President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet resembles a Russian “oligarchy,” according to the chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative, Garry Kasparov.
Trump is “aiming for privatization of power,” Russian former World Chess Champion Kasparov said on an episode of the Stay Tuned with Preet podcast on Thursday.
“They send a very clear signal that Trump is aiming for privatization of power, because he brings his loyalists, and when you look at key positions like Pentagon, DOD, DOJ, Justice and intelligence…there is cronies, its very clear that Trump has a plan,” the political activist added.
“Its not just one person on top, it’s not just Matt Gaetz as head of the department, when you look at numbers two and three, Trump is planning to bring his personal lawyers. I think overall we could see that Trump concentrate so much power in his hands that I’m not sure that democratic institutions could resist the pressure from him when he starts dismantling the system of checks and balances.”
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Kasparov went on to say that Trump’s new Cabinet resembles Russia’s “oligarchy” in the 1990s, when a handful of businessmen rapidly accumulated wealth.
“It’s not like dictatorship in an ideological form, but its more like oligarchy, that’s what we saw in Russia in the 90s,” he said. “Where you have power concentrated in the hands of a few, and the fact is that the largest private contractor of the government, Elon Musk, could be in the position to decide how government spends the money. It tells you that the traditional system of checks and balances may not function during Trump’s second term.”
Newsweek has contacted Trump’s transition team for comment via email.
A number of Trump’s Cabinet nominees have raised eyebrows, including vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human services secretary; former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who has been accused of amplifying Russian propaganda, as national intelligence director; and former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, who was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for alleged sexual misconduct, as attorney general.
Gaetz has also been accused of having sex with a 17-year-old girl on a game table at a July 2017 party, according to the woman’s lawyer. Gaetz, who was sworn in to his first term in the House in January of that year, has denied any wrongdoing.
Trump also nominated Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News presenter, as defense secretary and on Tuesday, he nominated former WWE boss Linda McMahon as education secretary. He also named TV’s Dr. Mehmet Oz, who has been accused of spreading conspiracy theories, as Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary.
Billionaire Musk, who spent tens of millions of dollars to help Trump get elected and was one of his most vocal supporters throughout the campaign, has been appointed as head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
Trump’s new Cabinet marks a departure from 2016, when his top team was seen as more conventionally Republican. It included James Mattis as defense secretary, who was seen in establishment defense circles as someone who could “moderate” Trump, and John Kelly, whose nomination was greeted warmly on both sides of the political divide, as head of the Cabinet department responsible for enforcing U.S. immigration laws. But the new crop are being characterized as staunch MAGA loyalists.
Although Trump has nominated his most loyal supporters, he may struggle to get them approved by the Senate, with half of Senate Republicans, including some in senior leadership positions, privately saying they don’t see a path for Gaetz to be confirmed, while some Republican lawmakers, like Senator Susan Collins of Maine, have expressed dismay over Trump picking Gaetz, and others have refused to say how they will vote on confirming Kennedy.
However, according to Republican political consultant and former Mitt Romney adviser Mike Murphy, Senate Republicans may be forced to confirm at least one or two of Trump’s picks, even if they do not wish to do so.
“The risk, if you make him eat four or five, does that get him frustrated, he says he’s not gonna eat even one of them, and then he says let’s make them all acting,”Murphy said during an episode of The New Non-Normal podcast on Tuesday. “They may have to choose which of these ones they reject, because if they reject all of them, that may prompt Trump to try to get them all operating as acting secretaries.”
Trump has also floated the possibility of recess appointments, meaning he could bypass the Senate.
In December, Trump declared he would be a dictator on “day one” when he would close the border.
“We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Trump campaign aides later said he was simply trying to trigger the left and the media with his dictator comment, while also seeking to focus attention on the influx of migrants at the border and stubborn inflation.
Meanwhile, the president-elect has also floated the possibility of imprisoning his political opponents.
“So, you know, it’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them,” Trump said during an interview with Newsmax in June.
He was discussing his guilty verdict on 34 counts of scheming to help his 2016 campaign by covering up an alleged sexual encounter.
“Does that mean the next president does it to them? That’s really the question,” he added. It came after he frequently raised prosecuting President Joe Biden.
In June, just hours after his arraignment in Miami on charges related to his handling of classified documents, Trump vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden, calling him “the most corrupt president in the history of America” and targeting the “Biden crime family.”
Trump also revisited his 2016 opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, recalling the “Lock her up” chants at his rallies. He credited himself for not pursuing charges against Clinton, despite pressure, saying it would have set a “terrible precedent.”
