Sam Stein: Trump Is Nominating Cabinet Members Based on Their On Fox News Appearances

Morning Joe contributor Sam Stein claimed that several of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks were not based on “credentials” but on their “personal loyalty” shown to him in Fox News appearances.

Stein appeared on the show on Wednesday morning after Trump nominated Fox News host and army veteran Pete Hegseth as the next secretary of defense. The decision left commentators and lawmakers “dumbfounded”, Stein said, before offering his take.

If we are being frank about it, the reason [Hegseth] is picked he is on Fox & Friends, right? This is true of a number of these picks. Mike Waltz happened to be the congressman who appeared on Fox more than any other sitting Republican member of congress in the past two years.

These people grab Trump’s attention because of television appearances. He is drawn to the idea they can present on a medium that he loves. Contemporaneous reporting from last night suggest the Hegseth decision was done in a matter of 24 hours, that there is internal confusion about it.

Hegseth was not the only person Stein used to evidence he theory, pointing to Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary pick Kristi Noem, serving Governor to South Dakota.

Similarly with Noem, a little bit. People are wondering what kind of credentials she has to run DHS and the FEMA response and if she can help with that. Some confusion about this but I think we’re getting to the main point: this is Trump, right? People have come to internalize the idea he is going to choose people not necessarily based on credentials but based on their ability to handle television interviews and on their personal loyalty to them.

Watch above on MSNBC.