Thursday, December 08, 2016

Trump's cabinet: breaking all the rules

Including some rules of Trump's.


This morning's Vox Sentences saves me a lot of linkage work.
  • The most orthodox, from a Republican standpoint, is Trump's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency: Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who hates pretty much everything the EPA has done for the past eight years. [Vox / Brad Plumer]
  • Trump's pick for the Small Business Administration, likewise, is a big GOP donor and former Senate candidate. Of course, she's also the co-founder and former CEO of the pro wrestling association WWE, which Trump was affiliated with for a long time, so it seems a little weird. [Reuters / Steve Holland]
  • Conversely, it seems totally reasonable that Trump would nominate Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad to serve as his ambassador to China ... until you realize Branstad wants closer ties with China and Trump has all but promised them a trade war. [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]
  • (The conflict will presumably be up to Trump's as-yet-unnamed secretary of state to resolve — and, yeah, naming ambassadors before a secretary of state is kind of weird in its own right.) [Politico / Louis Nelson]
  • And then there's retired Gen. John F. Kelly, former head of US Southern Command, who has not officially been confirmed as Trump's secretary of the Department of Homeland Security but has been reported as the pick so widely that it's basically official. [Military Times / Andrew deGrandpre]
  • Kelly, like the other ex-generals in Trump's Cabinet, has a reputation as a tough talker. But he doesn't appear to see the problems facing the US as the sort of thing that can be, ahem, walled off — which could create conflicts within Trumpworld. [Vox / Dara Lind]
  • (Trump's rumored deputy homeland security secretary, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, is a much more orthodox immigration hawk.) [Washington Examiner / Gabby Morrongiello]
  • And in case you're wondering, picking three ex-generals for Cabinet-levels positions where they're supposed to represent the civilian face of national security is definitely not normal. [TPM / Josh Marshall]

They didn't mention Tom Price for HHS or Ben Carson for HUD, but hey, it's been a busy week for all of us.  These new picks are almost capable of eclipsing his first ones, detailed last week here.


In another indication that Trump really does not care who he pisses off, Mitt Romney has indeed moved to the top of the pile for secretary of state.  Which beats the hell out of Rudy Guiliani and David Petreaus, I guess.

Just documenting the atrocities is hard work.

Update: Let's add fast-food magnate and now Labor Secretary-designate Andrew Puzder, who wants to replace all his workers with robots. And via Public Citizen...

1 comment:

Gadfly said...

More generals for the generals' cabinet:
1. Biggus Dickus for Secretary of State. If not him, Gen. Jack D. Ripper
2. General Tso for what, FDA?
3. Gen. Phil Sheridan, of infamous mal mot, to run the Bureau of Indian Affairs ... and I may be off to blog.