A Who's Who Guide To Donald Trump's Transition Team
On Friday, Donald Trump confirmed to the press the composition of his transition team: the team that assists in choosing the new cabinet and presidential appointees that will occupy agencies across government. It's a who's who of Trump politics and history and is full of interesting characters. Here's a guide to who will be pulling the strings of Trump's transition.
Leadership
Mike Pence — Chairman
Mike Pence is the vice president-elect. He is known for his controversial tenure as Indiana Governor (following time served in Congress), where he proposed a state-run news service and signed a significant anti-LGBT law and a notably strict anti-abortion law.
[Digg]
Jeff Sessions — Vice Chairman
Jeff Sessions is a Republican senator from Alabama, who has led Trump's national-security team since March. He started his career in the military.
Most prominently, Sessions has pressed for a crackdown on immigration, saying he is opposed to any path for legal citizenship for undocumented immigrants and is in favor of Trump's plan to build a wall on the Southern border.
Chris Christie — Vice Chairman
Chris Christie, a previous presidential candidate and current governor of New Jersey, is receiving a notable demotion on the team with this announcement, which is most likely due to his ongoing Bridgegate scandal. Last week, a court found Christie's aides guilty of charges of conspiracy and fraud:
After more than a month of testimony, a federal jury in Newark on Friday returned guilty verdicts against Christie's former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly, and Bill Baroni, former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Prosecutors alleged the lane closures, which paralyzed traffic across the bridge from Upper Manhattan, were part of a plot to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, who declined to endorse Christie in his 2013 re-election campaign.
[CNN]
Ben Carson — Vice Chairman
Ben Carson is a former surgeon (with no political experience) who is known for his Republican primary run this year. While his campaign failed, he marked himself as a faithful conservative with a strong fanbase.
In temperament as well as trajectory, Carson was the anti-Trump, a pediatric neurosurgeon whose eerily calm manner became a running joke — he delivered his stump speeches and debate responses with all the vehemence of a somniloquist….And while Carson has talked fluently and compellingly about God's role in his own life, he tended to avoid explicit appeals to faith in his own stump speeches.
Michael Flynn — Vice Chairman
Michael Flynn is a former military intelligence officer, who is known for breaking decorum by publicly lambasting Hillary Clinton at the RNC. He has publicly called President Obama a "liar" and the justice system "corrupt."
Like Trump, Flynn has advocated forging closer ties with Russia.
Newt Gingrich — Vice Chairman
Newt Gingrich has made several runs for President, was the Speaker of the House and has a very sordid personal life. He has really big ideas, some of which are similar to Donald Trump's.
Like Trump, he has called out the "elite media," referring to them as "despicable trash," accusing them of twisting his words "out of context" and barring journalists from his office.
[Politico]
Rudy Giuliani — Vice Chairman
Rudy Giuliani was the once moderate mayor of New York City, who oversaw the aftermath of 9/11 and is widely hailed for reducing what was once a notorious crime problem. But after several failed attempts to enter national politics, Giuliani became known for as a Trump surrogate who routinely spread rumors about Hillary Clinton that others wouldn't touch.
[G]radually, he started believing his own hype, started giving speeches not just on urban affairs and crime-fighting (for which he had demonstrable expertise) but also global terrorism (about which he knew little). He started insinuating himself into the Republican Party.
[Slate]
Rick Dearborn — Director
Rick Dearborn is part of Senator Jeff Sessions' staff and served as a leader of Trump's policy operation during his campaign. The operation was riddled with operational and financial problems, according to reporting done by The Washington Post.
Executive Committee
Jared Kushner
Jared Kushner is Ivanka Trump's husband. He has no political experience and is the owner of a real estate company and the publication the New York Observer. He played a key role in Trump's campaign.
It was Jared who helped prepare Trump for an appearance before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in March, and Jared who helped broker a truce with Fox News when Trump fought with Megyn Kelly, the network's star anchor. After Trump fired Corey Lewandowski, his campaign manager, in June, it was reported that Ivanka had demanded Lewandowski's dismissal for trying to marginalize Jared's influence.
[Esquire]
Stephen Bannon
Steve Bannon is known for running the ultra-conservative media site Breitbart News. He served as CEO of the Trump campaign and is now rumored to be a top pick for chief of staff.
Bannon's life is a succession of Gatsbyish reinventions that made him rich and landed him squarely in the middle of the 2016 presidential race: He's been a naval officer, investment banker, minor Hollywood player, and political impresario.
Reince Priebus
Reince Priebus is the chairman of the RNC and is credited for fostering the careers of Republicans such as Paul Ryan and Scott Walker.
Priebus maintained daily contact with Trump throughout the campaign, trying to coach the candidate to be more disciplined on the stump — conversations that sometimes yielded reports of RNC frustration over Trump's penchant for controversy.
[Politico]
Steven Mnuchin
Steve Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs executive and is rumored to be a top pick for Treasury Secretary.
Mnuchin worked for 17 years at Goldman Sachs. He later led OneWest Bank, which was sold to CIT Group in 2015. He now serves on CIT's board and is the chairman and chief executive of the private investment firm Dune Capital Management.
[Politico]
Lou Barletta
Pennsylvania house member Lou Barletta rose to prominence through local politics in his small town of Hazleton. After trying to make Hazleton "one of the toughest places in the US" for undocumented immigrants, Barletta gained notoriety and was elected to the House.
Barletta believes what has been going on in Hazleton, a city of about 30,000 people, is a microcosm of what's been going on all over the country, that illegal immigrants are overwhelming his city, draining its resources and ruining the quality of life.
Chris Collins
Chris Collins was the first member of the House to endorse Trump and served as his liaison to the House during Trump's campaign.
A western New York congressman and the first member of the House to endorse Trump for president, Collins has become his liaison to the GOP conference: He sets up meetings with lawmakers hesitant to endorse the billionaire businessman, talks with leadership, including Speaker Paul Ryan, to tout the presumptive nominee, and has become an increasing presence on cable news as a Trump promoter.
Devin Nunes
David Nunes is a member of the House from California and is Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. In July, he brushed off Trump's comments encouraging Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's email.
Most likely, Donald Trump was simply making light of Hillary Clinton setting up her own homebrew email server that trafficked in classified information and her sending insecure emails from the soil of known foreign adversaries. Seeing as the FBI concluded that this server may have been hacked, Clinton supporters are really the last people who should be lecturing us about the importance of cybersecurity. Nevertheless, now that he is officially a candidate for president, Trump should consider that his public comments will receive much more scrutiny than before—especially when it comes to U.S. foreign relations
Tom Marino
Tom Marino is a conservative member of the House from Pennsylvania. He was an early supporter of Donald Trump. In an interview with Politico, he described his affinity for Trump:
…he's the man for the unprotected … not the protected, not for the Wall Street people, not for the DC insiders, but for the hard-working taxpayers.
[Politico]
Marsha Blackburn
Masha Blackburn is a member of the House from Tennessee. She was an early supporter of Donald Trump and was a speaker at the RNC.
A 62-year-old married mother of two and grandmother, Blackburn began her professional career in sales and is now the owner of a promotion-event managing firm. She is a fiscal and social conservative who has pushed back against abortion and opposed the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare."
[Heavy]
Pam Bondi
Pam Bondi is the Florida attorney general who became the focus of a Trump scandal in the last year. Reports show that Trump contributed to her campaign after her office decided not to pursue a suit involving Trump University.
Mr. Trump and Ms. Bondi have said they share a long friendship, but the origins of it are not apparent. Ms. Bondi, who declined requests for an interview, initially backed former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida for president.
Robert Mercer
Robert Mercer is a computer scientist turned hedge-fund billionaire, who is known for funding conservative causes.
Mercer is one of the most enigmatic and powerful forces in U.S. politics. Beginning around the time of Robinson's race, Mercer has put at least $32 million behind conservative candidates for office, including $11 million for a group supporting Texas Senator Ted Cruz's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
Anthony Scaramucci
Anthony Scaramucci is the co-partner of the investment firm SkyBridge Capital and is known for conservative contributions. He was one of the first high-profile bundlers to sign onto the Trump campaign.
Scaramucci previously served as a national finance co-chairman for Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign and for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's 2016 campaign. Soon after Walker dropped out in the fall, he signed on with Jeb Bush's campaign, joining the former Florida governor's national finance committee.
Peter Thiel
The Silicon Valley billionaire is known for co-founding PayPal and making subsequent investments. Recently, he's gained notoriety for funding suits against Gawker, which led to the site's shutdown. In 2016, he was active in supporting Donald Trump's campaign.
Republicans often talk of using free-market competition to bring the cost of attending college down; Thiel is anti-college. Among other generally agreed-upon concepts about which Thiel has expressed doubts: antitrust policies (he's pro-monopoly), women's suffrage (in a 2009 essay for the libertarian journal Cato Unbound, he noted that women have a troublesome tendency not to be libertarian), and the political system of the U.S. (in the same essay he noted, "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible").
Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric
The lovable Trump children have been a part of Donald Trump's campaign from the beginning, and it looks like they'll continue a close relationship with their father when he's in the White House. They also hold control of a "blind trust" for the president-elect's business interests.
