When Donald Trump was president, he relied on his daughter and son-in-law in the West Wing. When Trump needed a new leadership team at the Republican National Committee, he rewarded his daughter-in-law with a top post.
And when it came time for Trump to put together a post-election transition team, the former president once again kept matters within the family. The New Republic noted that the GOP candidate unveiled a five-member transition team — and two of his sons are on it.
Eric Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. will be honorary chairs along with the vice presidential nominee, Senator J.D. Vance. The team’s other members are Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive and the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s presidency; and Howard Lutnik, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services firm.
It’s worth emphasizing that in modern presidential elections, both major-party nominees choose transition teams long before Election Day so that they don’t have to start from scratch in November. This isn’t a situation in which members of Team Trump are simply assuming they’re going to win; Team Harris is making similar plans.
Indeed, part of what makes these developments notable isn’t that they’re too early, but rather, that they’re surprisingly late. As a New York Times report explained, “As a matter of timing, it came months after a typical presidential campaign starts working on contingency planning to ensure a smooth transition should its candidate win the election.”
In 2016, for example, Trump’s operation announced a transition team in May. This year, for reasons unknown, the Republican campaign waited until mid-August.








