Team of rivals? How about cabinet of charlatans?

Donald Trump with Linda McMahon at an America First rally. McMahon is his pick for Secretary of Education for which the former World Wrestling Federation mogul has absolutely no credentials. She will take over a department Trump says he wants to eliminate entirely. | Alex Brandon/AP

WASHINGTON—Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, gave a great sign of the strength he would need to lead the Union through the Civil War in his first act before taking the oath of office: He named his top competitors for the Republican nomination to his Cabinet. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who’s also worked for and profiled a president or two, named them “The Team of Rivals.”

So what are we to make of the top picks of the Republican President-Elect Donald Trump? How about “Cabinet of Charlatans?” at least according to organizations that interact with the agencies involved. Public Citizen goes even further: It’s started a “conflicts of interest” list unveiling the corporate connections of Trump’s nominees.

But really: The multimillionaire former head of the World Wrestling Federation, Linda McMahon, as Secretary of Education? A cryptocurrency speculator under federal investigation as Secretary of Commerce? Dr. Oz, a TV personality—and a retired professor of cardiothoracic surgery who almost got drummed out of Columbia University—to run Medicare?

How about RFK Jr., promoter of crackpot theories against fluoride in water and an anti-vaxxer with no health or welfare expertise, as Health and Human Services Secretary? Or now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., under investigation—before he quit—to be Attorney General? Gaetz, a prime Trumpite, was being probed for conflicts of interest and sexual trafficking, among other offenses.

Or Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as Secretary of State. Rubio and two other Trump appointees, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, are prominent supporters of Israel’s right-wing nationalist government.

“Trump won because of us and we’re not happy with his Secretary of State pick and others,” said Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump, told Reuters.

And let’s not forget Trump himself. The man promised to “drain the swamp” eight years ago and—nominally—turned his businesses over to his adult kids, even though he kept signing the checks. This time around, he has yet to promise even that, despite federal ethics laws.

“Donald Trump may have run for office pretending he was going to advocate for regular people, but his appointments show in reality he’s planning to govern, again, on behalf of the corporate class,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “The man who once said he was going to drain the swamp is instead flooding it.”

His co-president, Lisa Gilbert, said Trump is filling top posts “with as many corporate lackeys and self-enriching grifters as he can hire,” just like in Trump’s first term.

But then what else could voters expect from Trump? His first Cabinet meeting of his first term was devoted to sycophantic praise from Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s appointees. The Cabinet session is on YouTube.

Weissman was particularly scathing about Dr. Oz, a failed GOP U.S. Senate candidate from Pennsylvania.

“Americans need a director of Medicare and Medicaid who will operate with the utmost integrity. They need someone who will crack down on insurers who want to deny care to the sick, providers who skimp on quality health care, corporations that want to privatize Medicare, and Big Pharma profiteers and ideologues who want to slash Medicaid and refuse care to low-income people.

“What they do not need is a health care huckster, which unfortunately Dr. Mehmet Oz appears to have become, having spent much of his recent career hawking products of dubious medical value.

“The role of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is to crack down on scams and frauds, not to represent the interests of scammers and fraudsters.

“Americans do not deserve someone who has actively promoted further privatization of Medicare and wrongly touted chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for Covid-19.”

McMahon tweeted she’ll push apprenticeships as Secretary of Education.

“Apprenticeship Programs are a pathway to successful careers. Switzerland provides a model the rest of the world can adopt. They employ Apprentices in 230 Occupations and most of their CEOs were Apprentices,” she tweeted on X.

Only mildly positive comment

The only mildly positive comment so far, outside of sycophantic congressional Republicans, came from Teachers/AFT President Randi Weingarten. Trump picked McMahon to head the Education Department. But Weingarten warned the proof will be in the policies.

“While the job of Education Secretary should not be a consolation prize, we are pleased Linda McMahon wanted to teach in her early life and that her work on the Connecticut State Board of Education led to her interest in literacy and building career pathways,” Weingarten said the day Trump nominated her—and the day before the Washington Post reported that McMahon falsely claims on her resume that she has an education degree.

“We will try to work with anyone who puts the aspirations of our students, families, and communities first. That means strengthening public education, not undermining it. Voters made it clear that’s what they wanted in November’s down-ballot elections,” Weingarten said.

“We look forward to learning more about Linda McMahon, and if she is confirmed we will reach out to her as we did with Betsy DeVos at the beginning of her tenure” during the first Trump regime.

AFT wound up battling DeVos in the Senate and in the courts, as GOP big giver DeVos made clear her hate for public schools, their teachers, and their students, especially students of color.

“We hope Donald Trump means it when he says he wants a focus on project-based instruction, career and technical education and apprenticeships. This will improve education and job options, making schools more relevant and engaging for young people,” Weingarten continued.

“But we question the future of these popular ideas and more if Trump follows through with plans to close the Department of Education, leaving in doubt a federal funding lifeline that disproportionately goes to children in need, children with disabilities, and young adults who are the first in their families to go to college.” All those schemes are in Trump’s GOP platform, also known as Project 2025, a product of the radical right Heritage Foundation.

Working-class and middle-class families could lose college educational opportunities if the new GOP-run Congress approves those ideas, Weingarten said.

The outlook is grimmer for workers’ rights, Kevin Vasquez wrote in Harvard’s OnLabor blog. That’s because though Trump campaigned as a blue-collar workers’ champion, he’s really from the corporate class, and his appointees—and their rulings—during his first term championed those interests.

“Trump will likely again outsource labor law policymaking to the same corporate interests that have shaped the Republican Party’s labor platform. In other words, a Trump II NLRB is likely to offer little more than a second helping of what was served by the Trump I NLRB—that is rolling back the pro-labor accomplishments of the previous board and generally circumscribing unions and workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act.”

Among the Biden-named board majority’s accomplishments Trump nominees—whenever they take office there—may try to reverse “are its streamlined representation process and expanded joint employer rules, and even its recent ruling banning captive audience meetings.” All “made it easier for workers to form or join unions and bargain collectively.”

Trump is also likely to fire NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, a veteran board attorney who later became a top counsel for the Communications Workers, Vasquez noted. She’s arguably been the most pro-worker GC the board has ever had. The General Counsel is the board’s top enforcement officer and de facto chief of staff.

Indeed, Biden’s first sub-Cabinet move, on his first day in office, was to can Trump’s anti-worker NLRB General Counsel and replace him first with a temporary hire—Chicago NLRB office chief Kevin Sung Ohr—and then with Abruzzo.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg

Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.