A Guide to Trump’s Cabinet Picks So Far
As if a Trump presidency wasn’t enough of a shakeup, now comes the fun part where Trump gets to name of all his cabinet members.
Every new president-elect gets to build their own cabinet from the ground up. The cabinet is comprised of the heads of the fifteen executive departments, and they function as the president’s advisory board. It’s also a chain of succession in case something happens to the president and vice president and they’re no longer able to perform their duties.
When Obama was elected in 2008, he shook up all of these departments, but regardless of the influx of liberal powers, Obama was still unable to change many of the programs left behind by previous president George W. BushBush.
The same might be true of Trump’s presidency, and even though the majority of the new cabinet members are conservatives for life, here’s to hoping that they don’t take away everyone’s rights. Also, they aren’t officially appointed unless the Senate approves, so any number of this nominations could be blocked. Don’t hold your breath on that happening, though.
There are a few positions Trump has yet to fill, but here’s the list of his official picks so far and a little info about them.
Vice President: Mike Pence
Pence has been the governor of Indiana since 2012, and during his time in office, he has championed the pro-life movement. If you want to read more for some reason, here are some more facts on the soon-to-be Vice President.
Secretary of State: Rex Tillerson
Tillerson is the chief executive of Exxon Mobil. He also has very close ties with Russia, which is concerning considering the alleged influence Russian hacking had on the election, and about 9,000 other reasons. He’s so close with Russia in fact that in 2013, President of Russia Vladimir Putin gave Tillerson one of the highest honors a civilian can receive: an Order of Friendship. Tillerson is also of concern to environmental activists who fear his close relationship with the fossil fuel-dependent oil industry.
Treasury Secretary: Steven Mnuchin
A former Wall Street banker who worked for Goldman Sachs for 17 years, Mnuchin is now spending his time producing Hollywood films. As Secretary, he will also overhaul the tax system. Like Trump, he has never held a public office.
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Defense Secretary: James Mattis
A retired Marine Corps General, “Mad Dog” Mattis has a lot of battlefield experience from the times he served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s also known to be distrusting of Iran, which makes a lot of conservatives and isolationists happy.
Attorney General: Jeff Sessions
Before being nominated for Secretary of the Justice Department, Sessions was the attorney general of Alabama and served as a senator from that state. Sessions is known to be anti-immigration. Even on his homepage he has listed the amount of supposed illegal immigrants that are currently in the United States.
Secretary of Interior: Cathy McMorris Rodgers
A known climate-change skeptic, Washington Representative McMorris Rodgers is also one of the most senior members in the House of Representatives. According to the LA Times, she’s also a “strident advocate for increased oil and gas drilling on federal lands.”
Secretary of Commerce: Wilbur Ross
Wilbur Ross is a billionaire who basically made all of his money buying companies that had gone bankrupt, then flipping them. He even bailed Trump out in the early ’90s when his Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City went bankrupt.
Secretary of Labor: Andrew Puzder
The CEO of CKE Restaurant Holdings, Puzder will likely be appointed to Secretary of Labor. The Labor department is in charge of fining companies that don’t follow labor laws, and that’s interesting because in 2013, CKE was sued for safety violations in one of its restaurants after an employee suffered burns from scalding hot water.
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tom Price
Price was originally a representative for the state of Georgia, and during that time he, was a huge adovcate for doctors’ rights. In fact, he even cosponsored a bill in 2011 that would limit hospitals from using background checks before hiring doctors. He then went on to serve four terms in the Senate. If confirmed, he’ll probably take a scalpel to Obamacare.
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Ben Carson
You might remember him as the guy who forgot to go out onstage during a debate when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination. He’s a retired neurosurgeon who, like Trump, has never held a political office. He also never lived in public housing, although many outlets reported that he did after he was connected to the HUD position.
Transportation Secretary: Elaine Chao
She was the Secretary of Labor during the Bush administration from 2001-2009. She’s also an immigrant, which is fucking awesome, and she will be key to Trump in accomplishing a large part of his first 100 days goal of overhauling our infrastruture.
Energy Secretary: Rick Perry
Trump’s decision to name Former Governor of Texas Rick Perry as head of the Department of Energy is really hilarious because back when Perry ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2011, he said during a debate that he’d like to eliminate the department, but couldn’t remember the name of it. LOL.
Secretary of Education: Betsy DeVos
Another billionaire on this list, DeVos, who has never had a job in public schooling, is currently Chairman of the American Federation for Children. The federation spends millions of dollars giving taxpayer-funded vouchers to families who are sending their children to private and religious schools.
Secretary of Homeland Security: John Kelly
Another retired Marine Corps General, Gen. Kelly is also one of the highest ranking officers to lose a child in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, which makes him an interesting pick for Trump, who openly insulted a Gold Star Family, saying that his sacrifices as a businessman were equal to those made by the family.
