West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice declined to comment Friday on whether he supports President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial picks for cabinet secretaries. (Screenshot from Gov. Jim Justice’s briefing)
West Virginia Gov. and Senator-elect Jim Justice declined to comment Friday on whether he supports President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial picks for cabinet secretaries.
Trump on Thursday announced his nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic and critic of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to lead the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
He’s also nominated Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to be attorney general and Fox News host Pete Hegseth, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to be secretary of defense, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem to head the state Department of Homeland Security, former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state.
Gaetz was the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation that concluded in 2023, when the government did not press charges. Hegseth was reportedly investigated in 2017 over an alleged sexual assault at a California hotel.
Trump’s nominations are subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
“I think it’s premature for me to comment [on the nominations],” Justice said during his regular administrative briefing Friday morning. “Naturally I’m really supportive of President Trump and I’m sure that his folks are really evaluating, vetting whatever you want to call it the appointments and everything and from that standpoint, we’ll do the same thing in the Senate. I’ll do the same thing.”
West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito told reporters Thursday she was willing to consider Trump’s nominations of Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and Hegseth as defense secretary.
Justice on Friday emphasized that Trump needs people in his cabinet that he can count on and who are loyal to him.
“They’ll make mistakes,” Trump said. “But at the end of the day if he’s got the right team, a team that he can really work with and everything and really work well with, it’ll end up a better thing for all of us.”
Justice also said it would be “way, way, way premature” to comment on how he would vote should Trump again attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a monumental health care law by which more than 200,000 West Virginians get their health insurance.
Trump tried to repeal the health care law during his first term. Trump and Republican leaders have sent mixed messages about whether they would push this term to repeal the law.
“Let’s just take some deep breaths and just wait and see what really does come,” Justice said.
Justice has for years called Trump a close friend. He’s taken part in hunting trips with the Trump family and he campaigned for him prior to the election. Justice said Friday he believes Trump will be able to “put the country on the right path.”
“What you can expect from me is irregardless to whom it may be, I’m going to be objective and I’m going to be fair, and I’m going to try with all in me at all times to protect the people of the great state of West Virginia,” Justice said.
Also during the briefing, Justice expressed frustration over the state high school football playoffs being delayed at least a week while the state Supreme Court decides what to do about legal challenges from county school systems over reclassifications of schools prior to the end of football season.
Justice said the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activity Commission “needs to get their act together.”
“The net net of the whole thing is we need unbelievable transparency, but we’ve got to have people that are going to stand up and say ‘these are the guidelines. This is what we have put together and these are the guidelines and this is what we’re going to do.’” Justice said.
In other business, Justice lifted a statewide burning ban he issued earlier this month because of drought conditions that led to increased risk of forest fires.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.