Trump Cabinet: There's only one reason Trump would put crackpots in charge of military and intelligence agencies.

In his first few picks for Cabinet secretaries, President-elect Donald Trump has made it clear—even clearer than many had predicted—that his main criterion for selection is blind loyalty. The same might be true of Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, the far-right Democrat turned MAGA Republican, who has no relevant experience except, perhaps, that she has avidly parroted Russian propaganda lines to explain a wide variety of international developments. An even slightly less lopsided Senate would likely reject Ratcliffe out of fear that he’d politicize intelligence—as indeed he did during the brief spell, at the end of Trump’s first term, when he was director of national intelligence, the office that oversees and coordinates the 18 U.S. intel agencies. As for Gabbard, picked to oversee and coordinate the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies, not much need be said beyond “Holy shit!” If confirmed, she will replace Avril Haines, who had been—in contrast to Gabbard’s slim résumé—deputy director of the CIA and deputy national security adviser before President Joe Biden nominated her for the job. In his 18 months on the job, Ratcliffe confirmed every fear about him, using his office to validate several conspiracy theories, many of them about Trump’s political opponents.