This is what draining the swamp looks like

In the span of 24 hours, Trump unveiled three Cabinet appointments that rocked the Washington establishment to its core and raised questions about each nominee’s ability to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to their respective posts.

The first controversial nomination came on Tuesday night when Trump announced that Fox and Friends co-host Pete Hegseth was his choice to be secretary of defense. The pick touched off a whirlwind of ridicule and shock that was only surpassed by what came next. In the span of a few minutes on Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced that former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat, was his choice to be the director of national intelligence, quickly followed by his nomination of then-Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to be the attorney general.

Lobbyists, career officials at the agencies the nominees would oversee, and the senators tasked with confirming the nominees to their posts were astounded. But that was entirely the point. Trump is appointing nominees to key Cabinet positions expressly because of their skepticism for the agencies they would lead, not in spite of it. To put it another way, Trump is nominating Hegseth, Gabbard, and Gaetz to drain the swamp.

This is what Trump was elected to do. His mandate is to disrupt business as usual in Washington. And to disrupt business as usual in Washington, he needs a team of disruptors. All three nominees are exactly that: People with less than the usual qualifications of a conventional nominee but who will bring a perspective and attitude to the agency that will fundamentally transform the way that agency operates.

Take, for instance, the Department of Justice. If Gaetz manages to achieve Senate confirmation, a difficult task due to his polarizing and controversial image, he will become the nation’s chief law enforcement officer of an agency he and Trump believe is corrupt to its core. The announcement of his nomination has already spooked career employees who fear Gaetz’s “burn it all down” attitude. It would come as no surprise if a large number of DOJ employees took an early retirement or found new jobs rather than work under a Gaetz-led department.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Gabbard, too, has angered numerous officials and alumni of the intelligence agencies with her history of heterodox positions on the intelligence community, foreign policy, and defense. If she is confirmed to the position, she poses a significant threat to the intelligence agencies because she will enter the position with a mindset that assumes these agencies have no tolerance for dissenting views and have adopted a sort of groupthink.

This is what draining the swamp looks like. Each nominee is a wrecking ball aimed squarely at the bureaucracy and the standard operating procedure of each agency. As controversial as each of these nominees is, they fulfill the mandate that Trump was given. He campaigned on change, the people of the United States voted for change, and now he is delivering change.