Column: Trump hoped his Cabinet picks could escape serious vetting. He was so wrong

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

46% : But Trump must now spend most of his time jawboning GOP senators to back his nominees.
40% : Who remembers that President Biden couldn't win confirmation for his first nominee as budget director, Neera Tanden, or that Trump couldn't get his first-term nominee as Labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, confirmed?
38% : Last week, Trump mused to aides that he might replace Hegseth with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
30% : Trump proposed Hegseth for secretary of Defense, a job that entails managing almost 3 million people and an $849-billion budget, even though he had never run anything remotely comparable.
22% : Now Trump faces an unpalatable choice: long, bruising and public fights to put controversial nominees into office, or quick decisions to cut failing candidates loose as he did with Gaetz.
21% : Matt Gaetz, the former Florida congressman Trump proposed for attorney general, somehow thought he could skate past the House Ethics Committee's evidence that he had paid a 17-year-old for sex.
20% : But Trump has made a potentially irreparable mistake.
8% : (The New York Times reported that Trump chose Gaetz impulsively after a meeting with Gaetz and Tesla founder Elon Musk aboard the president-elect's private jet.)

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