Trump’s Picks Must Be Confirmed Quickly
Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., emphasized on Newsmax Friday the urgency of confirming President-elect Donald Trump’s appointments swiftly to ensure the safety of Americans.
“It is the government’s responsibility to keep our citizens safe and secure — not continue to waste time, waste effort, waste money, and in the end, accomplish nothing,” Bergman stated on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.”
He criticized the focus of lawmakers over the past four years, arguing that attention has been diverted to what he described as “hormonally driven issues.”
“That happens because of one reason: no leadership in the White House,” Bergman said. “Whoever is in the president’s seat has responsibility for all the secretaries and all the different agencies.”
According to Bergman, the Biden administration failed to prioritize safety and security, but he asserted that Trump is appointing new leadership to refocus government agencies and improve coordination on these matters.
His remarks follow the FBI’s announcement that Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, who carried out an attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, had not been under prior surveillance.
The FBI investigation revealed that before the attack, Jabbar had traveled from Houston to New Orleans and posted several videos on Facebook expressing support for ISIS.
Bergman highlighted the dual nature of the internet, saying, “There’s this one thing that most people use for good, and that’s called the internet. [Most] of us, we use it every day for good. But the violent extremist organizations use it for bad. They use it to recruit, train, and execute missions of different sorts.”
He stressed that the federal government has the capability to track and identify individuals like Jabbar but argued that such efforts had been lacking.
“We haven’t used it over the last four years,” Bergman said. “The Biden administration has been focused on DEI, wokism, whatever you want to call it, everything except meritocracy to get the right people in the right places.”
He also criticized the administration for not fostering better coordination among agencies responsible for internet security and related matters.