South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem oversees a state government that employs about 12,000 people. If President-elect Donald Trump gets his way, she’ll soon be in charge of the sprawling Homeland Security Department, with 260,000 employees.
That’s one of the more favorable comparisons.
Some of Mr. Trump’s high-profile Cabinet picks have never overseen anything larger than a Senate office or congressional campaign. If confirmed by the Senate, they will take on departments with 100,000 people or more.
It’s a severe detour from Mr. Trump’s approach in 2017 when his picks included the head of ExxonMobil, two four-star Marine Corps generals, a former Cabinet secretary and several business tycoons.
Yet Mr. Trump felt burned by many of those picks, figuring they were more hindrance than help toward his MAGA makeover. This time, he’s picked people he expects to be loyal as he carries out an unprecedented government house-cleaning.
“All they’re doing is going in there to fire people,” a former senior White House aide told The Washington Times.
In addition to Ms. Noem, Mr. Trump has tapped Sen. Marco Rubio to run the State Department; Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Health and Human Services; Iraq War veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth to oversee the Defense Department; and former representatives to run Veterans Affairs, the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency. A sitting congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, would be the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
Ms. Noem brings the most executive government experience of any of them, followed by her neighbor, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, whom Mr. Trump chose to lead the Interior Department.
Teamwork
Philip Wallach, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said four of the president-elect’s Cabinet-level picks were part of his eight-person congressional defense team during his first impeachment trial in the Senate in 2019.
“I think it’s clear that Trump is serious about prioritizing loyalty this time — and, given his stated desire to do battle with the existing bureaucracies, that makes sense,” Mr. Wallach said. “Management experience is less important to him right now than a sense of resolve and a clear sense of team.”
He said the different approach also reflects changing politics.
“A big part of it is that the Trump coalition is different this time, and big business isn’t obviously a central part of it any longer,” he said.
Some of the picks will cause heartburn for Senate Republicans.
Putting former Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican recently investigated but not prosecuted by the Justice Department, in charge of that operation will be a tough sell. The 42-year-old was a lawyer early in his career, then became a state representative before going to Washington.
The Justice Department is a 115,000-person operation that oversees the federal prisons, the immigration court system, the FBI and several other law enforcement agencies.
In 2017, Mr. Trump started with Jeff Sessions as his attorney general and was disgusted that the former Alabama senator did nothing to thwart special counsel Bob Mueller’s probe of the Russia hoax. The president fired Sessions in 2018 and moved on to William Barr, who had been attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration.
Mr. Barr has been critical of Mr. Trump, which likely informed his choice of Mr. Gaetz, one of the president-elect’s biggest fans.
In 2017 Mr. Trump chose Rex Tillerson, head of ExxonMobil, as his secretary of state, whom he later called “dumb as a rock.” This time he’s picked Mr. Rubio, a 2016 presidential contender who since has been a Trump supporter.
As for the Marine generals, Mr. Trump last time began with James Mattis at the Pentagon and John Kelly at Homeland Security, with the latter becoming White House chief of staff in the summer of 2017. Both became fierce opponents. This time he’s going with serious MAGA allies: Mr. Hegseth and Ms. Noem.
‘I know them all’
Mr. Trump, on the campaign trail, said he’s prepared to do a “much better job” with his team this second go-around because he knows the players in Washington.
“I know the good ones [and] the bad ones,” he said at rallies. “I know the weak ones, the strong ones. I know the stupid ones. I know the smart ones. I know them all.”
George Allen, the former GOP governor and senator from Virginia, said nominees’ lack of executive experience isn’t fatal to the new administration as long as they can “recruit assistants and deputies who are familiar with navigating their agencies to effectuate the reforms, initiatives and changes desired by the Trump administration.”
In the case of Ms. Noem, Mr. Allen said she “may be a surprise nominee” for her post. But he said she showed her leadership skills during the coronavirus pandemic.
“She was an outstanding example of how to properly and respectfully lead free people and free enterprise in South Dakota while other governors with paranoid hypochondriac dictates shamefully locked down schools, businesses and lives,” Mr. Allen said. “If one can govern a state, they’ve evinced an ability to manage a secretariat.”
In an email, Mr. Wallach said the risk of choosing people with scant managerial experience is that they can “get played.”
But he said that may not matter much, depending on Mr. Trump’s goals.
“It remains to be seen how much the Trump II administration will be about generating dramatic headlines and how much they will be about following things through to durable policy change (including being able to survive court challenges),” he said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.