• Home
  • Blog
  • Contact
The Screaming Moderate

Now the Cabinet watch begins

11/10/2016

0 Comments

 
Focus now will be on who President-elect Trump (get used to it) nominates to his cabinet. Oh, and for that open Supreme Court slot that Merrick Garland now will never fill.

These appointments will send signals as to how Trump will govern.  

Granted, some scary names and jobs have been rumored. Many of those folks – Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, and Steve Bannon – deserve consideration based on their loyalty and dedication to the candidate. To the victor go the spoils, as they say. A test, though, will be to see where the president-elect places his loyalists.

Let’s just say, the cable news channels – while they do in-house postmortems on their conduct in this election – will have plenty of fodder to continue to get nearly as good ratings and keep those high-paid talking heads in fancy clothes for a while.

Seriously, though, Gingrich would be a disaster at State. Why? Well, for many reasons but one is that we saw his temperament as Speaker of the House – throwing a hissy fit when President Clinton forced him to get on Air Force One from the back side, pardon the reference. You can’t get your knickers in a twist over such slights if you’re the county’s top diplomat. You will be slighted early and often.

Giuliani as attorney general, well, we’ve seen how he holds grudges and that’s not the temperament you want at Justice. He is a nasty man, to steal a phrase and change the gender.

With Christie a possibility to be indicted over Bridge-gate, well, in a normal administration let’s just say you wouldn’t want him under oath at a confirmation hearing. Nor, actually, should he want to be under oath there even with a GOP-dominated Senate because Democratic senators get to question him too.

Obviously, when it comes to the crowd that has surrounded Donald Trump in his campaign, “temperament” will be the most repeated word for a while.

We will be able to judge Mr. Trump on his choices for his Cabinet. He does have some good possibilities. Steven Hadley, who was President George W. Bush’s national security advisor, is a sane, level-headed expert and would be a good choice for State. He’s been in that world before, knows many of the world’s players and performed well. Hadley also kept his head low during the campaign and made no political waves, showing his skills as a diplomat!

Rumors abound, too, about folks being in the Cabinet such as Ben Carson or Sarah Palin. Get used to it. They likely will end up there. You may not like, I’m sure, Palin in a Cabinet post but let’s just say that in a Trump Cabinet, I doubt she’ll get away with too much since the boss will prefer to control the headlines.

For months Trump has talked about potentially naming Carl Ichan, well known corporate raider, to Treasury. Personally, I don’t think that will happen but we’ll see.

I won’t be surprised either to see wrestling mogul Linda McMahon either named to the Cabinet (my guess is Commerce) or to an ambassadorship. She and her husband are long-time friends of Trump (who appeared on their WWE shows – for a big fee I’m told, a fee that went to the Trump Foundation, in fact, and was its largest donation). Mrs. McMahon ran for the Senate in Connecticut so has had political aspirations and is very smart.

Its key to watch who he puts at Treasury, State and Defense. That will tell a lot about him as a president. And also for White House chief of staff. Rumors are focusing on Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus and he could do worse since Priebus knows Washington, has TV experience and is pals with Speaker and fellow Wisconsinite Paul Ryan, which would go a long way to helping work with the Congress.

Another rumored candidate is his first campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a real Trump loyalist but who demonstrated little ability to manage a campaign, let alone an administration. He would be, to use an oft-used Trump adjective, a disaster.

Plus Priebus now has months of experience dealing directly with Trump on the campaign and seeing how he operates and, how he takes advice. Priebus supposedly told Trump the truth and kept his mouth shut on it during the campaign, a good trait for a chief of staff.


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

     
    Follow @bjaycooper

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

powered by bjaycooper.com