Trump’s Stunning Staffing Picks Set Off Political Shockwaves

Trump’s Stunning Staffing Picks Set Off Political Shockwaves

Reuters
By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey
Wednesday, November 13, 2024

So much news...

Trump Meets with Biden, Thanks Him for Smooth Transition

President Joe Biden welcomed President-elect Donald Trump to the Oval Office on Wednesday morning, extending a traditional courtesy that he did not receive from Trump four years ago. “Congratulations, and looking forward to having a, like I said, a smooth transition. We’ll do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated,” Biden said as the two men shook hands. “Welcome back.”

Trump thanked Biden and added: “Politics is tough, and it’s, in many cases, not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today.” Trump also said the transition would be “as smooth as it can get,” though he and his team have yet to sign the standard paperwork and ethics pledge that would enable additional transition planning and allow Trump’s officials to start participating in national security and other agency briefings.

The White House meeting between the two presidents took place after Trump held a celebratory meeting with House Republicans at a Capitol Hill hotel. House Speaker Mike Johnson welcomed Trump as the “comeback king.”

Trump, who was accompanied on the trip by billionaire “first buddy” Elon Musk, was greeted with a standing ovation. “This is a very nice gathering,” the president-elect said to start his remarks. “Isn’t it nice to win?”

As the press was being led out of the room, Trump reportedly joked: “I suspect I won't be running again unless you do something else, unless you say he's so good we've got to figure something out.”

Trump Staffing Picks Set Off Shockwaves

Vice President Kamala Harris spent much of her failed presidential campaign warning about how Donald Trump might govern if allowed to return to the White House with no guardrails. But Americans voters gave Trump a decisive victory in both the popular vote and the Electoral College and they handed him a Republican Congress, as well, so we’re now seeing what Trump will be like without those guardrails.

We’re seeing it most prominently with a slew of recent staffing picks that are sending shockwaves through the political establishment, official Washington, D.C., and, undoubtedly, many proponents of responsible democratic governance.

Trump Picks Gaetz for Attorney General

Trump on Wednesday nominated Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, 42, to serve as attorney general. Gaetz is known as a firebrand MAGA Republican and Trump loyalist who has accused the Justice Department of being weaponized against conservatives and has spoken of abolishing the FBI and other law enforcement agencies if they can’t be reformed or brought “to heel.”

“Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System,” Trump said in a statement announcing the pick. “Matt will root out the systemic corruption at DOJ, and return the Department to its true mission of fighting Crime, and upholding our Democracy and Constitution. We must have Honesty, Integrity, and Transparency at DOJ.”

Gaetz has also faced criminal and ethics investigations himself. He has denied the allegations against him, and the Justice Department decided last year not to pursue criminal charges. The House Ethics Committee earlier this year dropped some elements of its investigations but said that some of the allegations against the congressman “merit continued review.” The committee said it was looking into allegations that Gaetz may have “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.”

Gaetz was also the driving force behind the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, making him even more of a divisive figure on Capitol Hill.

Given that history, it’s an understatement to say that Gaetz is a shocking pick to be the country’s top cop. “That was about as big a surprise as I’ve had in a long time,” Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho told the Associated Press.

Gaetz may well face a challenging Senate confirmation fight, even as many Republicans have expressed a belief that Trump is entitled to significant leeway in choosing members of his administration and pursuing his agenda. “I have a really hard time believing he could get through the Senate confirmation process,” Simpson told the AP before adding, “You never know.”

An unnamed GOP senator told Fox News that Gaetz “will never get confirmed.” And Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware told CNN that the Gaetz pick is a “deadly serious challenge” to the Senate’s constitutionally required role. “My hope is that my colleagues in the Republican caucus will urge the president to reconsider,” he said.

Hegseth Nomination for Defense May Also Face Challenges

The Gaetz pick is not the only one to elicit surprise or draw scrutiny. Trump’s selection Tuesday of Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon stunned many, both inside and outside the defense establishment and raised questions about whether the TV personality and decorated combat veteran is qualified to be secretary of defense.

“Hegseth is undoubtedly the least qualified nominee for SecDef in American history,” one veterans’ advocate told Politico.

Trump on Tuesday also announced that he has chosen former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022 and became a Republican last month, to be his director of national intelligence.

Musk, Ramaswamy to Lead ‘Department of Government Efficiency’

Trump announced Tuesday evening that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will jointly head up a new effort to reduce waste in government, to be called the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE.

“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies - Essential to the 'Save America' Movement,” Trump said in a statement.

Despite the grand introduction — Trump said the effort “will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time” — much about DOGE remains uncertain.

DOGE shares a name with a cryptocurrency that started as a joke in 2013, and the coin, which Musk started promoting in 2021, soared in value on the announcement. But the new cost-cutting project is still largely undefined. Trump referred to it as a “department,” but it’s not expected to become a formal agency within the federal government. Instead, it will likely function more like a blue-ribbon panel that provides analysis and suggestions but lacks the legal authority to make concrete changes.

While slashing the federal government is a long-standing dream for Republicans, and most lawmakers would be happy to improve government efficiency, pushing through enormous reductions in spending could be tricky politically for both Republicans and Democrats. Rep. Steny Hoyer, who has served as majority leader for Democrats, expressed doubts about the new effort’s ability to address government issues, given that the leaders are from the private sector.

“Getting to a more efficient place is a good thing to do,” Hoyer told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s a lot easier to do in the private sector, and the reason is you are driven by profit and you don’t do things that are nonprofitable. In the government, you do things that are nonprofitable because you need to make sure people are doing OK.”

Still, whatever the legal status of the effort, its leaders are talking up its transformative potential. Musk has stated that he could cut more than $2 trillion a year from the roughly $6.7 trillion federal budget. Most of that spending is mandatory, though, and it’s not clear how Musk could identify such large reductions without ending most government functions and cutting into programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Musk has also said the effort will focus on reducing regulations and bureaucracy. “We finally have a mandate to delete the mountain of choking regulations that do not serve the greater good,” he said on social media. Ramaswamy said they would be open to suggestions from the public and would “soon begin crowdsourcing examples of government waste, fraud, & and abuse.”

Whatever form it takes, DOGE comes with an expiration date. According to Trump’s statement, the project will cease operation no later than July 4, 2026, in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Congressional Republicans Choose Johnson, Thune as Leaders

House Republicans on Wednesday nominated Speaker Mike Johnson to keep his gavel in n the next Congress and Senate Republicans picked Sen. John Thune of South Dakota to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has held the Senate GOP’s top leadership post for 18 years.

Johnson did not face any challenge to his leadership, despite some discontent among ultraconservatives and reported frustration about proposed changes to conference rules that would punish members who break from party leaders on certain votes. President-elect Donald Trump reportedly backed Johnson and urged the party to unify at his meeting Tuesday morning with House Republicans. Johnson’s nomination advanced via unanimous voice vote.

To stay on as speaker, Johnson still needs to be elected by a majority of the full House in a vote scheduled for January 3. Given projections that the GOP will again have only a slim majority in the House, the Louisiana Republican will need the backing of almost every member of his conference.

Thune’s ascension to be Senate majority leader faces no such uncertainty. The senior senator from South Dakota, Thune has been the No. 2 in Senate leadership since 2019. He narrowly beat out Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida in two rounds of balloting.

“This Republican team is united behind President Trump’s agenda, and our work starts today,” Thune said after the vote.

Other Senate Republicans elected to leadership jobs include Sen John Barrasso of Wyoming for majority whip, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas as GOP conference chair and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia as chair of the Republican Policy Committee.

Inflation Ticks Higher in October

Consumer prices rose 2.6% on an annual basis in October, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. The government’s key measure of inflation increased for the first time in seven months, up from the 2.4% rate recorded in September, which was the slowest pace since 2021.

The so-called core consumer price index, which strips out food and fuel prices to provide a better sense of the underlying inflationary trend, rose 3.3% on an annual basis, holding steady at the same reading as the month before.

The results were in line with expectations and suggest that while there has been considerable progress in the effort to bring inflation down to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target level, the battle is not yet over. “It could have been better, it could have been worse,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan, per The New York Times.

Most analysts think the central bank will cut rates again at its final meeting of the year in December. “Inflation is proving to be a little sticky, but not a big issue,” said Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, per the Associated Press. “What I think that means for the Fed is that they can still cut in December.”

What happens next year is a bit murkier. Wells Fargo economists Sarah House and Michael Pugliese said in a note that they think the Fed will begin to slow its rate cuts. “The inflation data over the past few months have not shown much additional progress, and the election outcome has raised new questions about the path ahead for price growth,” they wrote. “As a result, we think the time is fast approaching when the [Federal Open Market Committee] will signal that the pace of rate cuts will slow further, perhaps to an every-other-meeting pace starting in 2025.”

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