Former President Bill Clinton reacted to Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks in a new interview, suggesting the president-elect has put loyalty above all else.

“We have to listen to Donald Trump. He’s been very forthright about how to use the law. He’s interested in people who are loyal to him 100% of the time, no matter what the issue, no matter what the facts, no matter who gets hurt,” the Democrat told Jonathan Capehart in an interview that aired on MSNBC over the weekend.

He wants people who just say yes and then get after it, first,” he said. “Second, he believes that his supporters have no confidence whatever in the federal government. And Lord knows he’s done everything he could to destroy that confidence. And he believes he can just say, well, I appointed these people that are smart and they’re going to shake things up.”

Clinton argued that in “demonising all establishments and all people who wear a tie — like you and me, to work — and have a good education, we are breaking down the legitimacy of not only people who may be too sanctimonious and too set in their ways in the past, but also people who actually know things that are very important for us today and very important for our continued growth and prosperity and harmony.”

Trump has caused alarm and incredulity with many of his Cabinet picks, whose backgrounds show he has prioritised loyalty over experience and qualifications.

They include now-former Fox News host Pete Hegseth for secretary of defence, ex-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for national intelligence director, anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health secretary and World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon to lead the Education Department.

“Politics is the only business in which you can prove your authenticity by not knowing anything,” Clinton said in the interview. “And I think that’s a problem, and we’ll pay for it once we get over it.”