PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump Jr. said Sunday that the team now surrounding the president-elect knows how to pick a Cabinet and build an administration, unlike the time before his father first took office .
Every pushback Donald Trump’s unconventional choices face from the Washington establishment proves that these are exactly the kind of disruptors the new administration and voters are asking for, the younger Trump said.
“The reality this time is that we actually know what we are doing. We actually know who the good guys and the bad guys are,” he told Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures. “And it’s about surrounding my father with people who are both competent and loyal. They will fulfill his promises. on his message. They are not people who think they know better, like unelected bureaucrats.”
After Donald Trump was elected in 2016, he filled his early administration with picks from traditional Republican and business circles, calling on figures like former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who was his first as secretary of state.
Today, Trump values personal loyalty over political experience.
That has translated into selections such as former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who faced an ethics investigation in the House of Representatives, as attorney general, anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services and Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic lawmaker who has publicly expressed sympathy for the Russian cause in the past as director of the U.S. intelligence community.
Some of his picks may be difficult to confirm by the Senate, even with Republicans holding the majority in January.
Donald Trump Jr. suggested that this was exactly the idea.
“Many of them will face pushback,” but “they will be actual disruptors,” he said. “That’s what the American people want.”
He said there are “backup plans” if Senate confirmation is problematic in some cases, but “we will obviously go with the strongest candidates first.”
Trump Jr. also looked back to eight years ago, when his businessman father was new to Washington and its ways. “A lot of that process is just something that we didn’t understand in 2016, when he came to Washington, D.C., he had no experience,” he said.
Now, his son said, Trump knows what to expect.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said the president-elect “has a unique opportunity to make that change, take over permanent Washington and return power to the people.”
“You have to have people you trust to step into these agencies and have a real reform agenda. And that’s why I think there’s real momentum, real momentum to get these nominations confirmed and actually deliver on what President Trump promised during the campaign,” Schmitt told “Sunday Morning Futures.”
On the same show, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said, “We don’t need Democrats to help us. We have the numbers.” But, he added, Trump needs “a team around him that is going to help him. He can’t do it alone.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate tapped by Trump along with businessman Elon Musk to lead a new government efficiency effort, also predicted a pushback from traditional Washington to promise steep federal cuts, which he said would they demonstrated the need to ‘score in the first months’. quick wins through executive action.”
