A note to readers. This is the second in an occasional series on the transition from the Biden to the incoming Trump administrations—the early days.
The final vote counts are in, and the split between House Republicans and Democrats is 220 to 215. Although the Republicans have managed to maintain their majority status, they lost two seats in the election. It could prove problematic for the former and future presidents.
When the 119th Congress opens for business in January, the House Republican conference will be minus three members because of retirement (Gaetz R-FL) and moves to the Trump administration by Stefanik (R-NY) and Waltz (R-FL). It will reduce the GOP majority to one. It also means that one defection and Democratic discipline could result in tie votes of 216 to 216. Unlike the Senate, the House has no tie-breaker. It is the only time the vice president can vote in the upper chamber. Tied House votes are considered defeats.
Capitol Hill Republicans and the Trump administration are under great pressure to produce significant, observable progress on the incoming president’s America First agenda. Although Trump will be free to issue executive orders, much of the agenda depends upon congressional action.
Although Hill Republicans are all pledging to support Trump’s agenda, divisions exist within the House and Senate GOP conferences. There are also emerging conflicts between Speaker Johnson and incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune. I’ll detail some of the various disagreements a bit further on.
Unsurprisingly, chaos is still a mark of the Trump presidency, beginning with Trump’s cabinet and staff nominations, many of which require Senate confirmation. This time around, the president-elect has put proven personal loyalty above all other selection criteria.
The Trump transition team has only recently signed the paperwork needed for the FBI to undertake the traditional background checks that are usually done before someone is nominated. It cuts down on embarrassing problems. Until now, the Trump forces have been “self-vetting” his nominees. Predictably, problems are raising their ugly heads.
Trump’s first choice for Attorney General (AG), Representative Matt Gaetz, dropped out of contention because of significant Senate opposition—on the Republican side of the aisle.
Gaetz was the subject of a yearslong ethics investigation over payments for sexual favors from underage women. Even without the ethics issues hanging over his head, he is not well-liked by many of his Republican congressional colleagues.
He was the instigator of the putsch that ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. In addition to dropping out of consideration as AG, Gaetz announced he wouldn’t be returning to Congress.
It’s believed Gaetz’s retirement is an effort to prevent the release of the results of the House ethics investigation. Although possible, it’s unusual for the results of ethics inquiries to be released when the member is no longer serving. The Ethics Committee voted mostly along party lines not to release the Gaetz report. Whether it ever will be is questionable.
The former Florida congressman is hardly the only one of Trump’s nominees facing allegations that they’re unfit for the positions they hoped to fill. The most prominent leading “questionables” are Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Peter Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, and Robert Kennedy, Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary.
The Guardian recently published an article in which they interviewed Trump voters about their thoughts on his cabinet choices. Neil Shaffer, chair of the Republican party in Howard County, Iowa, was one of those supporters.
He had this to say about both the election and the president-elect’s nominees.
“This time around, I was still a little lukewarm on the whole thing, but I’m very impressed with the people he’s surrounded himself with, especially Tulsi Gabbard, Bobby Kennedy, and Elon Musk. With each one of these people, there’s a big, big part of their appointment that is reforming and streamlining.”
Shaffer goes on to explain: “I like the idea of bringing people from outside government to look at this with eyes from the real world, not Washington DC…DC is not the real world. It’s a made-up puppet regime of dark shadows. You’ve got the military-industrial complex, big pharma, big agriculture pulling all the levers. They want all that money.”
Shaffer was an Obama voter. However, he voted for Trump the last three times. Reversals that happened often this election cycle. As reported by Newsweek, exit polls showed that 56 percent of voters without a college degree and 50 percent of voters with income under $50,000 supported Trump, while 47 percent supported Harris.
The vice chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has declared that Republicans are now seen as the party that best represents the working class.
Education and income are two core elements that divided American society—culturally and politically in the 2024 campaigns. Democrats were thought to be lecturing non-college and lower-income voters, while Trump railed against the establishment—defining it as the liberal left.
It’s a historic reversal of roles, one I have trouble wrapping my head around. Having grown up when Democrats were the party of the working class and recent generations of immigrants, Today’s Democrats are not my uncle Olaf’s party.
It’s clear that not all of Trump’s nominees will make it through the Senate advice-and-consent gauntlet. Senate Republicans have mumbled about not being Trump toadies when it comes to giving him what he wants by way of nominees. It’s not that they don’t believe what most on Capitol Hill believe: a president is entitled to surround themselves with the administration they want.
I’m not woke, although I lean woke. Yet, I basically with Messrs. Shaffer and Trump that Washington could use a good cleaning. I’ve long lamented that Congress and presidents don’t eliminate programs that don’t work. They just add more programs to work around them. Why this happens is a topic for another day.
The problem here is their character, experience, and motivation of the people he’s nominating. One of the harshest opinions of Trump’s nominees comes from Charles P. Pierce. As reported, he who casts the group as—
An “endless parade of whackadoos, smackbrains, rockheads, fanatics, lunatics, and general shit-for-brains that [has] been following El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago ever since he rode down the escalator.”·Chas P. Pierce
Frankly, Pierce’s characterizations are harsh. I may not agree with their positions, but many have distinguished themselves as governors, senators, and investors. However, others are FOX network personalities, toadies, and henchmen whose records and associations can (legitimately) be questioned.
Some of the knocks against Gabbard are that she’s thought to be an apologist for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and sympathetic to Russian President Putin. Whether there’s truth to the suggestions, it seems prudent to subject her nomination as national security director to a thorough background check. There appear to be other issues involved, as her chances of Senate approval seem slim. As one former staffer put it—
“The best thing that Tulsi has going for her is the other Trump nominees that are blowing themselves up.”
Trump clearly understands who he’s appointing. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have avoided beginning the customary FBI background checks before making his choices public, which could have saved him trouble. His suggestion of being allowed to make unquestioned interim appointments—after forcing Congress out for ten days—offers insight into how far he would like to go this time around.
Notwithstanding the problem nominees, the former and future president’s choices for Energy (Chris Wright), Environmental Protection Agency (Lee Zeldin), Interior (Doug Burgum), Treasury (Scott Bessent), Commerce (Howard Lutnick), NASA (Jared Isaacman), and Office of Management and Budget (Russ Vought), are likely to get through the process. None seem favorably disposed towards climate science and the need to transition the economy to a low-carbon economy.
Trump seems perfectly prepared to push traditional Capitol Hill—possibly even constitutional—boundaries. Given the dynamics of the (Trump) Republican Party, moderate and establishment Republicans in Congress are dancing on the nose of the MAGA shark. If they go too far in opposing their leader, they’ll be ostracized while serving and primaried in their districts by MAGA-aligned forces.
The final counts in the November elections are hardly in, and there’s already chatter about primarying Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) over their cabinet votes. Oddly, the avenging sword could be Elon Musk’s America Pac if Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is right. (For the record, Musk contributed nearly a quarter-billion dollars to get Trump elected.)
Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, has indicated “that the window for Mr. Trump to revolutionize government was more like two years, rather than four.” (Italics mine) If he’s to accomplish his agenda, he’ll need the coordinated support of House and Senate Republicans on budgets and programs. There are already differences in the legislative priorities of the incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA).
Although there’s general agreement on the total agenda, how it is put into force and which bills are considered first will make a very big difference in what gets passed and when—especially on energy matters. Early this week, House Republicans will choose new committee chairs. Their selections will be telling.
These issues and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) role will be the hot topics of the next installment of The View from Washington: Essays on Trump 2.0 and climate politics. Look for it soon on Civil Notion.
