Several of President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for high-profile roles in his administration have walked back their earlier stances on foreign intelligence gathering, vaccinations and women serving in combat roles as they prepare for confirmation hearings this week.
Director of National Intelligence-designate Tulsi Gabbard, 43, flip-flopped on one of the federal government’s most-used foreign spy powers, defending its use as “crucial” after introducing legislation while in Congress to curtail it.
Would-be Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 70, has maintained that “no vaccine” is “safe and effective” — including immunizations for polio that have saved millions of people worldwide from lifelong paralysis or, in some cases, death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — but since said he’s “all for” it.
Days before Pete Hegseth, 44, was tapped as defense secretary, the then-Fox News personality suggested “we should not have women in combat roles” — only to later call them “some of our greatest warriors.”
Asked about the reversals, a source close to the confirmation process told The Post that the nominees were firmly committed to executing the president-elect’s agenda rather than sticking to their past oppositions.
“Trump sets the agenda, they implement,” this person noted.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Trump’s pick for secretary of state, also changed his tune when pressed last week on the forced divestment of TikTok from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance — despite raising the alarm about Beijing’s meddling in American affairs through the social media app while serving as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“If I’m confirmed as secretary of state, I’ll work for the president,” Rubio, 53, told Punchbowl News last week after having described the app as a “Trojan horse” for Communist China in a Fox News interview last March.
Trump, 78, has promised to “save” TikTok and asked the Supreme Court to delay implementation of the law — which passed Congress as part of a massive, $95 billion foreign aid package and was signed by President Biden in April 2024 — until after Trump re-enters the White House.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary-designate Scott Bessent, who has been referred to as a “protégé” of liberal billionaire George Soros, has issued more moderate statements about implementing tariffs in the second Trump administration — despite the president-elect threatening heavy tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China on Day One.
Bessent said in an interview with MarketWatch this past July that Trump’s import taxes would not be levied on the 47th president’s first day in the Oval Office but, rather, would be “phased in,” thus avoiding aggravating inflation that spiked to a 40-year high under Biden in 2022.
“We saw what happened on Trump 1.0: Inflation was 1.9%,” Bessent said at the time. “Deregulation will cause disinflation, energy prices [going] down will cause disinflation, and I think the budget deficit will go down, not up, under President Trump.”
Here’s what Trump’s cabinet picks have changed their position on:
Marco Rubio (Secretary of State):
March 11, 2024: “TikTok is a Trojan horse operating in our country.”
Nov. 15, 2024: “He’s the president, so if that’s what he wants to do [save Tiktok], he also has the power to do it. He was elected by the American people by an overwhelming margin. I still have concerns about the app and the vulnerability it poses, but I’m not the president of the United States.”
Pete Hegseth (Secretary of Defense)
Nov. 7, 2024: “We should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.”
Dec. 9, 2024: “I also want an opportunity here to clarify comments that have been misconstrued, that I somehow don’t support women in the military. Some of our greatest warriors, our best warriors out there, are women.”
Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence)
Feb. 6, 2019: “[Bashar al-]Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.”
Dec. 9, 2024, after Trump described Syria as “a mess” and “not our friend”: “I stand in full support and wholeheartedly agree with the statements that President Trump has made over these last few days with regards to the developments in Syria.”
Dec. 15, 2020: Introduces legislation repealing PATRIOT Act and many provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, barring the feds from gathering “information relating to a US person by using certain foreign intelligence gathering authority without a warrant,” except for those abroad “engaged in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”
Jan. 10, 2025: “Section 702, unlike other FISA authorities, is crucial for gathering foreign intelligence on non-US persons abroad. This unique capability cannot be replicated and must be safeguarded to protect our nation while ensuring the civil liberties of Americans. … Significant FISA reforms have been enacted since my time in Congress to address these issues. If confirmed as DNI, I will uphold Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the American people.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Health and Human Services Secretary)
July 11, 2023: “If you say to me … ‘The polio vaccine, was it effective against polio?’ I’m going to say, ‘Yes.’ If you say to me … ‘Did it … cause more deaths than it avert[ed]?’ I’m going to say, ‘I don’t know because we don’t have the data on that.’”
Dec. 16, 2024: “I’m all for the polio vaccine.”
Scott Bessent (Treasury Secretary)
Oct. 13, 2024: “My general view is that at the end of the day, [Trump is] a free trader.”
Nov. 15, 2024: “We should not be afraid to use the power of tariffs to improve the livelihoods of American families and businesses.”
Not all in the Senate Republican conference are convinced that the policy switch-ups have been heartfelt, with one aide telling The Post last week that Gabbard’s about-face sounded “like a hostage statement” and could have been put out “to assuage concerns” from national security hawks in the upper chamber.
“She is clearly saying this to assuage concerns from intel hawks that she is insufficiently committed to spying on Americans,” the aide said. “Whether she is merely telling them what they want to hear, and intends to implement further reforms once in office, or has truly abandoned major FISA reform as a goal, is an open question.”
Republicans will have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, meaning any Trump pick can only afford to lose four GOP votes before their nomination fails on the floor. They also have to clear the committees of jurisdiction vetting their confirmation beforehand.
Gabbard scrutiny ‘warranted’
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the FBI to sweep up text messages, emails and other communications from foreign nationals without a warrant — but can also collect any US citizens’ data that may be included, potentially violating Americans’ rights under the Fourth Amendment.
As a House Democrat representing Hawaii, Gabbard introduced a bill in December 2020 ordering the attorney general and director of national intelligence to “destroy” the information of any Americans “swept up” under the FISA program.
But on Friday, Gabbard said in a statement: “Section 702, unlike other FISA authorities, is crucial for gathering foreign intelligence on non-US persons abroad. This unique capability cannot be replicated and must be safeguarded to protect our nation while ensuring the civil liberties of Americans.
“Significant FISA reforms have been enacted since my time in Congress to address these issues. If confirmed as DNI, I will uphold Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the American people,” she added.
A source close to Gabbard insisted to The Post that she hasn’t changed her positions at all — despite FISA reforms passing both chambers of Congress under opposition from privacy hawks.
“She’s been consistent on the issues of civil liberties and Fourth Amendment protections and worked in Congress to address those with [former Reps. Matt] Gaetz and [John] Ratcliffe,” the source said. “She acknowledges changes have been made to improve those concerns but ultimately she has to get in the building and see how those changes are being implemented.”
Other Republican senators said they would have “questions” for Gabbard after she met with Bashar al-Assad in 2017 and later declared the since-overthrown Syrian dictator was “not the enemy of the United States.”
Notably, Gabbard questioned the US intelligence community’s assessments that Assad was behind a deadly chlorine gas attack the same year she met with the Syrian strongman, to which Trump said at the time: “There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons.”
“Syria is a mess, but is not our friend,” the once and future president declared last month after rebels overthrew Assad’s regime, prompting Gabbard to put out a statement saying, “I stand in full support and wholeheartedly agree” with Trump.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who was previously on the fence about Gabbard’s nomination, said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” Sunday that he was a firm “yes,” but only mentioned her support for FISA.
No ‘safe and effective’ vaccines
Gabbard and RFK Jr. both broke from the Democratic Party and endorsed Trump before being nominated for cabinet positions by him — but it’s unclear whether their past affiliation will earn them any votes from across the aisle.
In between meetings with some left-wingers like Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee ranking member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kennedy has been grilled by reporters for his statements on vaccines.
“There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective,” the septuagenarian gym rat said on the “Lex Fridman Podcast” in July 2023.
When pushed by the host about the success of the polio vaccine, the HHS nom claimed that it was created using “one of the most carcinogenic materials that is known to man” and led to an “explosion of soft tissue cancers” in the decades after it was rolled out.
Of the “98 million people who got that vaccine in my generation,” he said, “you’ve had this explosion of soft tissue cancers in our generation that killed many, many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did.”
“So if you say to me … ‘The polio vaccine, was it effective against polio?’ I’m going to say, ‘Yes,’” he added. “If you say to me … ‘Did it cause more deaths than it avert[ed]?’ I’m going to say, ‘I don’t know because we don’t have the data on that.’”
A lawyer who is working with Kennedy to select federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration also has a history of suing the government agencies that the cabinet pick will oversee — and recently challenged federal approval for a polio vaccine.
“The petition, if granted by the FDA, would not leave adults or children without a polio vaccine,” the lawyer, Aaron Siri, said of his 2022 bid on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network to pull approval of the vaccine, “just one of the six polio vaccines currently licensed … and only concerned its licensure for children.”
On Capitol Hill last month, RFK Jr. said flatly: “I’m all for the polio vaccine.”
The Kennedy scion also backed no restrictions on abortion during his independent bid for the presidency — but has been pressured by pro-life groups since his nomination to take up the policies of the first Trump administration on the issue, according to Politico.
Hegseth’s heroes
Meanwhile, Hegseth came out firmly against allowing female troops to serve in combat during a Nov. 7 appearance on the “Sean Ryan Show” podcast.
“I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” he said. “It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.”
One month later, Hegseth scrapped the notion in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity after Republican vets like Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) had expressed reservations about his ability to lead the Pentagon.
“I also want an opportunity here to clarify comments that have been misconstrued, that I somehow don’t support women in the military,” the Army veteran said on “Hannity” Dec. 9.
“Some of our greatest warriors, our best warriors out there, are women,” Hegseth added, proclaiming the critical service from women soldiers helps the US defend itself “every single day around the globe.”
Hegseth also committed to stop drinking alcohol if confirmed as defense secretary.
“He offered up to me, and I know he has with other senators too, that he’s not drinking, and that’s not something he’s going to do when confirmed here,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) told ABC News last month.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) confirmed the abstinence pledge.
Allegations have swirled that Hegseth binge-drank and mismanaged two veterans advocacy groups he once helmed, though the accusations came from anonymous employees — at least one of whom was apparently disgruntled for receiving low performance marks — and were rebutted by those who worked closely with the future Fox News host.
“Like veterans returning from any war, we drank beers to manage the reality of what we had faced. But we never did anything improper, and we treated everyone with respect,” Hegseth wrote in a Dec. 4 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. “We had a new mission and fought for it.”
Special attention has been paid to Trump’s national security picks as the US grapples with a New Year’s Day terror attack by an ISIS-inspired Texan who drove his truck through a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 14.
The hearings for Trump’s nominees begin Tuesday with Hegseth appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee at 9:30 a.m.
Rubio’s confirmation hearing starts at 10 a.m. Wednesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Hearings for Gabbard, Kennedy and Bessent have yet to be scheduled.
Reps for the top Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Intelligence, Armed Services, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and Banking committees did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Spokespeople for Kennedy and Hegseth also did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for Sanders declined comment.
