'Tearing the government to pieces': Morning Joe panel raises alarm over Trump's new moves

Summing up Donald Trump's cabinet picks so far, former Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass and journalist John Heilemann agreed that there is no doubt that the president-elect is rushing headlong and heedlessly into tearing apart America's institutions.

With both appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," host Jonathan Lemire asked Haass what to make of the plans to deploy anti-vax conspiracist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

"There's questions of judgment and there are questions about managerial competence," Hass began. "These are big jobs, large numbers of agencies, large numbers of people, massive budgets. The idea that someone like Kennedy could have this job – talk about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse."

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"He's supposed to save lives, if he actually were to implement some of his policies people would die," he continued. "Young people, particularly young people, because they wouldn't get vaccinated. The idea you put a conspiracy theorist in charge of this essential department? We could go on and on."

"This is trolling the United States. What's missing from this it's not just a question of competence and judgment but seriousness," he added.

Heilemann chimed in, "I don't think you understand the nature of the project. The nature of the project is to destroy the government. The framework that we all have, which is these very important agencies and they do important work and you need to make them better, why aren't we taking that seriously. It was weakened in the Trump administration in 2017 when Steve Bannon said the thing about our goal is the deconstruction of the administrative state."

"That is what they're doing now, this is about tearing the government to pieces," he warned. "That's the goal."

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