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‘Going to need a good deputy’: Trump nominee’s ex-staffers have ‘no idea’ how he’ll do job



Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s former staffers have mostly positive things to say about him, but they doubt he's up to the task of leading a federal agency.

Donald Trump nominated the environmental attorney to be secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which has a budget of more than $1 trillion and more than 80,000 employees, but Kennedy's former colleagues and staffers say that he would face a steep learning curve, reported Politico.

“He’s an inspirational leader who’s able to communicate, but he’s not a manager,” said Jeff Hutt, spokesperson for the Make America Healthy Again political action committee and Kennedy’s former national field director.

The political scion and failed independent presidential candidate, who's known as a vaccine skeptic and for holding other unconventional views on health and science, has held leadership roles as a lawyer and at nonprofit organizations, but staffers say he usually served more as the public face of those operations than an executive manager.

“I have no idea how he’s going to run a full department, if that’s how he ran the campaign,” said one former campaign staffer. “Running a court case and suing folks is a lot different than running a business. I think he’s a fantastic lawyer. I think he does his due diligence and understands law and truly wants to help all people.”

The core of Kennedy's campaign team was largely made up of a small circle of friends and family members, which sparked conflicts on the team and hindered fundraising operations, but former staffers praised his interpersonal skills.

“He is a very genuine person," said a former senior staffer. "He listens and he’s, you know, he likes to find the best answers available, and as he’s said publicly, you know, if you can show him where he’s wrong on something, he will change his mind.”

That staffer doesn't believe Kennedy will "purge" HHS of employees, like Trump and Elon Musk have proposed, but some former staffers say his good intentions and communication skills aren't enough to handle the job he'll have if the Senate confirms him.

“He’s going to need a good deputy,” Hutt said. “I don’t know who he has in mind, but I would hope that he would go outside of his campaign [staffers] for this position.”

‘He’s lying!’ Ex-GOP lawmaker stops short of swearing at Trump’s latest boast



Donald Trump claims he has already solved the border crisis nearly two months before taking office, but a former Republican congressman called him out for "lying."

The president-elect declared a win on halting the flow of undocumented migrants from Mexico after speaking to that nation's president Claudia Sheinbaum, whom he said agreed to close the border in the face of his proposed 25 percent tariffs, but she disputed that claim and said her country was already "taking care of" migrant caravans.

"He's lying," former GOP lawmaker Joe Walsh told CNN. "I mean, let's just say it. This is what he does, and he's lying, and I don't want to go through four years of this."

Mexico has already been conducting its largest-ever crackdown on migrants by transporting foreign nationals to the country's south, far away from the U.S. border, and fewer undocumented migrants are being detained at the southern border than at any time since Joe Biden became president.

"America still has to grasp with the fact that we just re-elected somebody who lies every time he opens his mouth," Walsh said. "I mean, period, this is the game. This is the game he plays. He threatens to do something unless he gets his way. He doesn't get his way, but he lies and says he got his way, and now, 'Looky here, Mexico is going to do something brand new.'"

"Bullcrap," Walsh added, catching himself before saying a stronger swear word. "This is Thanksgiving, I caught my tongue. He's lying, plain and simple."

- YouTube youtu.be

‘Keep it in your pants’: Matt Gaetz mocked for saying he’ll ‘never love another president’



Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) faced ridicule after revealing he would "never love another president again" after Donald Trump.

In a Thanksgiving Day message posted to social media, Trump wished a happy holiday to everyone, "including to the Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country."

"I'll never love another president again," Gaetz replied despite recently withdrawing as Trump's nominee for attorney general due to reports that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl multiple times.

Some commenters scorned Gaetz after the remark.

"Damn brother, couldn't keep it in your pants and that ultimately f-cked us, now we have a pick that Lady Graham and Jeb Bush celebrated," Joel Stitely wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

"Matt Gaetz knows Trump has no plans of ever leaving office at the conclusion of his four year term," First Amendment enthusiast BuiltUS Tough noted.

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"We need a uniter. This causes division. But Happy Thanksgiving!" Cynthia Brown argued.

"That's some elite Washington DC bootlicking," X user @omprabhu pointed out.

"Well, you are both accused pedophiles. So, I can see where you have so much love for the Felon!" Tim Sutton remarked.

Kash Patel reportedly jockeying for major CIA role with ‘enormous influence’: report



Kash Patel is vying with one of Donald Trump's other insiders for the CIA deputy director post.

Patel became a Trump ally when he coordinated with former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) to fight back against special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election. Patel pressed to have all of the information around the Russia probe declassified, thinking it would expose wrongdoing in the intelligence community, CNN reported in 2020.

Patel is fighting with Cliff Sims, Trump's former deputy director of National Intelligence for Strategy and Communications, over the post, Politico reported Tuesday. The report characterized the position as "one of the most sought-after national security posts."

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Patel was teased as a possible pick to head the FBI, but it never happened. One of his more controversial positions involves jailing journalists, something he proposed to Steve Bannon last year.

Trump insiders told Politico that both men are "angering others who feel they're using their roles on the transition to undermine any would-be contenders."

The post "wields enormous influence inside the U.S. intelligence community," reported Politico.

"The frustration toward Sims ... and Patel, the firebrand former House Intelligence Committee staffer and Pentagon official, stems from the fact that both are helping the transition interview candidates for the CIA role," the report said, citing those in the transition.

“The issue that a lot of us have is that these people are involved in staffing national security jobs, and at the same time, they’re also promoting themselves for the same roles,” said one of the individuals who spoke to Politico.

Patel is known for "fighting dirty," so there's a concern that he's leaking damaging stories about Sims. After leaving the White House, Trump was furious with Sims when he published a tell-all memoir in 2019. At this point, however, many former officials have published memoirs about their political lives and their work with Trump.

At the time, White House officials described Trump as “very p---ed off” and “really hopping mad” after reading excerpts of the tell-all book.

The current deputy, David S. Cohen, helped craft Title III of the USA PATRIOT Act, which dealt with money laundering. He then went on to work as the assistant secretary for Terrorist Financing at the Treasury Department, the under-secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Neither Sims nor Patel has any experience working on domestic or global terrorism. Trump's previous appointees during his first administration had experience working in the CIA.

Transition spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, refused to comment about the two men, saying only that “remaining decisions will continue to be announced" when made.

Read the full report here.

MAGA TV host calls ‘Wicked’ movie ‘offensive’ after mistaking Ariana Grande as Hispanic



Pro-MAGA TV host Gina Loudon accused the movie "Wicked" of "racism" against white people after she mistakenly claimed actress Ariana Grande was Hispanic.

"Wicked, the movie broke box office records," Loudon announced Tuesday on her Real America's Voice program. "I saw it, but I was very excited at the idea of seeing the interpretation of this. But I should have known it's Holly-weird."

Loudon claimed Hollywood made the movie "woke in the ways that they could think of."

"Let's just start with the fact that they have Ariana Grande, who is obviously a Hispanic woman, playing the part of a ditzy, blonde, white really villain, when it comes right down to it, for this particular movie," the host said. "The racism and the racial appropriation I just thought was offensive, frankly."

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"All white people aren't dumb and evil," she added. "And I just get kind of sick of that storyline."

Grande is Italian-American. Her family is said to descend from Sicily and Abruzzo.

Watch the video below from Real America's Voice or at this link.

‘Smells like a political shot’: MAGA world freaks out over Biden plan for EV-maker



A Biden administration plan to extend a $6 billion loan for an electric vehicle manufacturer to build an E.V. factory in Georgia sent MAGA world into a tailspin Tuesday.

The plan announced Monday is reportedly part of a push to lock in Democratic climate policies before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House. But not everybody was on board, with the move stoking speculation that the loan was a veiled political attack at one of Trump's main supporters – Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

“Biden is forking over $6.6B to EV-maker Rivian to build a Georgia plant they’ve already halted,” Vivek Ramaswamy wrote to his followers on X. “One ‘justification’ is the 7,500 jobs it creates, but that implies a cost of $880k/job which is insane. This smells more like a political shot across the bow at @elonmusk & @Tesla.”

That sentiment was echoed by numerous conservative social media users.

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“It’s clearly an attack on Musk for his endorsement of Trump,” X user Paul A. Szypula wrote in a reply to Ramaswamy. Notably, Ramaswamy and Musk were both tapped by Trump to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to explore ways to slash government spending.

And at least one Republican member of Congress thinks the federal loan to Rivian is a waste of government money.

“Why not just cut each person a $880,000 check?!” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) posted on social media. “The absurdity of this is the exact type of insanity that we have to stop. I can tell you right now Georgians do not support Rivian and are sick and tired of seeing tax dollars handed over to this FAILING company, federal & state!”

Greene was recently named chair of the new subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, which is expected to work with Musk's DOGE.

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