Trump’s Cabinet and What it Means For The US
Skye Warner
A president’s first official task, apart from accepting the victory, is nominating his cabinet members. It’s the nation’s first look at who the president thinks is qualified and who the president wants to greenlight their policies. It’s also a look at what a president values. Is their cabinet all-male? All-white? What’s their background? Are they loyalists, or will they be able to tell the president no? Finally, the people that the president chooses will display his own values. Are they choosing a war hawk or dove for the Secretary of Defense? Are they choosing a treehugger or Shell’s CEO for the Secretary of Energy? Is their UN Ambassador isolationist or multilateralist? All of these people will play an important role in carrying out the president’s policies, and it’s a look into what the president is likely to do down the road.
As of the time of writing, president-elect Donald Trump has nominated 12 Cabinet picks that require Senate nomination. Of those picks, all appear to be chosen on the basis of loyalty, not experience, and many appear to be highly unqualified for this role(although, to its credit, it’s a fairly diverse cabinet.) He’s even created a branch named after a literal namecoin DOGE- the Department of Government Efficiency. Let’s run through my highlights of the picks.
Matthew Gaetz - Attorney General. Currently being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for sexual assault, and at present, the House Speaker - Mike Johnson - is blocking the results of the investigation.
Pete Hegseth - Defense. Main experience is as a TV news anchor, although he served in the military as a general. Has been accused of sexual assault.
Kristi Noem - Homeland Security. You might know her as the governor of South Dakota, who shot her dog and defended it on live television.
Tulsi Gabbard - Director of National Intelligence. She’s met diplomatically with Assad, a Syrian terrorist group, and Russia confirmed that it interfered in the election to help her win re-election.
Lee Zeldin - EPA Administrator. Earned a 14% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters, voted against clean water/air legislation over a dozen times.
RFK Jr - Secretary of Health and Human Services. Openly anti-vaccine, has no medical degree, and promotes conspiracy theories around clean water and AIDS.
DOGE - the Department of Governmental Efficiency, led by Vivek Ramsawany and Elon Musk. Ramsawany was a former presidential contender, and Musk is the richest man alive and one of Trump’s closest allies. They plan to slash the deficit by $2 trillion in 4 years, a monumental feat that Musk admits will require some squeezing.
Trump tweeted this five days after Election Day: “Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments”. His justification was that we needed to fill the roles quickly; however, once his appointments started rolling in, the real reason became clear. Many Senate Republicans were against his appointments, notably Matt Gaetz as Attorney General and Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Recess appointments would allow the president to place these people in the cabinet regardless of whether the Senate votes to approve it or not. It’s a blatant misuse of executive power, and it was exercised only 5 days into his term. Now, we must ask ourselves- did we seriously just elect a president that is trying to subvert Congress into putting Matt Gaetz into the Cabinet? Is this what our life will look like for the next four years? It’ll be a wild ride, but the man won the popular vote. America, you wanted this. Good luck.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/us/politics/trump-administration-cabinet-appointees.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/us/politics/marco-rubio-trump-secretary-of-state.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/12/us/politics/pete-hegseth-defense-secretary-trump.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/12/us/politics/kristi-noem-homeland-security-secretary-trump.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/11/us/politics/trump-stefanik-un-ambassador.html