Senate confirmation hearings begin shortly for Trump’s various nominees to government posts. So let’s play a round of “Guess Who?” to learn more about them.
Or, as we call it in this case, Guess the Extremist.
Behind each mystery silhouette is one of the nominees the president-elect has chosen to hold the highest positions of trust and honor in the land.
Based on their track record, can you guess who they are? Drumroll please…
Mystery Silhouette #1
This former Fox News host is best known for denigrating women and LGBTQ+ people in the military and opposing any form of accountability for U.S. war crimes.
He has faced credible allegations of sexual assault, Islamophobia, and other kinds of abusive behavior. He also belongs to a church whose pastor describes himself as a Christian nationalist and has defended the institution of slavery.
His far-right religious and political views are so extreme, the U.S. military refused to allow him to provide security at Biden’s presidential inauguration after a fellow service member identified him as a potential “insider threat.”
Answer: Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Cabinet Nominee for Secretary of Defense
That’s right! The man Trump has chosen for the highest civilian role in U.S. defense is best known for opposing women’s combat service and promoting impunity for U.S. war crimes.
Mystery Silhouette #2
This Trump loyalist served as state Attorney General for Florida from 2011 to 2019.
During that time, she is best remembered for reportedly dropping a fraud investigation into “Trump University,” shortly after receiving a suspiciously-timed campaign donation to her political action committee from Donald Trump.
Answer: Pam Bondi, Trump’s Cabinet Nominee for Attorney General
That’s right! Trump’s choice to lead the Justice Department—a position that has largely been independent of the Oval Office since the Watergate scandal—is a personal loyalist best known for alleged suspicions of showing political favoritism to Trump in exchange for campaign money.
Mystery Silhouette #3
This disavowed scion of a high-powered political family is best known for systematically sowing disinformation about vaccines and other public health issues.
He has also been an actor in colorful episodes involving the misappropriation of a whale carcass and a dead bear, possibly violating federal wildlife laws.
Answer: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s Cabinet Nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services
That’s right! The man Trump has chosen to lead our nation’s public health agencies is mostly known for trying to undermine the science-based medical expert consensus on public health interventions.
Mystery Silhouette #4
This man launched his career with a stint on MTV’s The Real World: Boston, where fans of the 1997 series recall him mostly for making some eyebrow-raising comments on race.
He somehow parlayed his minor celebrity into a stint in the U.S. House of Representatives for Wisconsin’s Seventh District.
Answer: Sean Duffy, Trump’s Cabinet Nominee for Secretary of Transportation
That’s right! Trump’s choice to head this Cabinet-level position is a fellow former reality TV star who is now married to a Fox News commentator. What bona fides does Duffy have that qualify him to be an expert on transportation? Who knows!
Mystery Silhouette #5
This oil and gas executive is best known for downplaying the scientific consensus about climate change and promoting rampant fossil fuel extraction, despite overwhelming evidence that it is dangerously heating the planet.
Answer: Chris Wright, Trump’s Cabinet Nominee for Secretary of Energy
That’s right! Trump’s selection for his most powerful advisor on energy policy is mostly known for trying to undermine global action to address the climate crisis.
Mystery Silhouette #6
This former executive of a pro-wrestling company is mostly known for… well… making a fortune from running a pro-wrestling company. And for being an ex-wrestler herself.
In her spare time, she moonlights as an advocate for privatizing education.
Answer: Linda McMahon, Trump’s Cabinet Nominee for Secretary of Education
That’s right! Trump’s choice to take charge of educating the nation’s children is mostly known for making bank from an endless stream of televised body-slams, scissor holds, and kayfabe smackdowns.
Oh, and for trying to defund public education. Advocates for equitable federal education policies are preparing to face off with an opponent who seems ill-equipped for the job.
Mystery Silhouette #7
This current governor of South Dakota is a far-right conservative firebrand and noted Trump loyalist. She was widely considered to be a front-runner for Trump’s Vice Presidential pick before a story came to light about her sadistically killing a family dog.
The strange part? She told the story herself, in her own campaign memoir. “I hated that dog,” as she reportedly wrote in the book.
Answer: Kristi Noem, Trump’s Cabinet Nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security
That’s right! Trump’s choice to keep the homeland secure is mostly known for killing a defenseless wirehaired pointer in a gravel pit. Don’t you feel safer already?
Mystery Silhouette #8
This deeply-devoted Trump sycophant is best known for calling for baseless criminal prosecutions of Trump’s political enemies.
He also wrote a series of children’s books in which a character named “Kash the Distinguished Discoverer” helps another character named “King Donald” capture and tame a dragon, in order to weaponize it for his own ends. The dragon happens to share the initials of the U.S. Justice Department.
Answer: Kash Patel, Trump’s Nominee for FBI Director
That’s right! Trump’s choice to head the nation’s most important federal law enforcement agency—endowed with the power to launch criminal investigations and prosecutions—is a man best known for threatening to use the Justice Department to pursue Trump’s critics.
Mystery Silhouette #9
This former Democratic member of the House of Representatives is best known for her overt sympathies for the autocratic leaders of Syria and Russia.
In 2017, she made a secret trip to visit Syria’s then-dictator, Bashar al-Assad. Syrian human rights advocates who have met with her since say that she showed a disturbing degree of indifference to reports of Assad’s atrocities.
Russian state-owned media have also lauded her as their favorite U.S. politician, because she has promoted debunked Kremlin talking points and other misinformation about Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Answer: Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Nominee for Director of National Intelligence
That’s right! Trump’s choice to head the nation’s intelligence community is mostly known for her unusual affinity for authoritarian adversaries of the United States—and not being intelligent enough to research her positions on Russia’s imperialism.
Mystery Silhouette #10
This former Trump administration official is best known for trying to ruthlessly undermine the rights of asylum-seekers and other people in migration, both in and out of office.
He has repeatedly cited content from white nationalist websites and has publicly promoted far-right conspiracy theories linked to Neo-Nazi ideology.
Answer: Stephen Miller, Trump’s Pick for Deputy Chief of Staff
That’s right! Trump’s choice for yet another high-ranking post in his administration is a white nationalist noted for his extreme anti-immigrant views and his obsessive commitment to undermining asylum rights.
Mystery Silhouette #11
This former Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is best known as an architect of the Trump’s administration’s family separation policy. He has pledged to force families apart again if he returns to the White House.
He has also repeatedly threatened to wield “shock and awe” enforcement tactics against the undocumented community and has said that people in migration “should feel afraid” under the Trump administration.
Answer: Tom Homan, Trump’s Pick for “Border Czar”
That’s right. Trump’s choice to oversee U.S. border enforcement is a man mostly known for separating children from their families in a systematic policy that international experts have denounced as a form of psychological torture.
Mystery Silhouette #12
This unsuccessful Senate candidate from Arizona is mostly known for relentlessly promoting Trump’s false claim that he won the 2020 election, and unsuccessfully trying to use the same tactic in the face of her own election loss in 2022.
Answer: Kari Lake, Trump’s Pick for Director of Voice of America
Right again! Trump’s choice to represent the official perspective of the United States overseas is a person mostly known for her rank indifference to truth and willingness to peddle oft-debunked election falsehoods.
Thanks for playing Guess the Extremist. Now you know the people Trump has nominated for the highest and most influential positions in the U.S. government.
What do they all have in common? For one thing: They are just about the last people on Earth who should ever hold these jobs. In most cases—they are best known for actively undermining precisely the social goods they would be charged with protecting in their government roles: such as civil rights, public health, education, the environment, judicial independence, and national security.
In short, these nominees for high office are almost comically unqualified for their posts—hence our tongue-in-cheek approach to this quiz show. But the thought of them actually reaching the White House is no laughing matter.
If these extremists take office, they would deal immeasurable harm to human rights across the globe, setting back social progress for LGBTQ+ people, women, people in migration, racial and religious minorities, people with disabilities, and—ultimately—the whole human species.
But just because Trump wants these people in the White House, that doesn’t mean they will get there. The Senate has a crucial role to play in providing advice and consent on many of Trump’s nominees. It is not too late to keep these clowns from running the country.
Write to your senators to share your concerns. (You can find your U.S. senators’ contact information here.) Tell them about why you do not think these men and women are qualified to serve in executive office. Ask your senators to vote No on installing extremists in the federal government.
