Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus halted political strategist and former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Donna Brazile on Sunday during an ABC panel to remind her that the nation chose President-elect Donald Trump after she stated his base was threatening to get cabinet members in.
Since the announcement of his cabinet picks, some of Trump’s nominations — such as Fox’s Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, former Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of National Intelligence, and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as director of the Department of Health and Human Services — have received massive pushback. On ABC’s “This Week,” Brazile argued that Trump’s team has “unleashed” his base movement, Make America Great Again (MAGA), onto wavering senators who have not publicly committed to supporting some of the former president’s more unconventional picks.
“Yeah, but they didn’t unleash MAGA. America unleashed MAGA. I mean, the whole point of Trump’s victory is how did the traditional picks that we used to always put in place, how did that work for us? The American people rejected it and they accepted what Donald Trump’s been selling in this country for the last couple of years,” Priebus said.
“So I mean, he won with Muslim voters in Dearborn. He won with Puerto Ricans in Florida. He won a majority of male Hispanic voters. He won in every state across the country better, except for I think like Washington and Oregon or something like that,” Priebus added. “So MAGA is here because MAGA has been accepted by the American people, and so that’s why we’re here. We got to be reminded of this all the time.”
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Brazile, however, pushed back against Priebus’ statement, highlighting that millions of Americans are not part of MAGA and believe the Senate has a “constitutional responsibility” to vet the individuals coming into Trump’s second administration. While Priebus acknowledged that the nominees would go through the process, he stated he was fine with the smears and threats, as it was Republicans against Republicans.
“It’s their own people. It’s their own family,” Priebus concluded.
Following Hegseth’s nomination on Nov. 12, the former Fox host and veteran has notably received a massive wave of criticism from media political pundits and Senate lawmakers over the past month. With Trump still standing by Hegseth and encouraging him to continue with his nomination campaign, the former Fox host has been holding private meetings with senators to advocate on his behalf as sexual allegations and other reports have been published.
However, some senators, like Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, told The Washington Post that Trump and his allies have signaled to other GOP lawmakers, “We got you here. And if you want to survive, you better be good.”
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