Battenfeld: Americans support Trump’s choice

President-elect Donald Trump has rocked the boat and rattled critics with his controversial transition decisions and campaign promises, but most Americans believe that’s exactly what he should do.

Nearly 6 in 10 American adults approve of Trump’s handling of his transition, according to a CBS/YouGov poll, which came as a shock to the mainstream media and Democrats who had been dismissive of the transition.

While Trump was forced to withdraw his nominee for attorney general, former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, and other appointees came under attack, that has not dimmed public opinion of the transition, polling showed.

The vast majority of Americans say they support his Cabinet nominees, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth. And 57 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s plan to carry out mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

The poll also found strong partisan divisions in how Trump’s upcoming term is perceived. A whopping 95 percent of Republicans feel optimistic or excited about a second Trump term, while only 15 percent of Democrats feel the same.

The poll shows that while officials in Washington may be shocked by some of Trump’s decisions, the public is generally satisfied with them.

The former president has previously shown that he likes the “shock and awe” strategy of identifying unorthodox elected officials who are loyal to his agenda. That’s the case with Hegseth, the Fox News contributor Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, who is under scrutiny for a 2017 sexual encounter that police were investigating.

No charges were filed and Hegseth maintains the encounter was consensual. He paid compensation to the woman involved to avoid legal action.

There is no indication that Trump intends to revoke his nomination to head the Department of Defense.

“It’s very simple,” Hegseth said while speaking to the media last week. “The case was fully investigated and I was completely acquitted. And I’ll leave it at that.”

Trump also selected several loyalists, including Kennedy, the son of the slain Robert F. Kennedy, to lead the nation’s federal health agencies, in a move that shocked the mainstream medical community.

The New York Times reported that “some doctors and scientists are preparing for the destruction of public health agencies, the loss of scientific knowledge and the infiltration of politics into an area once reserved for scientists. The result, they fear, could be worse health outcomes, more preventable deaths and a reduced ability to respond to looming health threats such as the next pandemic.”

But polls show most Americans welcome unorthodox changes to business as usual and are not opposed to Kennedy leading the Department of Health and Human Services.

Joe Battenfeld is a veteran political commentator and multimedia reporter for the Boston Herald.