'Red line': Analyst finds way Dems could force GOP to sink Trump's Cabinet nominations (2025)

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump makes a campaign stop at manufacturer FALK Production in Walker, Michigan, U.S. September 27, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Donald Trump has been reportedly raging against the "traitors" he appointed in his first administration, and his advisers are working to weed out anyone who's deemed insufficiently loyal for his second presidency.

The president-elect has expressed regret about appointing John Kelly as chief of staff and William Barr as attorney general, among other former officials who later publicly criticized him, and political analyst Brian Beutler told The New Republic's Greg Sargent that Trump is angry at those former loyalists who described the threat he poses to democracy.

"As I understand, the loyalty test as reported ... is not just, Do you support Donald Trump? Do you support the MAGA movement? Do you support its policy goals? — it’s really, Do you believe Donald Trump won or lost the 2020 election?" Beutler said. "If they acknowledge the truth that he lost, they’re out, they’re not going to get the nomination."

"And similarly, with questions like, Do you think January 6 was good or bad? Do you think it was something that Donald Trump is responsible for? Are these patriots or are they insurrectionists? If you answer that the wrong way, you’re not getting the job," he added. "And insofar as anyone who answers the way Trump wants them to answer has to go before the Senate. Well, it’s going to raise questions for both Democrats and Republicans in different ways."

Beutler called on Democrats to reject any nominees who back Trump's 2020 election lies or express support for the Jan. 6 insurrection, and he said that unified opposition could put Republican senators on the defensive.

"Democrats are going to have to decide whether those are red lines for them that they won’t cross," Beutler said. "If Trump finds somebody who’s qualified as in their resume is good, that they’re credentialed to do the job he’s appointed them to, but they’re also supportive of the Big Lie or they think that the insurrection was okay, will Democrats look past that to say, Well, at least you’ll know how to do the job that you’re being appointed to do?"

"I would like Democrats to say there will be zero Democratic votes for any nominees who take that loyalty test, and if they do that, then it will fall to Republicans," Beutler added.

"Are 50 out of 53 Republican senators willing to take that vote? An ancillary benefit of Democrats drawing a hard line here is that’ll be really tough for them because there are still at least a handful of Senate Republicans who don’t support the Big Lie, who won’t repeat it, and who think the people who peddle it are real threats to democracy. Then we’ll find out whether they just decided, You know what, Trump won, so it’s revisionist history all the way down now."

ALSO READ: Agenda 47: Alarm sounded about Trump’s dystopian plans for his second term

Sargent expressed alarm about the language Trump uses against his critics, and he said that indicated his plans for his second presidency.

"His use of the term traitors in his conversations with his advisors, which shows that he’s still seething with anger about those who refuse to go along with his rewritten history," Sargent said. "This is one of the keys to understanding what he really intends with current picks like Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, Kash Patel as FBI director, and Pam Bondi as attorney general. It won’t be that hard for all Democrats to oppose Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel, but I’m not sure all Democrats will oppose Pam Bondi."

"I want to bring up this concept of loyalty for a second," Sargent added. "It’s often said in the press, and this Times piece says it: Trump wants loyalty from his new picks and from Republicans and so forth. I’m starting to think that that’s actually an inadequate frame. I think voters could hear that and say, Well, of course he wants loyalty. So what? What leader doesn’t want loyalty from the people around him? The thing that needs to be conveyed more precisely is what that actually means, which is that Trump is expressly picking people precisely because they’ll put him above the law and the Constitution and the country when his corrupt authoritarian rule by fiat really gets rolling."

'Red line': Analyst finds way Dems could force GOP to sink Trump's Cabinet nominations (2025)
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