Post by captbudman on Nov 16, 2024 16:22:23 GMT -6
A reminder that Trump's cabinet is his choice, not a call for the transition committee.
It's Trump's Transition And He Calls The Shots
Since Election Day, the Trump transition has been copying and pasting the same quote again and again into emails to reporters seeking comment on this or that presidential appointment.
“President-Elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second Administration soon,” Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt always writes without fail. “Those decisions will be announced when they are made.”
The boilerplate delivers an obvious truth that many in Washington, D.C., find uncomfortable or, in some cases, unimaginable: The president-elect alone, not his senior staff, and certainly not any outside organization, is calling the shots.
Enter Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The famous vaccine skeptic is a new addition to the Trump orbit. He abandoned his own presidential campaign over the summer before backing the Republican candidate, delivering an unusual but no less invaluable endorsement in the final stretch of the election season. “It is a realignment,” Tucker Carlson later said of the coalition that included RFK Jr., whose addition he helped facilitate. “It is unbelievable.” The Kennedy apostate, it seemed at the time, was only there to deliver a bit of political capital.
Kennedy is an environmental lawyer who believes in climate change and who sued oil companies. He is a Catholic but also a liberal who believes in abortion rights. He is a crusader against what he has described as “Big Banks” and “Big Data” and “Big Tech” and “Big Pharma.”
The one thing Kennedy would never be? The Health and Human Services Secretary. So said Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of the Trump transition committee. Just days before the election, he told CNN that Kennedy was “not getting a job for HHS.” Asked anchor Kaitlin Collins, “He would not be in charge of HHS?” Replied Lutnick, “No, of course not.”
And then, nine days after the election, Trump announced his intent to nominate RFK Jr. to that HHS post.
“I look forward to working with the more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth,” Kennedy said in a statement.
Pharmaceutical stocks stumbled. Democrats on Capitol Hill were aghast. Republicans were mostly silent. Asked for reaction, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, whom Republicans elected to serve as Senate majority leader in the next Congress, told reporters, “I don’t have one at this point.”
[...]
Since Election Day, the Trump transition has been copying and pasting the same quote again and again into emails to reporters seeking comment on this or that presidential appointment.
“President-Elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second Administration soon,” Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt always writes without fail. “Those decisions will be announced when they are made.”
The boilerplate delivers an obvious truth that many in Washington, D.C., find uncomfortable or, in some cases, unimaginable: The president-elect alone, not his senior staff, and certainly not any outside organization, is calling the shots.
Enter Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The famous vaccine skeptic is a new addition to the Trump orbit. He abandoned his own presidential campaign over the summer before backing the Republican candidate, delivering an unusual but no less invaluable endorsement in the final stretch of the election season. “It is a realignment,” Tucker Carlson later said of the coalition that included RFK Jr., whose addition he helped facilitate. “It is unbelievable.” The Kennedy apostate, it seemed at the time, was only there to deliver a bit of political capital.
Kennedy is an environmental lawyer who believes in climate change and who sued oil companies. He is a Catholic but also a liberal who believes in abortion rights. He is a crusader against what he has described as “Big Banks” and “Big Data” and “Big Tech” and “Big Pharma.”
The one thing Kennedy would never be? The Health and Human Services Secretary. So said Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of the Trump transition committee. Just days before the election, he told CNN that Kennedy was “not getting a job for HHS.” Asked anchor Kaitlin Collins, “He would not be in charge of HHS?” Replied Lutnick, “No, of course not.”
And then, nine days after the election, Trump announced his intent to nominate RFK Jr. to that HHS post.
“I look forward to working with the more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth,” Kennedy said in a statement.
Pharmaceutical stocks stumbled. Democrats on Capitol Hill were aghast. Republicans were mostly silent. Asked for reaction, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, whom Republicans elected to serve as Senate majority leader in the next Congress, told reporters, “I don’t have one at this point.”
[...]
