Before his inauguration on January 20, 2017, the now official President of the United States Donald Trump, along with his transition team, was able to fill all of their Cabinet positions. At a press conference on Thursday January 19, then Vice President-elect, now with the simpler title of Vice President, Mike Pence said, “I’m proud to be at a place where we’ve named our entire cabinet before [Inauguration Day].”
While the new administration is set to take command, it is safe to say that there are many individuals who are very concerned over the direction this country will be going in the next four years. There are seemingly endless complaints and issues with our new President. One of which being major concerns over the Cabinet choices of Mr. Trump as he has surrounded himself with people who will never challenge his assertions.
If you are a college student, you may have already seen the video of Betsy DeVos being questioned by the Senate following her nomination for Secretary of Education. If you haven’t seen this video yet, I highly suggest watching it, as it exposes DeVos for having absolutely zero qualifications for this position. Although her mother’s foundation, the Prince Foundation, did make a significant contribution to the Trump campaign, Betsy claims that she personally had nothing to do with the contributions (which I find hard to believe).
However, the real travesty here is the apparent lack of qualifications and understanding of education in this country. During the Senate approval interview, DeVos, through tough questioning, forcibly admitted many things that one would think would deem her unfit for the position.
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine; (D)-VA, challenged DeVos with a simple yes or no question after minutes of DeVos attempting to dance around a question. Sen. Kaine began, “I think all schools that receive taxpayer funding should be equally accountable,” Kaine paused for a moment, then continued, “Do you agree with me or not?” DeVos’ final answer could be put simply as, “no.” This outed DeVos for not agreeing with the simple principle of equality for all public schools and students.
Furthermore, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet; (D)-CO, asked DeVos about the advantages of assessments that measure proficiency compared those that measure growth. DeVos said, “around proficiency…each student is measured according to, uhm, advancement that they are making in each subject area,” at which point Sen. Bennet interjected with, “Well that’s growth, that’s not proficiency.” This continued until it was apparent that DeVos could not define the difference between growth and proficiency. Sen.Bennet then said, “This is a subject that’s been debated around the education community for years,” yet DeVos has no input, thoughts, or constructive ideas on one of the large debates surrounding the educational system today.
One of the final questions she faced came from U.S. Sen. Christopher Murphy; (D)-CT, who posed the question, “Do you think that guns have any place in or around schools?” DeVos had a cowardly response, “I think that’s best left to locales and states to decide.” Sen. Murphy gave an exceptionally puzzled look and said, “You can’t say, definitively today, that guns shouldn’t be in schools?” No, she could not.
Guns in schools is not only a hot debate, guns in general are huge issue looming over this country. No matter how much time passes, it will always seem like the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy happened yesterday and I will always remember where I was when I heard that news. The tragedy in Newtown, CT actually had a profound impact on how I grew as a person after high school, but that’s not important now. What is important is to remember that Sen. Murphy, the man who asked the question about guns in schools, is a representative of Connecticut and obviously felt that this was a very important issue and a question that must be answered. After trying to dance around the question by delegating power to the states, DeVos’ response to the question was not only unthoughtful, but flat-out rude and disrespectful by implying guns may have a place in school systems.
Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, regarding the selection of DeVos has said, "In nominating DeVos, Trump makes it loud and clear that his education policy will focus on privatizing, destroying, and defunding public education in America."
According to the LA Times and The Times Editorial Board, “Betsy DeVos embarrassed herself and should be rejected by the Senate.” Many people agree as it is extremely obvious and clear that she is unfit to lead our education department for the next four years.
What should be equally alarming, pertaining to the selection of Betsy DeVos, was the moment after Trump’s Inauguration when he was officially signing his Cabinet nomination documents on live television for the entire world to see.
As Trump had to sign every nomination letter for every Cabinet position, he abruptly stopped on DeVos and said, “Ah, Betsy. Education, right?” The people around him, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and VP Pence, nod, “That’s right.” You really can’t make this up, this happened on live television and may have proved that Trump has given very minimal thought into his selection and perhaps had no input on the selection at all.
These were just a few of the embarrassing excerpts from the Senate interview with DeVos, but it is obvious she knows nothing of substance that would deem her qualified for the position of Education Secretary. Only adding fuel to the fire, DeVos has a substantial financial stake in a student-loan debt-collection agency while she herself, or any family member, has never had to use financial aid to attend college. How can college students expect her to make a positive impact when she has no experience whatsoever with college debt? People around the education community are furious with this selection, and rightfully should be.
Some of Trump’s other picks for his Cabinet also caused an uproar.
Rex Tillerson was offered the position of Secretary of State on December 13th. Remember Mr. Trump’s promise to his supporters to “drain the swamp” and rid government of corporate interests? Well, it seems as if Trump has accomplished the exact opposite with this selection.
Tillerson has consistently worked for ExxonMobil Corporation for his entire career, served as CEO from 2006 to 2016, and has a net worth of $150 million. ExxonMobil is the largest oil company in the world and has done numerous deals with Russia and their President Vladimir Putin to drill in the Arctic and destroy other natural areas for extreme profits.
Tillerson is a man that has deep ties in Russia. In the words of Trump, Tillerson “knows many of the players” in Russia and has done “massive deals” there. In Trump’s defense of his selection, Tillerson does know Russia and Western policy very well through his business, which could prove helpful to the new President.
However, to say that Tillerson will not have corporate interests is completely non-believable. Obviously, he is going to help out his old pals whenever he gets the optimal timing. Wouldn’t you do the same? For Trump to say he wanted to “drain the swamp” and then make a move like this is incredibly hypocritical and surely disgruntles both anti-Trump believers and Trump-supporters alike.
Another controversial selection of Trump was the choice of Linda McMahon as the Administrator of Small Business Administration announced on December 7th. McMahon is famous for being the co-founder and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) with her husband Vince.
I would be disappointed in myself if I did not mention that Donald Trump is officially the first President of this country who has taken a “Stone-Cold Stunner” from the Rattlesnake himself, Steve Austin. Trump is also famous in the WWE Universe for his infamous rivalry with Vince McMahon on the road to WrestleMania 23 in 2007. This culminated in Trump choosing the heroic Bobby Lashley for a battle against Vince’s monster, Umaga, dubbed the “Battle of the Billionaires Match.” After Trump and Lashley’s successful victory, they proceeded to shave Vince McMahon’s head on live PPV. At the moment that happened, nobody knew they were watching our future President practice for his current role in successfully controlling a crowd. (if you haven’t seen these moments I suggest a quick YouTube search after finishing reading this because it was classic entertainment).
The trouble here is not that Linda McMahon is underqualified or not fit for the job, I am quite familiar with the WWE and actually think this selection will work well. The trouble here is that Trump has promised not to be controlled by corporations or big business as he insists politicians have been. With this selection, Trump has proven otherwise. This is because the McMahon’s were the largest contributors to the Trump campaign with a $7 million donation to the cause which resulted in Trump giving Linda a top position.
It is this type of thinking that Trump has promised to avoid. Is it wrong to give a job to a seemingly long-time acquaintance after they helped you along the way? Absolutely not, but this is where it gets tricky. How many people have helped Trump during his rise to power, or even throughout his entire life, that he will now want to help and return the favor to? Hopefully not many, but Trump helping out his old buddies is a rhetoric that needs to be followed carefully.
Continuing with another Cabinet selection, perhaps the most hypocritical selection made by President Trump was naming Steve Bannon as Chief Strategist. As we all know in recent months, fake news has become a major story in mainstream media. Fabricated stories are shared every day, and many of them look too similar to a real publication to tell the difference. We have also seen Trump declaring something as “fake news,” as he did to the entirety of CNN, become commonplace.
While Mr. Trump seems to have strong disdain for fake news, his Chief Strategist, and man who will be whispering in the ear of Trump throughout his entire Presidency, is one of the original creators of fake news. Bannon helped found the board of Breitbart News, a far-right website that is historically notorious for pushing fake content and fabricated news stories in order to gain clicks and views of their site. Breitbart was founded in 2007 and has published questionable and controversial content. It has been also been criticized for being the media source of the ‘alt-right’, mainly consisting of white nationalists.
During the time Bannon presided over Breitbart, they often published content that was racist in nature and targeted certain groups of people including minorities and immigrants, the LGBT community, and even women in general. The fact that this man will be the main advisor to the most powerful man in the world for the next four years should be extremely concerning and hypocritical due to his hatred for fake news.
The conflicts of interest throughout his administration are glaringly obvious. Appointing his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as senior White House advisor, he will be working on issues of trade and the Middle East.
To think that Kushner was the best option for this selection would be absurd. Kushner was a main advisor to Trump throughout his campaign and had major input on decisions including personnel. Kushner, husband of Ivanka Trump, has a financial portfolio that is has wide range and is imminent he will face questions on his potential conflicts of interest.
Other erroneous selections by President Trump are not hard to find. To lead the Department of Energy, Trump tabbed Rick Perry, who in 2011 when campaigning for the presidency, vowed to abolish the same agency he now controls.
To head the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump selected Scott Pruitt, attorney-general of Oklahoma. This is quite ironic because Pruitt himself has sued the EPA 14 times attempting to circumvent certain legislation aimed at cutting greenhouse-gas emission.
The selection of Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon, for head of Department of Housing and Urban Development may also be a head-scratcher. This is a man who said the trusting government to look after housing is “downright dangerous.”
Also, with one of my best friends becoming a successful computer programmer, I would hate to leave out Trump's choice of Rudy Giuliani as his cybersecurity advisor. Social media was quick to expose Giuliani's own website for having many weaknesses in its cyber-defense.
Trump's transition team said, "Mr. Giuliani was asked to initiate this process because of his long and very successful government career in law enforcement and his now sixteen years of work providing security solutions in the private sector." Maybe it's just me, but I fail to see how that experience translates to a cybersecurity position.
The fact that, to different degrees, almost every politician in the Trump administration are climate-change sceptics should be very worrisome. Mr. Trump himself has described climate change a hoax while Chief Strategist Bannon has called it a conspiracy.
The choices of Trump not only have left Trump-protesters and Hilary-supporters infuriated, they have also given Trump-supporters cause for concern. The morals, knowledge, self-awareness, and openness of the entire Trump administration should be brought to question, thoroughly evaluated, and continuously followed. It is obvious that not a great deal of thought was given to some selections by our new President. Obviously, I am personally rooting for the success of Mr. Trump over the next four years, but his decisions, actions, and continuous incompetence make for a very somber feeling about the future of this country.
In Trump's inauguration speech, one that seemed entirely too divisive in an opportunity to bring the country together, he said, "We will make America proud again." I don't feel very proud of this administration thus far. Hopefully I am proven wrong in short-order.
Let the record show that I did not vote for this man.
