Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador and Republican presidential hopeful, criticized two of Donald Trump’s cabinet picks, calling his choice for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, “a Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathizer” and Robert F Kennedy Jr, tapped for health secretary, a “liberal Democrat” with no background in relevant policy.

“So now she’s defended Russia, she’s defended Syria, she’s defended Iran, and she’s defended China,” Haley said of Gabbard on her SiriusXM radio show on Wednesday. “No, she has not denounced any of these views. None of them. She hasn’t taken one of them back.

“This is not a place for a Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathizer,” Haley continued, adding that the director of national intelligence “has to analyze real threats” to US security.

Gabbard, 43, is a former progressive congresswoman who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 but who has since become a Republican.

Kennedy, 70 and a scion of a famous political family turned vaccine conspiracy theorist, ran for the Democratic nomination this year before switching to run as an independent and then dropping out to back Trump.

Haley said: “He’s a liberal Democrat, environmental attorney, trial lawyer who will now be overseeing 25% of our federal budget and has no background in healthcare. Some of you may think RFK is cool, some of you may like that he questions what’s in our food and what’s in our vaccines, but we don’t know, when he is given reins to an agency, what decisions he’s going to make behind the scenes.”

Haley was governor of South Carolina before becoming UN ambassador in Trump’s first administration, resigning in 2018. This year, she ran second to Trump in the Republican presidential primary – a race in which she called her opponent “unhinged”, “diminished”, “confused” and not “mentally fit”, and said voting him into office would be “like suicide for our country”.

Still, after Trump won the Republican nomination, Haley endorsed him. No job offer has been forthcoming.

Trump has moved quickly to make cabinet picks. The selections of Gabbard and Kennedy have prompted uproar similar to that stoked by his choice of the far-right congressman Matt Gaetz for attorney general and the Fox News host Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense.

Kennedy’s opposition to vaccines, calls for deflouridization of drinking water and other conspiracy theory-laced positions have prompted widespread alarm.

Gabbard’s foreign policy positions have long generated controversy. In 2022, she endorsed a Russian claim that its invasion of Ukraine was justified by the existence of US-funded laboratories on Ukrainian soil, supposedly creating bioweapons for use against Russia. Such labs actually work to stop the creation of bioweapons. Gabbard has said she was calling for such labs to be protected. But other supportive comments about Russia have attracted huge controversy.

On Wednesday, Haley said: “After Russia invaded Ukraine, Tulsi Gabbard literally blamed Nato, our western alliance that’s responsible for countering Russia. She blamed Nato for the attack on Ukraine, and the Russians and the Chinese echoed her talking points and her interviews on Russian and Chinese television.”

Gabbard has also attracted criticism regarding meetings with Bashar al-Assad, the autocratic Syrian president accused of war crimes against his own people. Gabbard has said: “I think we should be ready to meet with anyone if there’s a chance it can help bring about an end to this war, which is causing the Syrian people so much suffering.” She has also accused the US of supporting terrorists in Syria.

While still a Democrat, Gabbard supported the Iran nuclear deal, which the US left during Trump’s first term, and said the US should avoid a trade war with China, a central Trump aim.

Trump’s pick of Gabbard has generated widespread criticism, not least in light of a long-running spat with leading Democrats including Hillary Clinton over whether the former congresswoman might be seen as a “Russian asset”.

Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer now a Democratic congresswoman from Virginia, said: “This is a matter of national security. Someone who has aligned herself with Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad and trafficked in Russian-backed conspiracy theories is an unsuitable and potentially dangerous selection.”

Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, said: “You really want her to have all the secrets of the United States and our defense intelligence agencies when she has so clearly been in Putin’s pocket?”

Anti-Trump rightwingers also spoke out. John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser in his first term, said: “The idea that somehow she would be put in charge of this critical function should be giving our adversaries in Moscow and Beijing a lot of relief.”

Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman, published a column with a blunt headline: “I Served With Tulsi Gabbard and Yikes.”

Even the Murdoch-owned New York Post, a pro-Trump paper, said the president-elect should ditch Gabbard (and Gaetz), its editorial board calling her “dreadful” and a “distracting chaos agent”.

In contrast, Russian media has spoken glowingly of Gabbard, one paper noting that Ukrainians consider her “an agent of the Russian state” and saying: “The CIA and the FBI are trembling.”