trump wishes for, he “has neither the ethics nor the discipline to rebuild a proper system that will pursue fair prosecutions.”
“The congressman may have convinced Trump that he is the subject of “lawfare,” but it’s obvious all he wants is an escape hatch,” the editorial continued. Both Gaetz and Trump have been critical of the DOJ, accusing the department of a political witch hunt against the president-elect, who is currently involved in 4 criminal cases.
“The lawfare we have seen against President Trump will do great damage well beyond our time in public service,” Gaetz told U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland during a congressional hearing earlier this year. After confirming Gaetz as his nominee for attorney general, Trump said he will “root out the systemic corruption at DOJ, and return the department to its true mission of fighting Crime, and upholding our Democracy and Constitution.”
But the New York Post said Gaetz’s own run-ins with the law will undermine his credibility to do so.
“Gaetz’s own run-in with the law diminishes how the Dems relentlessly hounded Trump,” the newspaper wrote.
“Neither Gabbard nor Gaetz are singular figures for what Trump wants to accomplish.
“There are plenty of people who can cast a jaundiced eye at our intelligence services and purge the Department of Justice of bias—and do so without a bus full of baggage.”
Newsweek has contacted Gabbard and Gaetz, as well as Trump’s transition team for comment via email.
The New York Post is not alone in its rejection of Trump’s cabinet picks. Half of Senate Republicans, including some in senior leadership positions, have privately said they don’t see a path for Gaetz to be confirmed by the Senate, NBC News reported. Meanwhile, some Republican lawmakers, like Senator Susan Collins of Maine, have already expressed dismay over Trump picking Gaetz, while some others have refused to say how they will vote on confirming Kennedy Jr.
A recent poll from Echelon Insights found that Matt Gaetz is by far the least popular pick among American voters for Donald Trump‘s cabinet.