Critics of President-elect Donald Trump reacted to his newest Cabinet picks with the same outrage they expressed over his choice of chief strategist. His pick for CIA director pleased some fierce critics, while angering vocal supporters.
Trump’s transition team announced Friday that Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) would be the new Attorney General, while Representative Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas) accepted the offer to be the new director of the CIA. Both positions require Senate confirmation. Gen. Michael Flynn (US Army, retired) was appointed national security advisor.
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Democrats, liberals and progressives reacted to the announcement with horror and outrage, accusing Flynn of islamophobia and anti-Semitism and Sessions of racism.
Judd Legum, editor in chief of Think Progress:
Film director Rob Reiner:
Daily Kos:
Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson:
Actor and activist George Takei:
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) strongly denounced Sessions:
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) worried about privacy and due process:
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke – whose support Trump has repeatedly disavowed – poured fuel on the fire by praising the appointments:
Trump’s actual supporters were pretty pleased by the picks:
Though with some reservations:
So were some of the president-elect's most vocal critics among the Republicans, such as South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham…
… and ex-CIA agent and “NeverTrump” camp’s independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin:
Justin Raimondo, the editor of Antiwar.com who supported Trump’s promises to scale back US intervention abroad, objected to Pompeo as a “betrayal” of everything Trump stood for: