Trump Won. the Celebrations Started. Then the Trouble Began.

The Washington Post / Jacqueline Alemany, Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker

16:28 JST, November 17, 2024

PALM BEACH, Fla. – Former congressman Matt Gaetz greeted his admirers Thursday night on the lawn outside Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, freshly named as the president-elect’s pick to be the nation’s top law enforcement officer despite an outstanding House investigation into allegations that he engaged in sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl.

“A colonoscopy feels great,” he joked about the new attention.

The second Trump administration was blossoming to life around him, dressed in black tie and glittery dresses. The action star Sylvester Stallone would soon speak. The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, made the rounds, along with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s proposed pick for health and human services secretary, who had accused the federal health agencies of “mass poisoning the American public” just 82 days earlier.

“The mood is just so freaking hot,” said Caroline Wren, a longtime Republican fundraiser and strategist, who had been telling people at the members-only club that the only job she wants in a second Trump term is to dress as the Easter Bunny on the White House lawn. “It’s cloud nine at all times.”

But beyond the celebration and behind closed doors, much was not going according to plan. The transition has properly vetted some potential nominees, but Trump has also been operating off his own script with many of his personnel choices – choosing unvetted candidates and acting outside the transition structure in a way that has immediately created serious political challenges, according to interviews with 18 people involved, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly. The president-elect has been largely unfazed, ebullient and soaking in his win on the Mar-a-Lago patio.

Unlike 2016 – when the novice president-elect was uncertain of how he wanted to shape government and drew from a well of establishment Republicans for most of his Cabinet picks – Trump has approached this round of appointments determined to reward loyalty and find warriors who will do battle with what he views as his “deep state” government foes.

“He wants to blow up these institutions,” one person close to Trump said of the nominations to run Justice and Defense. “He wants someone to blow these places up.”

But some of those people brought baggage. Senior transition officials have grown concerned about the confirmation process for both Gaetz and Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary, four people close to Trump said. But Trump made clear he was not inclined to withdraw either selection, convinced that the incoming Republican-controlled Senate would support them, people close to him said.

“All of President Trump’s nominees have the necessary experience and qualifications to carry out his pro-America agenda,” Steven Cheung, Trump’s next White House communications director, said in a statement. “We look forward to every single nominee being confirmed so they can start immediately in the new Administration.”

Top Trump aides spent Thursday before the gala in an emergency meeting to discuss a surprise 2017 claim of sexual assault against Hegseth, which the team only became aware of this week, according to people involved. The transition team was sent a lengthy and detailed document by a woman who said she was friends with the victim. The accusation against Hegseth had been investigated by local authorities in California but never prosecuted, they said. Hegseth allegedly agreed to a private settlement and nondisclosure agreement with his accuser.

Tim Parlatore, an attorney for Hegseth, said Friday that the assault allegation was “fully investigated and found not to be true.” Asked whether Hegseth sought a nondisclosure agreement with the woman, Parlatore said that “there’s no other skeletons to come out.” He added, “There’s no reason to withdraw that I’m aware of.” Cheung described the accusations against Hegseth as “left-wing media concocted falsehoods.”

Meanwhile, a lawyer for the woman at the center of the Gaetz inquiry posted on social media that the unreleased House Ethics Committee report on Gaetz’s behavior should be made public, a move opposed on Friday by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who also attended Thursday night’s gala at Mar-a-Lago.

“She was a high school student and there were witnesses,” the lawyer, John Clune, wrote on X in a plea for transparency of the report.

Republican allies of Trump in the Senate had been reaching out to Trump’s advisers about their concerns with Gaetz, while Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) declared on the record that the investigation would become public. The Justice Department had previously investigated Gaetz after his former friend pleaded guilty to sex trafficking a minor to other adults. Prosecutors never brought charges against Gaetz, who has denied paying for sex or having sex with minors.

“I struggle to find 20 senators who would vote for Matt Gaetz – no way Gaetz gets confirmed,” said one Republican Senate adviser. “The Senate is not going to give up its advise and consent role for these guys. There are still a lot of senators who take their jobs seriously.”

While the crises emerged behind the scenes, a steady stream of people flowed through Trump’s Palm Beach resort – billionaires, financiers, socialites, family, spouses and political activists – for a series of celebratory events. Former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, who was recently released from prison after a conviction for contempt of Congress, spoke at another Mar-a-Lago gala Friday for the Conservative Political Action Committee. Argentina’s President Javier Milei also made an appearance at the club.

“It’s a more sophisticated swamp, but it’s crazy. I’ve never seen anything like this. You’ve got all these jamokes from Florida, who have barely ever seen Washington, D.C., talking about how they’re moving up here. People are trying to hire relatives,” said one person who has been observing the spectacle for days. “You go to the club and run into all these creatures.”

Trump won the election with a unified senior team that had brought some order and a decision-making process to the campaign. But the structure eroded in the days after his Nov. 5 victory, now beholden to Trump’s whims. His team presents names in presentations, and he reacts in real-time. At other times, he suggests names of people who had not been vetted by the transition team.

“Names are being thrown out all over the place. There isn’t really a functional process – it’s really whoever he just decides to name,” said one person involved.

Some people around Trump said Susie Wiles, Trump’s campaign chief and incoming White House chief of staff, has faced challenges to manage the transition with the same level of discipline she maintained during the campaign. She had spent a crucial few days away from Trump at a donor event in Las Vegas after the election. Cheung said she continued to call into meetings and has been “actively involved in the transition process every single day.”

And the decision to propose Gaetz as the 87th attorney general came together in an ad hoc fashion, after Trump grew frustrated with the competing camps lobbying for different candidates and after two contenders – Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Eric Schmitt (Missouri) – made clear they wanted to remain in the Senate.

On Wednesday, Gaetz hitched a ride on Trump’s plane to Washington and it was then that Boris Epshteyn – Trump’s legal adviser who was also on board – turned the discussion to the prospect of Gaetz in the top law enforcement role. Epshteyn, a polarizing figure in Trump’s orbit, has played a significant role in the transition, three people involved say. Wiles, who was also on the flight, did not object to his selection, said one person present, and Gaetz’s name had surfaced earlier as a possibility.

The other co-leader of Trump’s campaign, Chris LaCivita, also attended the Las Vegas confab before decamping to hunt a six-by-six bull elk in New Mexico, which he had chopped up for sausage and shipped back to Virginia, according to a person familiar with the events. LaCivita has not been as forceful a presence in the transition discussions as he was on the campaign.

Others have expressed increasing concerns about the ability of Howard Lutnick, CEO of Wall Street giant Cantor Fitzgerald, to manage the transition while simultaneously fighting his own internal battle for an appointment as Trump’s treasury secretary, said one Trump adviser. Cheung said Lutnick “has done an incredible job.”

“Let’s stop pretending that everything is buttoned up and going as planned when people are not thinking that anymore,” said another person familiar with the Trump inner circle about the task facing Wiles. “This is not a campaign where she can control every aspect of it.”

Conservative activists – who had shaped Trump’s first term with the help of then-Vice President Mike Pence – expressed alarm at some of the personnel choices, fearing that they might be shut out despite significant preparation among think tanks for a second Trump term.

Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman picked to be director of national intelligence, had been a critic of U.S. military support for Ukraine and met in 2017 with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Kennedy’s stated plans included several longtime liberal regulatory priorities, like restricting processed food in school lunches and banning food additives.

“It’s hard to argue that a Putin apologist who is friends with Assad represents conservative foreign policy. It’s hard to argue that someone who wants to get rid of fluoride in your water and favors abortion for all nine months is a conservative family pick,” said Marc Short, a longtime adviser to Pence, referring to Gabbard and Kennedy, respectively, before saying that the Gaetz choice “makes a mockery of the whole Department of Justice – which could be what Trump wants to do – but it’s not really advancing law and order.”

Cheung dismissed Short’s comments as criticism from “people on the outside who have no idea what they are talking about and they represent the establishment political class.”

When Trump was elected in 2016, the transition process had similarly foundered in the early months, though access to Trump, who operated out of his Trump Tower office and apartment in New York, was more tightly controlled, and he had less certain ideas about the people he wanted to choose. He selected Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson to be his first secretary of state, largely because Tillerson popped up on his radar in the chaotic early days and Trump thought he “looked the part.” He picked his first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, in part because of his Marines nickname, “Mad Dog,” according to a person involved in the process.

This time, Trump has been telegraphing his intentions for years, clearly declaring that he would seek “retribution” for himself and for voters, and remake the federal bureaucracy. The scale of the victory this month, with Republicans maintaining House control and winning the Senate, only emboldened his ambitions. Trump advisers had been skeptical this summer about Kennedy’s ability to pass Senate confirmation, but that concern faded in the days after the election, according to people involved. Trump decided on Kennedy as HHS chief days after the election but did not announce it immediately, a person said.

One of Trump’s friends advised him over the weekend that attorney general was the most important appointment he would make, suggesting that he pick a confidant who would be unflinchingly loyal – despite congressional or public opposition. Gaetz, however, is not whom this confidant had in mind.

“I certainly didn’t tell him to pick Matt Gaetz – it’s a disaster,” said the friend. “It really disturbs me because it’s such a stupid pick.”

Other early selections have been less controversial. Trump’s selection of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) for secretary of state has been widely praised by Republicans and even some Democrats. Many have also welcomed his choice of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who has long maintained that Jews have a biblical right to Palestinian land, to be ambassador to Israel.

Gabbard, a former Army lieutenant colonel, had long been a favorite of Trump’s who was expected to get an administration appointment. She had expressed interest in several jobs, including defense secretary, secretary of veterans affairs and the intelligence director job she was named for, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

As the party continued Thursday night, there was little evidence of the political obstacles that will face Trump when he arrives in Washington next year. People posed for poolside pictures and waited in line at the outdoor bar where various Trump fixtures gave impromptu welcome remarks before heading into the ballroom. At their seats, they found wedge salads and gifts, including hardcover copies of Melania Trump’s memoir and “Save America,” a $99 picture book published by Trump’s eldest son and Sergio Gor, whom Trump announced Friday as director of the White House office of presidential personnel.

Any tensions bubbling around Trump skipping over more traditional Republican insiders for prime Cabinet positions were set aside for the evening, as Brooke Rollins, who previously led his Domestic Policy Council, and Larry Kudlow, his former director of the National Economic Council, praised Trump in their introductory remarks.

Stallone also came to the microphone. In his signature gravelly voice, he called Trump a “mythical creature.”

“When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was going to change the world,” the actor said. “Guess what? We got the second George Washington.”