Obama’s former DHS secretary Jeh Johnson defended the president-elect of Donald Trump nominations of Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth for key national security roles.

Trump is making headlines this week with cabinet picks that are causing outrage. Selection of former congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to be Trump’s attorney general was fulfilled with almost universal Wednesday I shock.

This selection comes as Trump he chose Host of Fox News Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) as the nominee for director of national intelligence.

On Thursday edition of CNN News CentralJohnson ripped the Gaetz pick as an absurd selection that he initially thought was “a Russian hoax.”

But he defended Gabbard’s choice on the grounds that “skepticism” can be healthy in a DNI and said he would give Trump the “benefit of the doubt” on Hegseth’s nomination. praising the Fox News host as “well-educated, obviously intelligent”:

SARA SIDNER: Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, I mean she oversees all the intelligence agencies, I think 18 of them.

She spread Russian propaganda. She disputed reports of whether President Assad used chemical weapons, which reports said he certainly did. And now he is in this position of potentially running the top intelligence agency of all intelligence agencies. What does that mean, what does that mean? For you?

SEC. JEH JOHNSON: Well, I’m going to surprise you a little bit. I don’t think it’s an absolute requirement that the director of national intelligence be someone from the intelligence community.

I also think that sometimes it’s a good thing to be skeptical about the intelligence we’re given. Those of us who are in a position to make serious decisions, the decision makers.

I received information that I was skeptical about and asked myself the hard questions. I asked to speak directly to the informants who wrote the report.

So being skeptical of what the intelligence community produces can be a good thing. And I’m thinking about the intelligence that led to the Iraq war, for example.

But again, I think the Senate has a constitutional obligation to advise and grant this nomination and to scrutinize it.

SARA SIDNER: Let me ask you about another controversial choice, a Fox anchor, Pete Hegseth. He served in the Army National Guard, but is now a candidate for secretary of defense. And, you know, he said a few things.

He has lobbied for people who are accused of war crimes in Afghanistan. He recently said that women don’t think they belong in combat roles. But you said you’d give him the benefit of the doubt. Why?

SEC. JEH JOHNSON: I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. On, on, on. At least about the nomination at this point.

Because here is someone who was well educated, obviously intelligent, was in financial services, was in the Wall Street community for a while, could have made a lot of money and chose to leave that dressed in the uniform of our country and see fight

So I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt for that reason. With all due respect, being a cable news host does not necessarily qualify you to be Secretary of Defense.

SARA SIDNER: Definitely not.

SEC. JEH JOHNSON: And again, this is a nomination where the Senate has a duty to look at the things that he said, the positions that he took, the positions that he took on those that were found responsible for war crimes. .

You know, one of the reasons that our U.S. military and I have worked alongside the U.S. military at the Pentagon for years, one of the reasons why it’s the largest and most powerful military on earth is not just because of our raw power, but also because of the dedication of the military to the rule of law, the dedication to follow the rules.

Watch above via CNN News Central.

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