What Trump’s picks suggest about how his presidency will go
Loyalty, competence and an appetite for disruption are among the traits he is filtering for

AFTER DONALD TRUMP won the presidential election in 2016—when he was a former television star rather than a former president—he managed the White House transition as if he was staging his reality show, “The Apprentice”. Aspiring cabinet members arrived at the tower that bears his name in New York and walked past TV cameras. That series was drawn-out, with celebrity appearances, including by Kanye West. This time Mr Trump is directing a tighter show: deliberating at his estate at Mar-a-Lago away from cameras and issuing his hiring verdicts over social media at a much faster pace. Unfortunately, the outcomes are hardly saner.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “They’re hired”
United States
November 16th 2024- What Trump’s picks suggest about how his presidency will go
- Senate Republicans flex their independence
- The man picked as defence secretary wants to purge the Pentagon
- Mike Waltz wants America to focus on the threat from China
- Climate change and the next administration
- The demographic detail of Donald Trump’s victory
- The promise Donald Trump is sure to keep
From the November 16th 2024 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDonald Trump’s Washington reaches a new partisan peak
His address to Congress showed that Republicans will follow their leader anywhere, and that Democrats don’t have one
Andrew Cuomo plots a comeback in New York City
The disgraced former governor announces a run for mayor of the Big Apple
Trump’s armed forces won’t look like Biden’s
America is set to spend more—and differently
Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s savvy dealmaker
The novice diplomat embodies the president’s transactional worldview
America has never had state media like it does today
Donald Trump and Elon Musk are revolutionising presidential communication
America’s Gen Z has got religion
Because of them, a long decline in the number of Christians has levelled off