If you are like me it’s been very hard to keep up with who is one of Trump’s cabinet selections and who is “rumored” to be under consideration. The media is beginning to look like a reality show… like… Celebrity Apprentice for example. So here is the list of actual nominees: Secretary of Defense: General […]
If you are like me it’s been very hard to keep up with who is one of Trump’s cabinet selections and who is “rumored” to be under consideration. The media is beginning to look like a reality show… like… Celebrity Apprentice for example.
So here is the list of actual nominees:
Secretary of Defense: General James “Mad Dog” Mattis
Secretary of the Treasury: Steven Mnuchin
Attorney General: Jeff Sessions
Secretary of Commerce: Wilbur Ross
Secretary of Labor: Andrew Puzder
Secretary of Education: Betsy Devos
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tom Price
Secretary of Homeland Security: General John Kelly
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Ben Carson
Secretary of Transportation: Elaine Chao
Aministrator of Environmental Protection Agency: Scott Pruitt
Director of the CIA: Mike Pompeo
Ambassador to the UN: Nikki Haley
Small Business Administration: Linda McMahon
Gen. James Mattis
Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis as his pick for secretary of defense would carry out Trump’s plan for an overhaul of Pentagon operations.
Mattis left active duty in 2013 after allegedly losing favor with the Obama administration over differences in methodology of how to deal with Iran.
A top aid to Admiral Jon Greenert said, “He pushed a lot more of a hawkish tone towards Iran. At the time, the Obama administration was trying to use the ‘carrot and stick’ method to get Iran to the table: The carrot being the nuclear negotiations and the sticks being the stepped up carrier presence. Mattis favored using the stick until the adversary cedes to your wishes — then bring out the carrots.”
Mattis will need a waiver from Congress to be Secretary of Defense due to a law mandating a seven-year wait after active-duty service in order to be defense secretary. He won’t likely have trouble getting the waiver because he is well respected on Capital Hill.
Steven Mnuchin
Jewish banker and movie producer for ‘American Sniper,’ ‘The Lego Movie,’ ‘Suicide Squad,’ & ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ was Trump’s finance chief during his campaign. Mnuchin worked at Goldman Sachs for 17 years . He eventually became an executive vice president. He backed Mitt Romney in the 2012 election and is considered the “king of bankruptcy” for buying beaten-down companies with the potential to deliver profits.
Jeff Sessions
Jeff Sessions was the first US senator to endorse Donald Trump and has been one of his top supporters. He has faced allegations of racism in the past though he denies them.
Thomas Figures, a black assistant US attorney who worked for Sessions testified has claimed that Sessions called him “boy” and that he joked that he thought the KKK was ,”OK, until he learned that they smoked marijuana.” Figures said, “I felt that if I had said anything or reacted in a manner in which I thought appropriate, I thought I would be fired.”
Sessions has also stated that he detests the KKK and called the allegations “ludicious”.
Sessions has worked for the past 15 years with an African-American community leader named Bob Woodson who was awarded a MacArthur fellowship and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Bob Woodson was there when Catherine Flowers asked Sessions for help to salvage her rural Alabama community in a dire need. 37 families in the African-American community were facing arrest/eviction for health regulation violations when raw sewage was found flowing above ground on their property. These families who lived in dilapidated trailers urgently wanted a resolution to the hazardous conditions but they didn’t have the $12,000 needed to put septic tanks.
Woodson shared in a testimony before the Senate Budget Committee that Sessions was able to get the EPA to fund septic tank installments in Lowndes County. He met with the CNE, Household International, and Citigroup which brought about the work to take care of the waste management crisis and sparked a five-year initiative to bring about economic and housing opportunities.