It started so quickly and so promisingly.
President-elect Donald Trump began announcing his team Nov. 7 by naming America’s first female White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
After a three-day break, Mr. Trump renewed staffing his administration the following Sunday by proposing an ambassador to the United Nations and a border czar.
The next day he announced his pick for Environmental Protection Agency administrator.
That Tuesday Mr. Trump revealed his choices for national security adviser, Central Intelligence Agency director, homeland security secretary, ambassador to Israel and co-chairmen of a new commission called the Department of Government Efficiency. Though his nomination that day of Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary raised questions, all these other picks were defensible. Overall, the president-elect was coming across as purposeful, focused and energetic.
Then came Wednesday. On Nov. 13, the future president picked for his attorney general Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz. It is a catastrophically bad selection.
The nomination can’t be defended by referring to Mr. Gaetz’s record as an attorney. He has barely practiced law. He has no prosecutorial experience except as a prosecution’s target. And his law license was briefly suspended in 2021 because he stopped paying his bar-association dues.
Nor can the pick be justified because of his outstanding legislative record. He doesn’t have one. To the degree he’s known for doing anything on the House floor, it’s reportedly for sharing the details of his latest female conquests.
Then of course, there’s his turn on former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Mr. Gaetz’s behavior then makes appeals to party unity to confirm him now unpersuasive. He led seven other House GOP renegades to ally with 208 Democrats to remove Mr. McCarthy over the objections of 210 fellow Republicans.
There’s also the House Ethics Committee investigation into Mr. Gaetz for allegations that he used illicit drugs, paid to have sex with a minor and accepted improper gifts. Mr. Gaetz denies all these accusations. But his abrupt resignation from the House upon his nomination halted the committee’s process, and it’s unclear if it will release the report.
Rather than for any particular skill or competency, Mr. Gaetz was selected because he promised he would smite Mr. Trump’s enemies within the Justice Department and hound his opponents outside it. Vengeance is a powerful motive but not a sound foundation for public confidence in the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer.
It’s likely that the only way Mr. Gaetz can be approved is if Mr. Trump expends enormous political capital to browbeat Senate Republicans into backing him. But no president has infinite sway, no matter how remarkable his electoral victory. Second-term chief executives tend to have even less.
Mr. Trump now faces the likelihood of contentious hearings featuring sensational charges that will distract from the good things his administration does. And Mr. Gaetz’s hearings won’t be the only circus act in town.
The confirmation proceedings for Mr. Trump’s director of national intelligence nominee, Tulsi Gabbard, and Mr. Hegseth could also be messy and full of bad press. His in particular could entail unpleasant surprises, given that the Trump transition team was reportedly blindsided after his nomination by the news that he had reached a settlement with a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017. Mr. Hegseth denies any wrongdoing.
The former president made one other mistake with his nominations. By revealing his early choices through posts on Truth Social, Mr. Trump missed opportunities to deliver powerful messages to the American people about what he intends to do and why.
