Some of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks struggled to answer basic questions during their Senate confirmation hearings this week. There was litany of obfuscation and waffling across the board,

Thursday’s trio of confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees put the focus squarely on Trump’s domestic and economic agenda that will dominate the debates on Capitol Hill this year.

President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees for the Department of Justice, State Department and more sat for Senate confirmation hearings throughout the day Wednesday.

Wealthy hedge fund executive Scott Bessent – whose confirmation hearing for treasury secretary is slated for Thursday – has hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and owns property from North Dakota to the Bahamas.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Homeland Security, speaks with Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for her confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Since launching in 2021, America First Policy Institute has been known colloquially around Washington, D.C., as Donald Trump's "Cabinet in waiting."

Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem will all sit at witness tables in Senate confirmation hearings this week.

Democrats scorned Pam Bondi as a threat to democracy. Now, many Senate Democrats are taking a softer stance towards President-elect Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, who is on a glidepath to becoming the next attorney general.

The Cabinet pick with the lowest chances of being selected, according to Polymarket betters, is former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who is Trump's pick to be the Director of National Intelligence. Republican Representative Michael McCaul of Texas called the selection " baffling ."

Notably, Gabbard questioned the US intelligence community’s assessments that Assad was behind a deadly chlorine gas attack the same year she met with the Syrian strongman, to which Trump said at the time: “There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons.”

Thirteen billionaires and ten individuals from television or the entertainment industry will be part of Donald Trump's cabinet, which will be sworn in on Monday, January 20. The political circle of the 47th President of the United States will be one of the most unconventional in history.