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.
What’s more, eight years ago, Team Trump focused on officials with governing experience to oversee the transition effort, tapping then-Gov. Chris Christie and then-Sen. Jeff Sessions. In 2024, the transition team will feature McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive who led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s term; Lutnick, a wealthy donor; two of Trump’s sons; and the former president’s current running mate. But just as notable is the fact that the transition team is slated to play a prominent role in staffing the prospective administration, and as The New Republic’s report added, this is a subject of great interest to the former president’s oldest son. “I don’t want to pick a single person for a position of power. All I want to do is block the guys that would be a disaster,” Trump Jr. told Axios in July. “I want to block the liars. I want to block the guys that are, you know, pretending they’re with you.” The Times’ report added that Team Trump does not intend to use “the office space and computers that the federal government makes available for transitions,” and officials from the campaign would not explain why.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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