'BTK hires': Ex-GOP lawmaker compares Trump's Cabinet nominees to serial killers
A former Virginia Republican congressman used a drastic comparison to anyone thinking of touting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s diverse opinions — comparing it to saying Jeffrey Dahmer had "cuisine differences."
Denver Riggleman, who served a term in Congress from 2019-2021 before losing the GOP nomination in 2020 and subsequently leaving the Republican Party, joined CNN's "NewsNight" on Wednesday night to discuss President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet picks.
Among them is Kennedy, who has been nominated to head Trump's Health and Human Services despite promoting an array of public health-related conspiracy theories, including falsely claiming vaccines cause autism and that added fluoride into the water supply is linked to IQ loss and bone cancer. He has also falsely claimed the coronavirus is "targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese."
His nomination drew scorn from Riggleman, who attacked Kennedy's defenders.
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"Saying, 'RFK Jr. has diversity of thought' I think is like saying, 'Jeffrey Dahmer had cuisine differences.' I mean it's ridiculous," he said. "I think if sanity and diversity of thought are synonyms now, that's where we're at."
Dahmer was a serial killer who killed and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, and gained fame for engaging in necrophilia and cannibalism with his victims.
Riggleman said he wasn't surprised by Kennedy's nomination because Trump "ran all the competent people out of his last administration" and is now selecting loyalists. He added that Cabinet nominees have resumes that show his top qualification is loyalty, and he fears people like Marine Corps four his of defense from 2017 to 2019.
"People that were up there and said, 'Hey, this is the s--- that's going on right now and there's something we gotta do about it," he said.
Riggleman concluded that Trump isn't looking for "DEI hires" — "It's BTK hires."
BTK was a nickname that serial killer Dennis Rader gave himself, an acronym for "Bind, Torture, Kill." He killed 10 people between 1974 and 1991.