Headlines are abuzz with speculations about President-elect Donald Trump’s likely Cabinet selections in an administration that has signaled it will demand loyalty, competence, and determination. For his second term, Trump is building a team to implement a bold agenda that he claims will target an inefficient and entrenched bureaucracy, taxes, the economy, immigration, and health. The 47th president-in-waiting says he was betrayed by his own naivete in his first term and that he won’t be fooled again.
Orange Man Back
Left-leaning pundits are hopping between conspiracy theories about Project 2025, the termination of abortion access, mass deportations, and the fate of Gaza. Claims that the renewed presidency of Donald Trump will be marked by the incarceration of his political opponents and a neo-fascist takeover of the nation have subsided into questions about who Trump will bring into his Cabinet and what they will do. The incessant din of ad hominem attacks labeling Trump a felon, rapist, tyrant, demented villain, or some combination of the above has calmed, much like the failed lawfare that likely contributed to the Donald’s success this election cycle. In the post-election pause, one can almost hear a mainstream media pin drop. Run dry of empty slurs and propaganda, Kamala-stumping media hosts were compelled to consider policy issues and actually look into who Trump will hire and what his administration will try to accomplish.
It is called journalism, and the Fourth Estate’s amnesia about what that “feels” like is wearing off as it speculates on what a non-Nazi, fiscally driven, Kennedy-Gabbard-Ramaswamy-Trump administration will look like and achieve. This is a refreshing turnaround from an election season in which one candidate’s policies were derided or ignored while the other ran on “vibes” with little policy or substance. Donald Trump has been selecting his transition team for months, and he is not fooling around about his second term. This is no déjà vu.
In his first term, President Trump quickly filled Cabinet positions in what he now says was a mistaken trust that will not be repeated. This time, he named Susie Wiles as the nation’s first-ever female White House chief of staff merely two days after his epic 2024 win, blunting feminist howls of misogyny (ignoring that in his first term, he appointed Elaine Chao to serve as Secretary of Transportation, the first-ever Asian woman to lead a federal department.)
Trump Picks DC Outsiders
It is clear that Donald Trump is steering away from the Washinton establishment in his quest to bring fresh blood into the federal government for a proper swamp-draining. Terrors over a “Project 2025” overhaul hint at the reversal of Chevron deference by the Loper Bright Supreme Court decision, which essentially found that Congress was not doing its job when delegating overly broad authority to administrative agencies. Holding bureaucrats accountable to the American people and their elected incoming administration used to be considered a good thing – it’s back in vogue.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Perhaps most demonstrative of Trump’s pro-active Cabinet shift is the controversial Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., shunned and slandered by a Democratic Party establishment, propelled into the arms of a MAGA crowd like the partisan prodigal son. Kennedy went full MAHA, using the alliance to target toxic foods, condemn agricultural practices that spew forever chemicals, and raise questions about the overall health decline in Americans and their children. Donald Trump has publicly affirmed that Kennedy will be at the table, likely at Health and Human Services, to shake up the undue influence of pharmaceutical companies there. These plans clearly resonated with voters.
A Telling Mandate
Normally, Donald Trump and his team would have to tread carefully due to the need for Senate approval of his top cabinet and agency selections, but a strong national down-ticket surge has provided the incoming administration with less congressional resistance.
Americans have been told Donald Trump will institute a national ban on abortion despite his longstanding position – likely to be maintained if the GOP is to remain credible with voters – that he defers to states’ rights. Putin has already signaled an interest in peace negotiations, a great disappointment to Kamala backers Alberto Gonzalez and Dick Cheney, and certainly not the World War III forecast by many media outlets. Might Trump also quell the conflict in the Middle East and usher in peace for Gaza, unrestrained by the split loyalties of the Biden/Harris Democrats?
As President-elect Trump recruits his second-term dream team, the American majority who provided him this mandate watch for change. The qualifications and integrity – including loyalty to the Constitution and the incoming POTUS – reflected by these picks will determine whether the broad agenda promised to voters can be implemented. Thus far, Donald Trump’s potential Cabinet picks look downright multi-cultural. Americans have given him a strong license to forge a decisive path with a commanding team driven by clear, shared goals. If the effort succeeds, JD Vance may be mulling his own cabinet selections in 2028
