By James Oliphant
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It's fitting that President-elect Donald Trump attended an Ultimate Fighting Championship event last weekend. For his cabinet so far, he has tapped a pair of nominees ready to mix it up in grudge matches of their own.
In Matt Gaetz, nominated as attorney general, and Pete Hegseth, chosen to helm the Pentagon, Trump has picked two pugnacious candidates with a MAGA-fueled mandate to gut and transform the institutions they would take over.
Like many of the president-elect's picks, Gaetz, 42, and Hegseth, 44, are Trump loyalists who lack the experience typically expected for such high-level roles.
What sets them apart is that they both feel victimized by the agencies they would take over, giving them further motivation to embrace Trump's call for a to-the-bones makeover after he takes office in January. If confirmed by the new Republican-controlled Senate, they could help Trump carry out his revenge agenda - as well as their own.
As the country's top law enforcement official, Gaetz would oversee a Justice Department that spent nearly three years scrutinizing him and pursued two criminal cases against Trump after he left the White House in 2021.
Gaetz, who resigned from his congressional seat after his nomination last week, was the subject of a federal investigation over sex trafficking allegations involving a 17-year-old girl. He denied any wrongdoing and ultimately was not charged by prosecutors.
For Hegseth, a Fox News commentator, becoming defense secretary would mean leading the institution where he had dedicated his life before he felt it spurned him. He served tours of duty with the National Guard in Iraq and Afghanistan and was awarded two Bronze Stars.
But he said he was told by his superiors to stand down from guard duty during President Joe Biden's inaugural in 2021 over concerns that his tattoos symbolized white supremacy. Hegseth has denied the interpretation, and has said he felt rejected by the military.
Both Hegseth and Gaetz are now looking to carry through Trump's reforms and perhaps gain some payback in the process.
Gaetz has called for "a full court press against this WEAPONIZED government" and suggested eliminating the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Hegseth has disparaged efforts to diversify the Armed Forces and has said women should not hold combat roles.
“Rarely do we see cabinet nominees who pledge to be activists in their role,” said David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida. “This time around...the nominees are pledging a disruptive level of activism targeted directly at the departments they are being asked to oversee.”
KNOWING THE GOOD GUYS FROM THE BAD GUYS
That's exactly the point, Trump's supporters say.
Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. said the cabinet choices were the sort of disruptors who Trump pledged to install in government for his second term.
“The reality this time is, we actually know what we’re doing. We actually know who the good guys and the bad guys are,” he told Fox News on Sunday. “And it’s about surrounding my father with people who are both competent and loyal. They will deliver on his promises. They will deliver on his message. They are not people who think they know better, as unelected bureaucrats.”
The nominations of Gaetz and Hegseth could serve as an early test of Trump’s relationship with the newly elected, Republican-majority Senate and an indicator of how far Trump is willing to go to defend his most controversial choices.
Trump has threatened to place some of his nominees on the job through a “recess appointment" in which they would bypass the Senate confirmation process and serve temporarily.
"President Trump was re-elected by a resounding mandate from the American people to change the status quo in Washington," said Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the transition team and who Trump has named as his White House press secretary.
If Gaetz ends up taking over the Justice Department, an agency with a $67 billion budget that traditionally stands independent from the White House, his detractors fear he would serve as point man to follow through on Trump’s vow to go after his political enemies.
“The threat level with Matt Gaetz is considerable. This is somebody who has demonstrated a clear disdain for the process of the Department of Justice,” said Daniel Richman, a criminal law professor at Columbia University.
Richman said Trump likely will ensure Gaetz has allies at his disposal. “We have to assume there are agents and prosecutors ready to carry out some vindictive agenda on the attorney general’s part,” he said.
Hegseth could spearhead Trump’s efforts to push out generals and other senior leaders at the Pentagon whom he views as impediments to his policy agenda.
Reuters reported last week that Trump’s transition team is drawing up lists of Pentagon officials to fire. The team is also examining whether some current and former officers who were directly involved in the United States’ 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan could be court-martialed, NBC News reported.
"The next president of the United States needs to radically overhaul Pentagon senior leadership to make us ready to defend our nation and defeat our enemies," Hegseth wrote in his book "The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free," which was published in June. "Lots of people need to be fired."