In the lead up to his inauguration next week, President elect Donald Trump has been announcing his picks for his administration’s Cabinet roles. Jim Rice writes that Trump’s choices are in stark contrast to the more orthodox appointees of his first term, and it’s now clear that Trump has only nominated those who will show loyalty to him. From enemies lists to mass deportation plans, he looks at what Trumps picks may tell us about Trump’s plans for his second administration.
In the weeks following Trump’s election victory in November and leading up to his inauguration on January 20, 2025, there has been extensive speculation surrounding what his administration’s policies will look like. His choices for his Cabinet offer an early glimpse into the policies that a Trump administration will try and implement.
From orthodox Cabinet picks to a focus on fealty
In his first term, most of Trump’s Cabinet officials were generally regarded as being respected, orthodox and within the norms of presidential appointees. They included several high-ranking generals (John Kelly, Mark Milley, James Mattis) as well as a former senior energy executive, Rex Tillerson, as Secretary of State and John Bolton, former National Security Advisor under the George W. Bush administration. However, these individuals eventually fell out of Trump’s favor and resigned (in most cases acrimoniously). In fact, 24 of Trump’s first term appointees have by now publicly denounced him, including his own pick for Vice President, Mike Pence.
This fact does not appear to have been lost on Trump, who has deflected questions about the negative comments made by his former Cabinet members. It is generally understood that Trump values loyalty to himself above all other attributes. According to Eric Edelman, who served as the Pentagon’s top policy official during the Bush administration, “It appears that one of the main criteria that’s being used is, how well do people defend Donald Trump on television?”
Following his reelection, it is now clear that Trump is nominating only those individuals who are guaranteed to show fealty to the president-elect (as opposed to their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution). More than blind loyalty, however, Trump’s picks for some of the most consequential jobs in government appears to be an attempt to overwhelm the public with nominations, some of which are so contrary to the norms of government officials that they represent a “shock and awe” campaign designed to cause exhaustion and resignation on the part of the public and officials.
Trump’s Cabinet picks and what they might mean
The first nominee to encounter significant opposition including from a small number of Senate Republicans was Matt Gaetz, US House Representative from Florida, who has come under scrutiny for (alleged) sexual encounters with a minor, and other inappropriate behavior that had been investigated by the House Ethics Committee. Gaetz withdrew his nomination only eight days after his nomination was announced and was promptly replaced with Pam Bondi, an outspoken defender of Trump. She was one of his lawyers during his first impeachment trial in 2020, when he was accused (but not convicted) of abusing his power as he tried to impose conditions for US military assistance to Ukraine of investigating then-former Vice President Joe Biden. Bondi was also among a group of Republicans who showed up to support Trump at his New York hush money criminal trial.
Another of Trump’s initial Cabinet nominations was Tulsi Gabbard, for the position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Gabbard’s nomination has raised serious concerns from nearly 100 former US diplomats, intelligence and national security officials who have called for the Senate to hold closed-door briefings for her expressions of sympathy for brutal dictators like Vladimir Putin and Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, for spreading Russian misinformation and that she is (allegedly) a Russian intelligence asset. The sudden collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024 and the disclosures of systematic human rights abuses in Syria put even great focus on Gabbard and her association with Assad.
Trump’s choice for the post of Secretary of Defense, Peter Hegseth has also raised concerns from Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike regarding his long history of sexual impropriety, alcohol abuse and lack of any relevant experience, record or merit for the head of the government’s largest organization. An article in the New Yorker by Jane Mayer and published shortly after Hegseth’s nomination cited several instances of sexual abuse and impropriety has seriously damaged his chances of Senate approval despite Trump’s steadfast support.

“Pete Hegseth” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Gage Skidmore
Hegseth who is a television personality on Fox News Sunday, served in the Minnesota National Guard and was deployed to Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and Iraq. Hegseth has been especially critical of the military. He has accused multiple generals and other leaders of being “woke” and claimed that what he sees as their focus on diversity and equity has weakened the military. In fact, Hegseth’s intended policy (as stated in his own book, The War on Warriors) is to carry out a purge of the US military based on Trump’s imperative for personal loyalty.
Another of Trump’s nominees for Trump’s Cabinet is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services, who has long been a skeptic of human vaccinations and other orthodox public health measures. Kennedy has repeatedly made claims as to the (unproven) association between childhood vaccinations and autism.
Enemies lists and mass deportation plans
Of all of Trump’s proposed Cabinet nominees, for many, Kashyap (Kash) Patel is perhaps the most problematic. Although Trump has named Patel to be the Director of the FBI, any appointment in the new administration would first involve the firing of Christopher Wray (himself a Trump appointee) in the middle of his statutory term of office. Patel, who has written of Wray as being an ‘enemy,’ is the embodiment of Trump’s campaign threats to carry out “retribution” against what he has labeled the “enemy within.” As such, Patel has made comments about his intention to weaponize the criminal justice system against Trump’s perceived enemies, “We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media.”
Adding specificity to those remarks, Patel has published a so-called ‘enemies list’ in his 2023 book Government Gangsters. Included on the list are approximately 60 names of Democrats, as well as officials from the Biden administration officials and Trump appointees like former Attorney General Bill Barr, Rod Rosenstein and Special Counsel Robert Hur.
As part of his central campaign theme regarding immigration, Trump has chosen Tom Homan to serve as “Border Czar.” Homan, who has close connections to Project 2025, is now discussing plans for mass deportations of undocumented persons. Homan, together with Stephen Miller (picked as a senior advisor to Trump) have been raising the prospect of invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 as a means of using the military to round up undocumented persons and carry out deportations.

“Thomas Homan” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Gage Skidmore
In Trump’s first term, Homan was the architect of the policy of separating families during the process of arrest, detention and deportation of migrants. Now having been named Border Czar, he appears to be unrepentant of a policy shown to have been punitive and arbitrary. The post as Border Czar falls outside the scope of the requirement of Senate confirmation and as such, Homan is likely to become a part of Trump’s administration.
Donald Trump has also chosen Russell Vought, (another significant contributor to Project 2025) to be director of the US Office of Management and Budget, a powerful agency that helps decide the president’s policy priorities and how to pay for them. The appointment of Vought is also an early indication of the role that Project 2025 will play in the new administration.
Loyalty, cronyism and promises for Day One
The common thread that one can draw among these nominations is that they all can be depended on to be Trump loyalists above all else. In addition to the Trump Cabinet nominations has been the appointment of billionaire Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head a “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). While the role and actual authority of this organization is not clear, the fact that Trump has sought to establish an entirely new government entity headed by an individual who has contributed approximately $250 million to Trump’s election campaign raises questions about cronyism in the administration even prior to the inauguration.
During his numerous campaign rallies (more than 900 by his own count) Trump repeatedly made sweeping promises that he would implement on “Day One,” such as ending the Ukraine war in 24 hours, imposing sweeping tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, mass deportations of migrants, drastically reducing the cost of energy through drilling, ending inflation and shutting down the Department of Education.
However, it’s highly unlikely that Trump will be able to deliver on any of these promises. Like his first term promise of building the wall and having Mexico pay for it, it has been suggested that Trump’s other promises will not be accomplished. Instead, some have argued that Trump’s second term will be a continuation of the chaos and distraction of his first four years in office. Furthermore, an administration that is based on “retribution,” is ill equipped to accomplish anything of merit or enduring value.
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