Nikki Haley, a former Ambassador to the United Nations and 2024 GOP presidential candidate, criticized President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to high-profile positions in his administration, both of whom have faced criticism for their backgrounds.
Haley criticized Kennedy’s selection to lead the Health and Human Services Department, citing his lack of health-care expertise and previous Democratic party affiliation.
“Who is RFK Jr.?” “He’s not a health guy, but he’s raised concerns about what’s in our food, and I agree with him,” Haley said on SiriusXM’s “Nikki Haley Live.” She did, however, say, “That is not his background.” “He has no education, training, or experience in healthcare.” She also called him a “liberal Democrat” several times.
Kennedy has a long history of criticizing vaccines, although he recently stated that he is not anti-vaccine.
However, public health experts have objected to his long history of misleading statements about vaccine safety, and they are concerned that he will undo decades of hard-fought progress in increasing vaccination rates against deadly diseases.
Haley, who challenged Trump in the GOP primaries and later endorsed him, also chastised Gabbard, a former congresswoman from Hawaii and Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, for her “disgusting” past statements on human rights violations in Syria, which she claims echo Russian propaganda.
“This is a job for an honest broker without any pronounced policy biases,” Haley told the crowd. “She went to Syria in 2017 for a photo-op with [Syrian President Bashir] al-Assad while he was massacring his own people … this to me was disgusting.” Haley went further: “Everything she said about that was Russian talking points, Russian propaganda.”
Gabbard defended her 2017 meeting with Assad as a “fact-finding mission,” but later called him a “brutal dictator.” In 2019, she also spoke out against the United States’ involvement in Syria’s civil war, claiming that Assad “is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.” The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gabbard lacks intelligence experience and is opposed to the United States’ involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
Once Trump has formalized their nominations, the Senate will be expected to provide advice and consent during the confirmation process.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, whom Trump had planned to nominate as attorney general, withdrew his name from consideration Thursday amid a House Ethics Committee investigation into sexual misconduct and illegal drug use allegations against him.
