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According to a former Donald Trump White House official, anyone believing the president-elect will allow GOP lawmakers to block any of his cabinet nominees will be sorely surprised.

In an analysis of how Trump is pressing forward with a slate of highly controversial cabinet nominees, the New York Times' Peter Baker wrote that political observers are stunned by his plan to follow through on his promise to "shatter the institutions of Washington as no incoming president has in his lifetime."

Donald Trump is struggling with a "crucial" decision involving his transition, a Washington Post reporter said on Saturday.

Economics reporter Jeff Stein took to social media over the weekend to spill about the details of what he called a "protracted standoff" involving a potential Trump team nominee.

During an appearance on MSNBC's "The Weekend," a former Republican member of the House agreed with ex-RNC chair Michael Steele's assessment of Donald Trump's cabinet picks as a "menagerie of misfits" and raised a warning about what is to come.

With the entire panel reacting to the president-elect's choices –– running from scandal-plagued Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to unqualified Fox News personality Pete Hegseth –– host Steele took the lead with guest ex-Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL).

Donald Trump's presidential transition team was blindsided by reports that Fox News host Pete Hegseth had been accused of sexual misconduct — and is now reportedly considering their options over his nomination to head the Pentagon.

Trump nominated Hegseth for secretary of defense this week, but The Washington Post reported that the team is now "weighing the future" of the nomination.

Donald Trump's political career has closely tracked the trajectories of autocratic leaders Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin, whose rise to power offer a "chillingly clear" picture of where his second term could lead, according to historians.

The former president and his supporters are tremendously hostile to civic institutions like the judiciary, the media, universities, many nonprofits and even some religious groups, and Trump will likely follow the lead of those autocratic leaders in Hungary and Russia by sidelining experts, regulators and other civil servants, wrote New York Times columnist M. Gessen.

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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