An alleged racist, Islamophobe land top Trump posts
President-elect’s cabinet picks show he’s unlikely to pivot from election tone of insulting minorities
WASHINGTON— President-elect Donald Trump has made five major appointments so far. Four of his picks, including the three announced on Friday, have demeaned Muslims or African-Americans.
The selections are in line with Trump’s campaign rhetoric, which was openly bigoted against Muslims and frequently insulting to the black community. To the dismay and apprehension of minority groups, they are an early signal that the unorthodox Republican is not planning to attempt a post-election pivot to some kind of inclusive moderation.
Trump’s choices make it more likely that Muslims will face intrusions on their civil liberties, as Trump has promised. They suggest that Trump intends to follow through on his crackdown on illegal immigration.
They likely mean the death of a bipartisan effort to reform the criminal justice system, which was never certain to pass. They likely mean the abandonment of the aggressive efforts of the Obama-era justice department to investigate police racism and other civil rights abuses.
And they may help Trump execute his pledge to bring back torture as an interrogation tool against terrorists.
They were greeted with alarm by Muslim and black leaders.
“Unfortunately, after stating in his acceptance speech that he wanted to unite America, President-elect Trump’s initial appointments indicate that he’s headed in exactly the opposite direction,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“Whenever you have ideological extremists in positions of power, I think you’re going to see that extremism expressed in policy.”
He added: “Buckle up. We’re in for a bumpy ride.”
The man Trump picked last week as his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, was the chief executive of a website he called “the platform for the alt-right,” a white nationalist movement, and that led an anti-Muslim smear campaign against the founder of Chobani yogurt.
In a Hollywood Reporter article published Friday, Bannon denied he was a “white nationalist,” saying he is a mere “nationalist” and “economic nationalist.” The man Trump named Friday as his national security adviser, retired Defense Intelligence Agency chief Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, wrote on Twitter in February that “fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.” In August, he said Islam is a “political ideology,” not a religion, and is “like cancer.” In public, he has promoted fake conspiracy theories; in government, according to the New York Times, he pushed so much false information that subordinates had a name for it: “Flynn facts.” The man Trump nominated Friday as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo, won bipartisan praise. But he has broadly accused American Muslim leaders of “silence” in response to terror attacks hundreds of them have actually condemned; this so-called silence, he said, makes “Islamic leaders across America potentially complicit in these acts.” And the man Trump nominated Friday as attorney general, immigration hard-liner Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, was denied a federal judgeship by Senate Republicans in 1986 over allegations of anti-black racism. He acknowledged, for example, that he had concurred that a white civil rights lawyer was a “disgrace to his race;” he said he was just joking when he found the Ku Klux Klan “OK” until he learned members smoked marijuana.
A black prosecutor testified in 1986 that Sessions had called the NAACP “un-American.” Another testified that Sessions had called him “boy,” a racist insult. In 1985, Sessions led a failed election fraud prosecution of civil rights activists.
Sessions, who would be the nation’s top law enforcement official, has argued that Trump’s proposal to ban foreign Muslims from entering the country is constitutional. He has also argued that grabbing a woman by the genitals, as Trump was caught on tape suggesting he had done, does not constitute sexual assault.
“Jeff Sessions has a decades-long record — from his early days as a prosecutor to his present role as a senator — of opposing civil rights and equality. It is unimaginable that he could be entrusted to serve as the chief law enforcement officer for this nation’s civil rights laws,” NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund president Sherrilyn Ifill said in a statement.
Flynn and Bannon do not require confirmation hearings. There was no early outcry from the Republican senators who will determine whether Sessions and Pompeo will be confirmed; several of them offered fond words.
Sessions, best known for his antiimmigration views, has served as attorney general of Alabama and as a U.S. attorney. A Trump spokesperson noted Friday that he filed Alabama desegregation lawsuits and voted to give civil rights icon Rosa Parks a congressional award. Even the black man who testified that Sessions disparaged the NAACP said he did not believe he is a racist.
“A principled and good man, he will restore honour to a department that, under President Obama, perpetually pushed a political agenda while neglecting to enforce the law,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn said in a statement.
Pompeo, who is affiliated with the Tea Party movement, is an army veteran who says he graduated at the top of his class at the prestigious West Point military academy. He is also a graduate of Harvard Law School. And he urged people in one speech last year to differentiate terrorists from regular Muslims, saying “there are many Muslims of good will.”