Takeaways from a wild day of confirmation hearings

WASHINGTON (AP) — Conspiracy theories about vaccines. Secret meetings with dictators. An enemies list.

President Donald Trump’ s most controversial Cabinet nominees — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel — flooded the zone Thursday in back-to-back-to-back confirmation hearings that were like nothing the Senate has seen in modern memory.

The onslaught of claims, promises and testy exchanges did not occur in a political vacuum. The whirlwind day — Day 10 of the new White House — all unfolded as Trump himself was ranting about how diversity hiring caused the tragic airplane-and-helicopter crash outside Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport.

And it capped a tumultuous week after the White House abruptly halted federal funding for programs Americans rely on nationwide, under guidance from Trump’s budget pick Russ Vought, only to reverse course amid a public revolt.

“The American people did not vote for…