‘He Is Drunk on Power’: Ex-Trump WH Aide Laughs Off Suggestion Trump Is Playing ‘4-D Chess’ With Shock Cabinet Picks

Sarah Matthews, who worked as a deputy press secretary during the first Trump administration, laughed off claims Friday that her former boss had nominated controversial figures in an elaborate game Friday during an interview with MSNBC.

Matthews joined network host Chris Jansing to discuss President-elect Donald Trump’s nominations of controversial people to top government posts.

This week, Trump announced he would nominate Matt Gaetz to run the Justice Department and would tap Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Those and other announcements resulted in bipartisan pushback and questions about whether Trump’s picks could make it through the Senate.

On Chris Jansing Reports, the host asked Matthews about Trump possibly playing an elaborate game.

“So if you have multiple controversial nominees, could this be a deflection?” Jansing asked. “Again, based on the time you spent with Donald Trump and in his orbit, is that the kind of strategizing you think he might do?” Matthews replied:

I think it’s kind of hilarious, all this discourse out there about Donald Trump is playing 4-D chess. He’s putting up a crazy nominee, knowing that it will fail. So that way, then he can put up his second choice, and the Senate will have no choice but to confirm them. That’s not what’s happening. He knows that he is drunk on power right now because he feels like he was given a mandate by winning the popular vote.

He has control of both chambers of Congress, and he doesn’t have to worry about running for reelection. So, in this term, he wants to put up the people that he wants. So it is not some 4-D game of chess that he’s playing of trying to put out a sacrificial lamb like a Matt Gaetz for AG.

Matthews concluded she believed a GOP-run Senate would push through many of Trump’s cabinet picks but predicted Gaetz would not be confirmed.

Watch above via MSNBC.