12 thoughts about the Trump Cabinet

What to make of the full line-up.

After a flurry of Friday night announcements, President-elect Trump has unveiled his nominees for all 15 Cabinet posts. Here, in no particular order, are some thoughts:

#1: That was fast. By this point in November 2016, Trump had named exactly two Cabinet secretaries — and same for Joe Biden by this point in November 2020. There are two possible ways to understand this record-breaking speed. One is that it is proof of how prepared Trump and his team were for the transition, after several of his allies spent years making plans for their potential return to the White House (compared to 2016, when Trump was forced to scramble after throwing away Chris Christie’s binders).

The other explanation is the opposite: not that Trump is more prepared this time, but more impulsive — casually (and quickly) throwing out the first nominee that sounds good to him, without concern as to how they will be received by Washington. The truth is probably somewhere between the two, but the origin stories of several picks seem to support the latter account: it has been reported that Trump chose both Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth and (former) Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz after being dissatisfied with the candidates for those roles his advisers brought him. So much for all those years of preparation.

#2: If there is one through-line between all the picks, it is loyalty to Trump. Then again, that might be less impressive than it sounds. At this point, it would be harder to gather a group of 15 prominent Republicans who are not committed champions of the president-elect than it would be to find 15 who are.

#3: Beyond that, as I noted last week (before Axios or the New York Times picked up on the theme), this is a very ideologically diverse group, representing the different factions in Trump’s electoral coalition:

• For his hawkish neoconservative backers, you have Marco Rubio (State) and Elise Stefanik (UN Ambassador), and Michael Waltz (national security adviser).

• For his isolationist base, you have Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence).

• For the immigration hardliners, you have Stephen Miller (deputy chief of staff) and Tom Homan (border czar).

• For the crunchy voters, you have Robert Kennedy Jr. (HHS).

• For business interests, you have Chris Wright (Energy), Doug Burgum (Interior), and Scott Bessent (Treasury), whose selection calmed the nerves on Wall Street.

• For his union supporters, you have Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Labor), who was backed for the role by Teamsters president (and RNC speaker) Sean O’Brien.

• For the Kushner-ites, you have Brooke Rollins (Agriculture), who was one of Jared’s closest allies (and partners on criminal justice reform) in Trump’s first term.

• And for Christian evangelicals, don’t forget Mike Huckabee (ambassador to Israel).

Trump’s staff is also shaping up to be ideologically heterodox. As with his first administration, some of the most interesting battles will be over foreign policy — where Trump campaigned as an isolationist, but put more hawkish voices in several key posts. In a single statement Friday, Trump announced two National Security Council staffers: Sebastian Gorka, a far-right firebrand, and Alex Wong, a much more traditional Republican national security staffer. Let the sniping begin.

#4: Trump’s administration is poised to include no less than three former Democrats, including an ex-Democratic lawmaker (Gabbard), a George Soros protégé (Bessent), and a Kennedy.

But the most intriguing opportunities for bipartisanship might come from Chavez-DeRemer, an outgoing Republican congresswoman who is leaving the House after Democrats defeated her bid for a second term. Chavez-DeRemer is one of just three Republican co-sponsors of the PRO Act, which would strengthen the right to unionize and overturn statewide “right-to-work” laws, which weaken unions. Even traditionally Democratic-leaning unions put out supportive statements; her confirmation vote could be an interesting mishmash of Democratic “yeas” and business-friendly Republican “nos.”

The turn from Trump’s last labor secretary, Eugene Scalia, who was reviled by unions, to Chavez-DeRemer speaks volumes about the changes within the Republican Party, which is increasingly fueled by working-class support “This is a true political realignment,” Chavez-DeRemer wrote on X last week. The GOP has come a far way from Reagan’s three-legged stool (social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and foreign interventionists) to an administration featuring the pro-choice Kennedy, the pro-union Chavez-DeRemer, and the anti-interventionist Gabbard.

#5: Many of Trump’s picks appear aimed at seeing how far he can push the envelope in his second term. Three of Trump’s initial picks (Kennedy, Hegseth, and the withdrawn Gaetz) have faced sexual misconduct allegations; a fourth, Education Secretary nominee Linda McMahon, was named in a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse at her company. As the Times has noted, previous Cabinet nominations have been defeated for far less.

#6: Trump, of course, lost his first battle with the Senate: Gaetz’s eight-day nomination will go down as the third-shortest in U.S. history. I wouldn’t read too much into that, however: that scuffle was less a declaration of independence by GOP senators than a reflection of the unique circumstance surrounding Gaetz, who is personally reviled by almost every Republican in Washington. Still, to borrow from a recent movie, it shows that Trump cannot (always) defy political gravity: he may be the unquestionably dominant figure in his party, but like any president, he is still constrained by Congress, especially if the legislative branch deems the executive’s interests to differ from their own.

On that score, I’ve been struck by some of the rhetoric by Republican senators recently, who have been somewhat less shy to buck Trump during the transition than one might have guessed. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the top Republican on the Senate labor committee, expressed concerns about Chavez-DeRemer. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) does not seem thrilled about Gabbard. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has spoken out against Trump’s proposed tariffs and his potential use of the military to implement mass deportations. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) traveled abroad over the weekend to assert the Senate’s independence from the incoming White House, per Politico, and to pour cold water on Trump’s promises of a 24-hour Russia/Ukraine peace deal. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) broke with Trump on recess appointments, an idea that seems to have withered as quickly as it emerged.

If Trump’s nominees were, in fact, designed to see if Republican senators would push back — well, some of them seem be. But making concerned comments on a Sunday show is very different than voting against a nominee (or even privately pushing for their withdrawal); the real tests are yet to come.

#7: I’ve also been interested by the rhetoric from Democrats so far, which has been much calmer than during Trump’s first term, despite the fact that his nominees are even more controversial this time. Chuck Schumer, uncharacteristically, has been largely quiet.

Partially, I think this reflects a trap Trump has laid for Democrats. Many of his nominees, including Gaetz, Hegseth, Kennedy, and Gabbard, are best known as ardent critics of the agencies they’ve picked to lead. This would normally lead Democrats to launch into broadsides about how these picks are inexperienced and a threat to those institutions — but that might be exactly what Trump wants them to say. The election results, after all, were a pretty broad-based rejection of the idea that American voters crave government experience and a deference to institutions. Many voters want agency leaders without Washington ties, who will go in and shake things up; I’m not sure it would be wise for Democrats to focus their attacks on Trump’s nominees on those grounds, which I think partially accounts for their silence.

#8: But don’t be mistaken: these will be some wild confirmation hearings. RFK Jr. alone will be hammered on vaccines, on dumping a dead bear in Central Park, on cutting off the head of a whale. Tulsi Gabbard will face questions on her meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Could Pete Hegseth’s accuser testify, like Anita Hill against Clarence Thomas or Christine Blasey Ford against Brett Kavanaugh?

Going after the nominees’ inexperience might be complicated, but attacking their personal scandals will be much more comfortable terrain.

#9: Several of the nominees also have interesting personal stories you’re sure to hear about at the hearings. Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick is the CEO of Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, the company that occupied several floors of the World Trade Center and lost 600+ employees on 9/11, more than any other firm. Lutnick’s brother died in the attacks; Lutnick himself was only out of the office because he was taking his son to his first day of kindergarten.

HUD Secretary nominee Scott Turner is a former NFL player, who sustained several concussions on his way to his current role. Bessent is poised to be the highest-ranking openly gay official in U.S. history. “If you had told me in 1984, when we graduated, and people were dying of AIDS,” he said in a 2015 interview, “that 30 years later I’d be legally married and we would have two children via surrogacy, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

#10: If we’re looking for another through-line uniting most of the picks, it’s TV experience. Two of Trump’s Cabinet picks (Hegseth and Transportation Secretary nominee Pete Duffy) are former Fox hosts; so is Huckabee. Gabbard and Gorka are ex-Fox contributors. Waltz has logged more Fox appearances in the last two years than any other House member. Dr. Oz is Dr. Oz.

Trump generally expects to see his staffers flacking for him on television, and his Cabinet is no exception.

#11: Beyond ideological diversity, Trump has named five female Cabinet secretaries, the same number as Biden. Two of his picks are Hispanic — including Rubio, who will be the first Hispanic secretary of state — a reflection of the bloc’s growing importance in the Republican coalition. Trump has still not named a Black person to any Cabinet role that isn’t Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

#12: So far, Trump’s picks appear fairly popular: Rubio, Kennedy, Hegseth, and Gabbard were all net-popular among voters in a CBS poll (although large segments consistently answered “don’t know”). In line with the traditional presidential honeymoon, the poll also found Trump receiving high marks for his transition: 59% of voters approved of how Trump was handling his preparations for the presidency.