There are a surprising number of common denominators tying together Donald Trump’s personnel decisions for his second term. As regular readers know, the president-elect has, for example, announced plans to nominate a great many contributors to the right-wing Project 2025 blueprint. He’s similarly tapped some people who’ve faced sexual misconduct allegations. He also apparently wants a variety of former television personalities and snake oil salesmen on his team.
The Republican also appears to have an inordinate fondness for people from Florida.
But the list keeps growing.
Trump has picked several billionaires. The New York Times noted last week that the president-elect has chosen “at least five” billionaires to serve in key roles in his incoming administration, and in the days that followed, Trump chose billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to lead NASA and billionaire Stephen Feinberg for a leadership position at the Pentagon. A variety of others have reportedly amassed comparable net worth.
Given these extraordinarily wealthy people’s vast business interests, there’s no shortage of questions about ethics and potential conflicts of interest.
Trump has picked some ex-cons. Two weeks after Election Day, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama assured the public that Trump wouldn’t choose “a criminal” for a governmental position. About a week later, the president-elect announced his intention to nominate Charles Kushner — an ex-con convicted of tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign contributions, whom Trump pardoned four years ago — to serve as the U.S. ambassador to France.
Days later, the president-elect tapped Peter Navarro, who completed a prison sentence earlier this year after being convicted for contempt of Congress, for an advisory post at the White House.
This comes on the heels of a campaign season in which Trump critics noted that he’d surrounded himself with a surprising number of convicted criminals.
Trump has picked a lot of failed candidates. Roll Call ran an interesting item late last month with a headline that read, “Trump’s second administration set to be filled with losers.” From the article: For someone who has made winning a key part of his personal, professional and political brand, Donald Trump is set to rely on a large stable of losers in his second term. The president-elect has tapped more than a dozen people who previously lost elections to join his administration next year.
In all, according to the Roll Call report, at least 17 of the president-elect’s personnel choices have previously lost elections. After the report was published, Trump tapped former Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler — both Georgia Republicans who lost elections in the recent past — for prominent positions in the upcoming administration. In fact, three Republicans ended up losing Senate races in Georgia in 2020 — Perdue, Loeffler, and former Rep. Doug Collins — and now all three of them have been tapped for Trump administration jobs. There are still open slots that need to be filled. Watch this space.
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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