Right now we are in the wilderness, an uneasy time between the end of Joe Biden’s term and the start of the second Donald Trump presidency. None of us knows exactly how an emboldened Trump will govern, or if Republican senators will take their role to advise and consent seriously. But we can glean quite a bit from the rollout of Trump’s Cabinet. There are some fairly conventional picks, one of whom even worked for George Soros. Others have expressed controversial and extreme views. Still, whether sane or crazy, all of Trump’s Cabinet picks will presumably have to perform like skilled propagandists, praising him like a newscaster in North Korea.
Of course, if we know anything from the first Trump administration, it’s that a lot can happen in a very short period of time. Just look at former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz: A week ago, he was gearing up to be attorney general; now, after his nomination unraveled amid allegations of sexual misconduct (which he denies), he’s on Cameo. His bio reads simply: “I served in Congress. Trump nominated me to be US Attorney General (that didn’t work out). Once I fired the House Speaker.” With videos starting at $500, you can get Gaetz to record a custom message, completing, it seems, the first attorney general candidate–to–Cameo pipeline. Like so many things in Trumpworld, none of this is normal.
With Gaetz gone, there is oxygen to focus on some of Trump’s other Cabinet nominees, and there’s much to worry about. You could turn to Pete Hegseth, who, while having been a weekend Fox & Friends host, does not necessarily have the qualifications to lead a 3 million-person-strong organization (the Department of Defense) and has also been accused of sexual assault (which he denies). In addition, Trump tapped known vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services and Bashar al-Assad booster Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence. Not to mention, there’s whatever Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are planning to get up to in the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
But for me, the scariest Cabinet pick, and one likely sail through a GOP-majority Senate, is Russell Vought, who’d be returning to run the Office of Management and Budget. You’ll remember Vought as a coauthor of the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump term, Project 2025, a wildly unpopular policy book that had about 13% support among registered voters, according to one poll. The playbook is so unpopular that Trump disavowed its contents this summer: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying,” he wrote, adding that some of its assertions were “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” As I noted in July, Trump “can try distancing himself from Project 2025, but his extremist agenda for America is written all over it.”
What makes Vought’s nomination so troubling is that he isn’t some TV personality or crank who had a brain worm. Vought is wildly competent. In his Project 2025 chapter, Vought wrote in favor of the “aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch” and depicted the OMB as playing a key role in this effort, as The Guardian notes. According to Vought, the office needs to be “intimately involved in all aspects of the White House policy process.” That’s not all. “The long, difficult road ahead of returning to our beloved Constitution starts with being honest with ourselves. It starts by recognizing that we are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in 2022. “Post-Constitutional” sounds bad.
Given Trump’s erratic nature, he could change direction on a whim. He also needs to be loved by his people, and Vought’s proposals may be very unpopular and hard to sell. But for now, at least, Trump appears to be on the same wavelength as Vought, who has suggested that the incoming president will be “a wrecking ball for the administrative state” on day one. And as Trump wrote upon nominating Vought: “Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government.”
