So far the confirmation hearings for Donald Trump’s cabinet picks suggests that his administration will be staffed by fairly moderate Republicans. In fact, the nominees are mostly saying they disagree with their future boss when it comes to Russia, Iran, torture, climate change, banning Muslim immigration, and other topics that Trump made a big deal of in his campaign.
Do you think this will mean that the Trump administration will be more moderate than both his supporters and critics expect? Or does it mean that Trump picked individuals he liked without carefully attending to their views? Will Trump be at war with his own cabinet? Will he run roughshod over them, or will they be a moderating force on him? Is he all that committed to his signature issues after all? Or are the cabinet nominees just telling their Congressional interrogators what they want to hear? Or what?
NOTE: Both the Senate and the House passed a waiver of the law requiring Defense Secretaries to have been civilians for seven years to allow newly-retired Marine General James Mattis to fill that office.
From Calvin Woodford, Trump’s Team of Rivals: Discordant Notes in the Amen Chorus – ABC News (Associated Press):
You can’t really call them “yes men.” Maybe we’re meeting Donald Trump’s “yes, but” men.
Some of the incoming president’s most important Cabinet choices are at odds with him on matters that were dear to his heart as a campaigner and central to his promises to supporters.
Trump says he doesn’t mind the disconnect. He wants his Cabinet members to be themselves, “say what you want to say,” he told reporters Friday in New York. “I may be right, they may be right.”
But despite that breezy dismissal, the differences laid bare in a week of confirmation hearings raise questions about whether Trump will roll over his Cabinet on immigration, Russia, national security and more, bend to his top advisers’ stated convictions or watch them backtrack from pronouncements that may be helping them win Senate approval.
[Keep reading. . .]
Trump says that he is fine with the disagreements, that he wants his cabinet members to “be themselves.” Maybe he will have a truly deliberative and collaborative government.
Photo of James Mattis: U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Shawn P. Eklund – This Image was released by the United States Navy with the ID 070927-N-3642E-261 (next).Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8225763
So far the confirmation hearings for Donald Trump’s cabinet picks suggests that his administration will be staffed by fairly moderate Republicans. In fact, the nominees are mostly saying they disagree with their future boss when it comes to Russia, Iran, torture, climate change, banning Muslim immigration, and other topics that Trump made a big deal of in his campaign.
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