CHRIS CRUCIAL: Stop acting surprised 😲

PLUS: Kamala for governor?

In 67 days, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. I will be here bringing you everything you need to know between now and then — and over his four years as president.

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1. RFK Jr. gets his reward 🥇

On Thursday afternoon, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he had chosen Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in a mystifying series of capitalization choices.

While not as stunning as the choice of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, the RFK Jr. choice was greeted with shock — and consternation — by the media and political establishment.

The New York Times voiced its disapproval thusly: “In choosing Mr. Kennedy, who has no medical or public health degree, Mr. Trump is again proposing the sort of provocative staffing decision that underscores his stated desire to shatter Washington norms.”

But, here’s the thing: On the campaign trail, Trump literally said he would just this sort of thing. Repeatedly.

Say what you will about him but Trump has never tried to hide the ball or pretend he would do things in a “normal” way. Moreso than even in his 2016 campaign, Trump ran this time on a promise to burn the establishment — of both parties — to the ground. Trump insisted that everything about the political class is rotten at the core. And that it all needs to be dug up — root and branch.

That Trump’s picks for senior staff jobs are the sort of thing that freaks people out in Washington is a) not surprising and b) sort of the point.

Let’s look at RFK Jr. in particular.

At the famous/infamous Madison Square Garden rally at the end of October, Trump said from the stage that he was going to let RFK Jr. “go wild on health.” Which seems pretty clear!

Two days later, RFK Jr. told supporters Trump had promised him the HHS gig. Here’s the New York Times on that:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told supporters on an online organizing call this week that former President Donald J. Trump had “promised” him “control” of the nation’s public health agencies, should Mr. Trump win the election next week.

At the time, the Trump campaign would neither confirm nor deny a role had been offered to Kennedy.

In Trump’s victory speech at Mar-A-Lago early Wednesday morning, the president-elect went on an extended riff about RFK Jr.:

And, so I just want to say that on behalf of this great group of people, these are hardworking people, these are fantastic people and we can add a few names like Robert F Kennedy Jr. He came out. And he's going to help make America healthy again. And now he's a great guy and he really means it. He wants to do some things, and we're gonna let him go to it. I just said, 'But Bobby, leave the oil to me. We have more liquid gold, oil and gas. We have more liquid gold than any country in the world. More than Saudi Arabia. We have more than Russia. Bobby, stay away from the liquid gold. Other than that, go have a good time, Bobby.

So, like, how amazed can you be? Or, maybe more appropriately, how amazed should you be?

Broaden out from the RFK Jr. pick for a minute. At the heart of Trump’s campaign was his opening question of so-called “experts.” This riff, from Vice President-elect JD Vance during his debate with Tim Walz speaks to that fact:

Governor, you say trust the experts, but those same experts for 40 years said that if we shipped our manufacturing base off to China, we'd get cheaper goods. They lied about that. They said if we shipped our industrial base off to other countries, to Mexico and elsewhere, it would make the middle class stronger. They were wrong about that. They were wrong about the idea that if we made America less self-reliant, less productive in our own Nation, that it would somehow make us better off. And they were wrong about it. And for the first time in a generation, Donald Trump had the wisdom and the courage to say to that bipartisan consensus, we're not doing it anymore. We're bringing American manufacturing back. We're unleashing American energy. We're going to make more of our own stuff. And this isn't just an economic issue. I mean, I've got three beautiful little kids at home: seven, four and two. And I love them very much. And I hope they're in bed right now. But look, so many of the drugs, the pharmaceuticals that we put in the bodies of our children are manufactured by nations that hate us. This has to stop. And we're not going to stop it by listening to experts. We're going to stop it by listening to common sense wisdom, which is what Donald Trump governed on.

“We're not going to stop it by listening to experts.”

That’s it, exactly. Trump’s campaign functioned as a middle finger to all the people who said they knew better — doctors, lawyers, prosecutors, public health officials, the media, the political establishment, economists and on and on.

Why would anyone think that a candidate who ran expressly against experts — and expertise more broadly — would surround himself as president with people who the establishment likes and trusts?

Trump views the establishment as the problem. And the only solution is to pick people willing to blow it up and start anew.

Kennedy (and Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth) all fit that mold. And my bet is there will be more like them to come.

2. Gov. Kamala?

I’ve made no secret of my skepticism that Vice President Kamala Harris will be in the mix as a national candidate for Democrats in 2028.

But, what if she heads back to California to run in the open seat governor’s race there in 2026? Well, that’s something else entirely.

A question included in a recent poll done by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies shows that “Governor Harris” could, actually, be a thing.

A majority of Democrats said they would be “very likely” to consider Harris as a gubernatorial candidate. Now, considering her as candidate is not the same thing as committing to vote for her. But, it’s a start.

“If Vice President Harris were to run, she would have an important advantage as she is by far the best known of the potential candidates,” said poll co-director Eric Schickler.

In a test of the field without Harris, none of the potential (or announced) candidates stood out. Former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter took 13% to 12% for Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and 11% for GOP state Sen. Brian Dahle. Three Democrats each took 7% — Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.

While the field remains very much in flux, what we know is that Gov. Gavin Newsom is term limited out in 2026. By that time, Democrats will have held the governor’s office for the past 16 years — following 7 years of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Harris has yet to speak publicly about much of anything — including her political future — since her loss 9 days ago to Trump. But at age 60, she is plenty young enough to restart her political career back where it all began.

3. And the worst candidate of 2024 is…

There were a lot of bad candidates in this election. Which makes choosing just one as the worst is TOUGH. But that’s why you pay me the big bucks!

In a video on my YouTube channel today, I unveiled my pick. Scroll down to find out who it is!

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“Are you really going to bother me while I’m trying to eat lunch.” — House Ethics committee member Michelle Fischbach when asked about releasing the committee’s report on Matt Gaetz. Good times. Gooooood times.

ONE GOOD CHART

This map — and the broader piece it’s taken from by J. Miles Coleman — attempts to answer a question I am struggling with: How did so many Democratic Senate candidates win in states that Donald Trump carried?

SONG OF THE DAY

I have NO idea how I didn’t know about the band American Aquarium until this week. Feels like a major blind spot in my music knowledge. Well, at least I found them — finally! The new album is called “The Fear of Standing Still” and this is my favorite song off of it: “The Curse of Growing Old.”

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