How exactly did Trump pick his cabinet?

[boffking]

Many of the people he has appointed are simply ridiculous. Pruitt and Perry want to abolish the departments they run. Carson and Devos have never worked a day in the fields that they are supposed to be experts in.
How could he possibly think it was a good idea to appoint these people?

[Lancia]

He didn’t think it was good idea. I doubt very much Trump cares about how this country is ran unless it benefits him directly. If he does, he certainly isn’t showing it.

By all appearances this is a simple—and flagrant—case of nepotism. People like Perry, DeVos, and Carson either publicly supported Trump or gave his campaign large donations. In return Trump nominated them for positions of power, fully aware that the Republicans who would be tasked with confirming them would have no objection because these nominees have the most important credential of all: an ® after their name.

For Trump it’s not about experience or doing what’s best for the country. It’s about returning favors in a way that benefits himself.

[jasg]

I suspect that the Bannon/Miller/Mercer wing of the transition team had more to do with selections than Trump.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

Eenie-meenie-minee…

[aldiboronti]

I don’t know how he picked them but he certainly seems to be losing control over them.

Apparently Trump was incandescent with rage at Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from investigations into Russian meddling with the election, a decision he made abruptly and without consulting with the President beforehand.

Sources said the president felt Sessions’ recusal was unnecessary and only served to embolden Trump’s political opponents. The attorney general made his announcement Thursday just as Trump returned to Washington from a trip to the U.S.S. Gerald Ford in Virginia for a speech about his agenda as president.

Hours earlier, aboard the ship, the president had told reporters that he had “total” confidence in Sessions and saw no reason why the attorney general should recuse himself.

Among those gathered in the Oval Office on Friday: Chief of staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, White House Counsel Don McGahn, press secretary Sean Spicer, newly-hired Communications Director Mike Dubke, along with Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, the sources said.

With Marine One waiting on the South Lawn, Trump and his team engaged in an animated exchange – captured by press pool cameras peering in through the windows from the White House South Lawn. Trump then left the office for the helicopter, taking the hands of his young grandchildren and joined by his daughter Ivanka and Kushner.

Priebus and Bannon were planning to join the trip, but suddenly after the president’s eruption those plans changed.

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

[Evan_Drake]

@Lancia

He didn’t think it was good idea. I doubt very much Trump cares about how this country is ran unless it benefits him directly. If he does, he certainly isn’t showing it.

By all appearances this is a simple—and flagrant—case of nepotism. People like Perry, DeVos, and Carson either publicly supported Trump or gave his campaign large donations. In return Trump nominated them for positions of power, fully aware that the Republicans who would be tasked with confirming them would have no objection because these nominees have the most important credential of all: an (R) after their name.

For Trump it’s not about experience or doing what’s best for the country. It’s about returning favors in a way that benefits himself.

And Obama made Penny Pritzker Commerce Secretary entirely due to her accounting skills.
Old Hil was vetting 9 billionaire donors to her Foundation for US vice-president, including Bloomberg, Bill Gates and Tim Cook ( to bring in the young ) before selecting some political hack who was only a millionaire.

All politicians are similar. Debts have to be paid.

[Buck_Godot]

I suspect that Carson was picked so that the cabinet would have a token minority, and placed in charge of Housing and Urban Development because it had the word “Urban”.

[kenobi_65]

@Evan_Drake

All politicians are similar. Debts have to be paid.

Undoubtedly so.

But, in Trump’s case, he seemed to have been selecting people who (a) supported him during the campaign, and (b) were people whom he felt he could trust. As he managed to alienate a fair number of old-school Republicans during the campaign, it wound up being not a terribly long or robust list, and was often short on people with any actual governmental experience (e.g., Priebus, Devos, Carson).

Any other new president will certainly be filling their cabinet with supporters, but they are more likely to be able to find nominees who actually have the necessary skills and experience within that pool.

[foolsguinea]

I figured some of them were brought in by Pence. Mike Pence seems to be in the Oval Office a lot for a VP.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Gold-plated darts tossed at a gold-plated dartboard.

[Beren_Erchamion]

Like everybody on the right, he hates America and wants to destroy it.

Conservatives are fifth columnists.

[kaylasdad99]

I think he got it at either Ikea or Crate and Barrel.

[The_Tooth]

Badly. So, so badly.

[purplehearingaid]

I heard Trump picked Carson for HUD b/c Carson lived in public low income housing at one time .

[RivkahChaya]

I think he threw darts at a copy of The New York Post

[naita]

@boffking

Many of the people he has appointed are simply ridiculous. Pruitt and Perry want to abolish the departments they run.

Trump has stated frequently that business is being strangled by unnecessary regulations. If you’re too stupid to understand some regulations are essential, abolishing the departments issuing them seems like the most efficient way to remedy that.

[Bridget_Burke]

Steve Bannon explained last month:

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday, White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said that President Trump’s cabinet picks are aimed at “deconstruction of the administrative state,” meaning weakening regulatory agencies and other bureaucratic entities.

“The way the progressive left runs, is if they can’t get it passed, they’re just going to put in some sort of regulation in an agency,” Bannon continued. “That’s all going to be deconstructed and I think that’s why this regulatory thing is so important.”…

Putting anti-regulation chairs at the top of regulatory bodies is nothing new for conservative administrations—George W. Bush’s EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, for instance, pushed back against staff recommendations and slackened enforcement. As the saying goes, elections have consequences, and lightening the regulatory load on businesses is a pillar of modern Republican doctrine.

What’s remarkable here, though, is Bannon’s framing of these moves as more anti-state than pro-business. The CPAC comments about ‘deconstruction’ are a toned-down version of startling statements made last August to the Daily Beast. Bannon impishly declared himself a “Leninist,” saying that the Soviet leader “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

Rewarding donors was one factor. As was giving places to Trump’s more hopeless opponents–like Perry & Carson; the humiliation of Mitt Romney was an amusing sideshow. But the general badness of so many candidates was a conscious choice.

[cuauhtemoc]

@Lancia

By all appearances this is a simple—and flagrant—case of nepotism.

@Buck_Godot

I suspect that Carson was picked so that the cabinet would have a token minority, and placed in charge of Housing and Urban Development because it had the word “Urban”.

@kenobi_65

But, in Trump’s case, he seemed to have been selecting people who (a) supported him during the campaign, and (b) were people whom he felt he could trust. As he managed to alienate a fair number of old-school Republicans during the campaign, it wound up being not a terribly long or robust list, and was often short on people with any actual governmental experience (e.g., Priebus, Devos, Carson).

@Bridget_Burke

But the general badness of so many candidates was a conscious choice.

From “nepotism” to “state deconstruction”, these are all good answers. The only one I haven’t seen mentioned so far is “handpicked by Russians.” I’m thinking specifically of the Secretary of State, whom he had never met before nominating him, is an oil executive with no diplomatic experience, and is apparently an associate of Vladimir Putin. So far, I have seen no plausible explanation of this pick, other than payback to the Russians for helping him in the election, or as a blackmail demand from Russians who have damaging information on him.

So yeah, he’s filling his cabinet by nepotism, tokenism, anti-bureaucracy, and desperation, for sure. But let’s not forget treason.

[QuickSilver]

Let’s not forget that in addition to hiring incompetents (DeVos & Carso) and those who actively oppose the mission and function of the department they are chosen to lead (Price & Pruitt), there is also a concerted effort to remove senior (non-elected) civil servants with many years of experience through multiple previous administrations.

Trump & his minions are as dangerous as they are stupid. And damn the GOP for tacitly standing by and supporting this fuckery.