President-elect Donald Trump brought his populist supporters into the Republican Party and now would like to include them in his administration, but not everyone in the GOP is happy about it.
The MAGA movement contains some people who are fervent Republicans but might deviate from what was the party line as recently as the George W. Bush administration or Mitt Romney‘s 2012 campaign on issues like immigration, trade, and foreign policy.
Others are Republicans of a more recent vintage, if at all. The kind of crossover voters Trump sought to attract by campaigning with former Democrats and appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Trump has intensified this push over the last few days by announcing his plans to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of health and human services, former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, and former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general. The once and future president has also tapped Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a task force on government efficiency.
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In July, Trump passed over a number of seasoned Republicans favored by donors and other wings of the party as a way to balance the ticket and chose Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), a populist conservative who is now the vice president-elect, as his running mate. This was seen as doubling down on Trumpism rather than trying to appeal to disaffected conservatives and suburban women with someone like former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Trump ended up winning back the Rust Belt and sweeping all the battleground states. After his election, he announced Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would not be part of his new administration.
But that doesn’t mean Trump has completely snubbed the rest of his party. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has grown closer to Trump personally and ideologically since the two were rivals for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. Foreign policy is generally not thought to be an area where they are fully aligned, however, and Rubio was Trump’s choice for secretary of state.
There were reports of MAGA pushback against Rubio as a day went by between the initial reports he would be nominated and the Trump-Vance transition team confirmed it. “He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries,” Trump said in a statement.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has also become a Trump loyalist after a rocky start with the president-elect in 2016. Her selection as the next ambassador to the United Nations was widely hailed in MAGA circles. But her foreign policy record isn’t radically different from Haley’s and she could have easily been in House Republican leadership in the pre-Trump GOP.
Susie Wiles co-managed the most disciplined of Trump’s three presidential campaigns. She hopes to repeat that accomplishment in the White House as his chief of staff. She is a quintessentially normal Republican whose work for the party dates back to the Reagan administration.
Yet the real populist true believers serving in senior positions during the first Trump term were limited in number. Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who didn’t last long; Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whose relationship with Trump never recovered from his recusal from the Russia investigation that indirectly led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller; senior adviser Stephen Miller, who is returning as deputy White House chief of staff for policy.
This time around, Trump is seeking reinforcements. Those around him believe there is a deeper MAGA bench supported by a stronger infrastructure, and that his win, thanks in part to the much-ridiculed but stronger-than-expected get-out-the-vote efforts helmed by Musk and Charlie Kirk, is more of a mandate than his 2016 upset.
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Nevertheless, Trump’s distinctively Trumpier nominees could face major headwinds even in a Republican-controlled Senate than the likes of Rubio or Stefanik. Some of it is due to policy and ideology, especially where relevant to their planned portfolios. In other cases, it is their qualifications. Kennedy, a longtime progressive activist and scion of an iconic liberal family, and Gabbard, a former Bernie Sanders supporter and Democratic National Committee co-chairwoman, were Democrats until recently. Gaetz faced a House ethics investigation whose findings could follow him to his Senate confirmation hearings and is not especially well-liked by his GOP colleagues.
Trump won with a broader coalition than any recent GOP presidential nominee, defeating a Democratic nominee who frequently campaigned with his former Republican detractors. He would like a Cabinet that looks like his coalition. It remains to be seen whether Republican senators are ready to give him one.