A favorite pastime of political aficionados is speculating on what people will get top Cabinet positions if a given presidential candidate is elected, and with former President Donald Trump wrapping up the Republican nomination last week, the speculation about who would join his administration is moving more into focus.
A new report from Bloomberg citing “people familiar with the matter” said Trump is considering appointing Vivek Ramaswamy as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as chief of staff, Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) as a secretary of the Department of Energy, and either Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) or Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) as attorney general.
It should be first noted that with the election still eight months away, any Cabinet talk is premature. But if the Bloomberg report is any indication, a second Trump administration is poised to be a mixed bag of appointees who could just as easily undermine his agenda as further it.
While choosing McCarthy as chief of staff could help Trump navigate the political arena of negotiating with Congress, the former speaker lacks a truly consistent conservative ideology and may prove an obstacle to Trump’s agenda, especially when it comes to policies on things such as the war in Ukraine.
Ramaswamy’s unquestionable loyalty and appealing charisma make him a strong candidate for any Cabinet position — and one who is unlikely to undermine the Trump agenda, given his proclivity toward the same kind of populism that has made Trump such a formidable political force.
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Regardless of whom he nominates and appoints to various Cabinet positions, Trump must remember that his first term was plagued by dysfunction wrought by political appointees who had an entirely different ideological agenda for the administration, even as some of those ideological opponents professed undying loyalty to the president.
Any Cabinet or senior official must show loyalty to the duly elected president, but he or she must also be ideologically aligned with the president’s agenda. All appointees must meet both of these criteria. Otherwise, Trump will set himself up to be undermined by his own Cabinet once again.