Jim Cason and David Brooks
Correspondents
La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, November 19, 2024, p. 21
Washington and New York, Donald Trump is selecting his Cabinet and agency heads almost exclusively based on loyalty to the next supreme leader, and not on their expertise or qualifications, seeking to consolidate his personal power to transform key parts of the government and also reward wealthy donors who invested in his campaign (turns out it wasn’t just for support, but for business).
Although the lack of experience and even accusations against some of those appointed to head the Department of Justice and the Pentagon have made headlines, Trump and his transition team are already working to ensure that the Senate ratifies the nominees and, if not, that they allow them to be installed without legislative approval through a parliamentary maneuver.
In 2016, Trump’s victory was a surprise to almost everyone, including the magnate himself, and members of his team have admitted that they were not prepared to take power. Many of the secretaries and heads of the Department of Justice and the armed forces revealed after leaving their government that they had disobeyed or diverted orders from the president because they considered them dangerous and unconstitutional.
Therefore, by appointing loyal accomplices to his cabinet-in-training, such as former Representative Matt Gaetz, who will be Secretary of Justice, Fox News commentator Pete Hegseth in Defense and former Representative Tulsi Gabbard, head of intelligence – all without experience in those ministries – Trump assumes that they will be loyal only to him. In fact, during the campaign the next president promised that he would carry out a purge of what he calls permanent governmentwhich includes senior bureaucrats in the departments of Justice, Defense and intelligence agencies, and even proceeded criminally against some who dared to criticize or not follow his orders during his first term.
Trump’s advisors have leaked to the media that they have already prepared lists of officials in Justice – the president has openly threatened special prosecutor Jack Smith, in charge of two criminal cases against the former president -, Defense and Intelligence who could be dismissed in the first days of the new presidency (some, like Smith, are already retiring).
He clearly desires power for the purpose of overthrowing established practices of governing.explained former Republican Senator John Danforth to the Wall Street Journal. Adam Jentleson, Democratic Senate aide, added: It is impossible to look at what is painted here and not see a president intent on taking an unprecedented level of control..
At the same time, Trump is also seeking to ensure not only full control of his team and cabinet, but also over federal spending. For example, Congress passed a law in 1974 requiring the president to spend funds on priorities established by the legislature, but as a candidate, the Republican declared that this law is not constitutional and that he will seek to overturn it, something that is possible, since the president-elect has the Supreme Court aligned with him.
Behind this is not only the consolidation of greater executive power, but also business reasons. Changing that law will be a key part of the task given by Trump to billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to make more efficient the government. Musk has proposed reducing the federal budget from $7 trillion by $2 trillion over two years and reducing the number of federal agencies from more than 400 to 99. Cuts of that magnitude would face broad opposition from both parties in Congress and the interests they represent, and Analysts doubt that something so ambitious is viable. But reducing federal agencies could result in billions of dollars in new business for the private sector to take over those tasks previously carried out by the public sector.
Largest donors expect returns on their investmentswas the owner of the New York Times this weekend by citing a long list of millionaires who hope to benefit from the new government. The private prison company GEO Group, for example, told Wall Street executives that it expects mass deportations of undocumented immigrants to fill tens of thousands of spaces in its detention centers.
Meet millionaire donors
In April, at a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump was explicit when telling his guests – oil company executives – that if they collectively contributed a billion dollars to his campaign, he would commit to reversing environmental regulations imposed by Joe Biden’s government on that sector, expand liquid gas exports, frozen in the current government, and end the tax credit for electric vehicles. Trump has already begun to comply by appointing Chris Wright, an executive of a fracking as his next Secretary of Energy and promised that from his first day in the White House he will roll back environmental regulations on the oil sector.
Executives at military technology companies also contributed millions to Trump’s campaign, the newspaper reported. New York Timesand now expect to be rewarded with contracts around the $850 billion military budget that were previously only offered to traditional defense companies. On the other hand, cryptocurrency investors irritated by current regulations in their sector also invested in Trump’s campaign, who upon winning increased the price of the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, in anticipation of what is coming with the new government.
The biggest beneficiary of Trump’s victory – who has not been discreet at all – could be the richest man on the planet, Elon Musk. An investigation of Times revealed that last year, Musk had nearly 100 contracts with a total of 17 different federal government agencies worth a total of about $3 billion.
Part of the central message of Trump’s campaign was to denounce that a corrupt class of politicians and officials were in control of the government and that he would be in charge of drain the swamp from Washington. It is possible that Trump will partially fulfill his promise and remove corrupt officials, but everything indicates that he will only replace them with his own.