President-elect Donald Trump's team is instructing all his nominees to stop posting on social media before confirmation, reported the New York Post on Monday.
“While this instruction has been delivered previously, I am reiterating that no member of the incoming administration or Transition speaks for the United States or the President-elect himself,” stated Susie Wiles, the GOP strategist and former Trump campaign head now selected for White House Chief of Staff. “Accordingly, all intended nominees should refrain from any public social media posts without prior approval of the incoming White House counsel.”
While many of Trump's nominees have been under the radar and ordinary picks, he has also announced a slate of controversial nominees that have dominated the news cycle, including vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of Health and Human Services, former Hawaii congresswoman and accused Putin sympathizer Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, far-right enemies-list touting Kash Patel for director of the FBI, and Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, who has been accused of sexual assault.
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Another controversial nominee, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), withdrew from consideration for attorney general ahead of a devastating House Ethics Committee report detailing evidence he engaged in underage sex trafficking, illicit drug use, obstruction of Congress, and other offenses.
Trump, for his part, has leaned heavily on Senate Republicans to support his nominees down the line, but even some sympathetic senators fear this strategy could backfire.
The president-elect has also toyed with the idea of trying to force the Senate into recess so that he can appoint some of these nominees without any vote at all, but this strategy appears unlikely to succeed for the simple reason that GOP senators don't want to surrender their constitutional authority.
