Trump’s Cabinet and Staff Picks Are Mostly Good

by Kenneth Schmidt

Kenneth Schmidt is optimistic about President-elect Trump’s choices and believes much can be achieved.

By all means, take a few days to celebrate the Trump victory. It truly was a world-historical moment that will have all sorts of positive repercussions down the line. Winning an election is great, but implementing an agenda is an entirely different matter. There is a good reason why campaign professionals and policy wonks have entirely different job descriptions; their jobs are not the same.

The Republican Party will control both Houses of Congress and there is a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. This will make Trump’s life easier, but not easy. In spite of all of Trump’s popularity, the majority of Republican senators and congressmen either outright dislike him or have conflicted emotions about the man. They have become comfortable over the last several decades of essentially being the “loyal opposition” to the Democratic Party. They suffer from a kind of Stockholm syndrome and identify with their captors in the Beltway. Aspects of Trump’s program will face some difficulties getting through Congress, mainly because the new Senate Majority Leader is John Thune, an anti-Trumper and disciple of the previous majority leader, Mitch McConnell, an enemy of Trump. Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, will be somewhat better than his counterpart in the Senate. Still, Johnson, when he took the position in 2023, was considered very much a MAGA Republican, but his views have sadly moderated over the last few months and he has become much too conciliatory toward the Democrats. This has surprised many people and some have whispered rumors that he has been compromised in some way.

On the immigration front, Trump supporters have reason to be happy that two very excellent men will be joining the second Trump administration. Stephen Miller, who served in various White House roles in the first Trump term, will be both Homeland Security Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. During all four years, this Jewish man was the most resolute anti-immigration figure in the administration. During the whole time, he was attacked as a heartless hater of migrants by the media. No person in the first Trump administration was subject to more vituperation other than Trump himself. The “Orange Man” deeply respects Miller and kept him on staff from the beginning to the end of the first term. Another great anti-migrant crusader, Tom Homan, will be joining the team as “Border Czar.” For a time during the first administration, he was acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. There are some great clips on the web of Homan during that time being questioned before legislative committees by outraged Democrats and this tough-looking fellow gave as good as he got.

Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida has been tapped to be Attorney General. This was a daring move by Trump. Gaetz is one of the most based Republican congressmen. A true MAGA loyalist. He is hated by his Democrat colleagues, establishment Republicans and the media. It may be difficult to get him confirmed by the Senate. However, if he does make it through the appointment process, he will do a great job in cleaning up the Department of Justice and FBI, which act as the secret police arm of the Democratic Party.

I have some reservations about Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. For most of his career, he was very much a hardened neocon, but in very recent years he has moderated his views somewhat. For example, he now no longer approves of any new major arms shipments to Ukraine. Still, I feel a little uneasy about Rubio.

Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are pioneers in the sense that they are left-Trumpists. Gabbard has been nominated as Director of National Intelligence. If anyone can successfully protect Republicans from intelligence agency harassment, it will be her. She will have a tough job. Those CIA, NSA and FBI spooks are snakes. To the horror of the liberal Establishment, Kennedy has been nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head a new organization dedicated to government efficiency. It goes without saying that these men are very bright. Long before he ran for president, I read Ramaswamy’s book Woke, Inc., which condemned the leftward trend in big business. He is, perhaps, a bit more libertarian-capitalist than I like, but he is personally loyal to Trump. He is quick on his feet and intelligent. Why did Musk go from a moderate-liberal to a MAGA Republican? He is a hard-nosed business type, but one of his children, a boy, went transgender and had his genitals removed. Musk permitted the surgery, but has since regretted this action. He feels that his child was “murdered” by the “woke mind virus.” I also think that Musk has become convinced that a society run by the neo-liberal Left as it’s now constituted won’t be able to go to Mars, his dearest wish. I think Musk is a little over-confident about the possibility of a Mars mission, but I acknowledge that it’s quite a bit better an objective than the WEF vision held by most of the rest of the super-billionaires, who want to use their money to force the people of the world to live in pods and eat bugs.

I find nothing manifestly unobjectionable about John Ratliff at the CIA, Lee Zeldin at the Environmental Protection Agency, Susie Wiles as Chief-of-Staff and Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Director. On the other hand, as an America First anti-interventionist I’m unhappy about the appointments of hard-core Zionists Elise Stafanik as ambassador to the UN, Michael Waltz as National Security Advisor and Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel. In his first term, Trump was stoutly pro-Israel, but fortunately was able to resist calls by the State Department, the Pentagon and the Jewish lobby to invade Iran, which would have been a disaster. He also tried to withdraw US troops from Syria, but the Pentagon basically ignored his order. Stefanik, Walz and Huckabee will try to make sure that US Middle-Eastern policy will, as in the past, be controlled by whoever is Prime Minister of Israel. I pray that Trump’s desire for peace and stability in the world, which is sincere, will override the advice of these three people.

Trump’s list of appointments is a much improved one compared to 2016 and his later picks. The first time around, he appointed people who hated him to various positions. The appointments this time around aren’t perfect by any means, but most of these people are personally loyal to him and won’t stab him in the back. He basically has two years to get key parts of his agenda implemented before he slides into “lame duck” status. I’m convinced he can win many or most of his political battles.