In a piece published in the Monitor on Jan. 1, I ranked a number of Donald Trump’s nominations for Cabinet and agency roles on a 10-point scale. Due to the importance of these positions, and the need to scrutinize Trump’s other alarming appointments, here is part two.
Just to refresh recollection of my rating scale, I rate 10 as superbly well qualified and 1 as abysmally unqualified.
Billionaire Betsy DeVos is Trump’s pick for secretary of education. This is a head-scratcher pick. DeVos went to Holland Christian High School and Calvin College. She never taught in a public school or administered one, nor did she ever send her children to public school. It is not clear if she has ever set foot in a public school.
DeVos promoted a voter referendum in her home state of Michigan to allow state residents to use public funds to pay for tuition at religious schools. Her education advocacy has focused on expanding charter schools and on using taxpayer-funded vouchers for private and religious schools. A religious zealot, DeVos sees privatizing public schools as a way to “advance God’s Kingdom.” First amendment questions, anyone?
In the Draining the Swamp Department, it is impossible to ignore DeVos’s role as a Republican donor. DeVos is a heir by marriage to the Amway fortune. She and her relatives gave 20 current Republican senators $818,000 in campaign contributions. These are all senators who will be voting on her nomination once it clears the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
I designate her a Swamp Fox. She is a 2. I don’t consider being a billionaire and an opponent of public education relevant qualifications for our secretary of education. Her appointment is more likely payback for all the campaign cash she and her family gave to Republican candidates.
At the Energy Department, we have the nomination of former Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry. When Perry ran for president in 2012, he advocated abolishing the Department of Energy. Perry’s most famous campaign moment was when, during a debate, he forgot the name of the department he wanted to abolish. At least Trump has a sense of humor.
During the campaign Trump mocked Perry’s glasses as an attempt to look smarter. In turn, Perry called Trump “a barking carnival act” and “a cancer on conservatism.”
Whether Perry or Trump are aware of it, the Energy Department has major responsibility in dealing with nuclear weapons. The last two energy secretaries, Ernest Moniz of M.I.T. and Stephen Chu of Stanford, had high-powered academic careers and scientific research credentials. Chu had won the Nobel Prize. Perry, on the other hand, had an appearance on the television show Dancing with the Stars and was eliminated in an early round.
Perry is a board member and owns stock in Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, the company trying to build the much-disputed Dakota Access pipeline. Perry is a climate change denier. He gets a 1.5. It is a jump from Dancing with the Stars to managing nuclear weapons. God help us.
And then there is Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, Trump’s pick for secretary of health and human services. Price, an orthopedic surgeon, has been a leading foe of Obamacare and favors privatizing Medicare and Medicaid. He opposed the Children’s Health Insurance Program, calling it “government-run socialized medicine.” A member of the Tea Party Caucus, Price has introduced bills to bar federal funding for Planned Parenthood, and he wants doctors to be able to enter into private contracts with Medicare beneficiaries so they can charge more than the program allows.
Price’s proposed overhaul of Obamacare does not require insurers to cover pre-existing conditions. He also opposes the Obamacare provision that mandates birth control access. Price opposes same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
A report in the Wall Street Journal has raised questions about Price’s conflicts of interest. He has traded medical stocks while working on health care legislation that could affect stock prices. Senate Democrats want to investigate whether there was insider trading.
The dude seems like something out of the 1950s, but he is hardly alone in that respect. I give him a 3.5. He gets 3 for being a doctor and .5 for breathing.
I would be remiss if I did not mention David Friedman, Trump’s choice for U.S. ambassador to Israel. A bankruptcy lawyer, Friedman is so right-wing he makes Benjamin Netanyahu look like Karl Marx. An opponent of a two-state solution, Friedman favors stripping the Arab citizens of Israel (21 percent of the population) of their citizenship.
Friedman believes no settler should be removed from his “home” even if that “home” is located on the private property of Arab farmers. As a Jew, I am horrified by the type of ultra-nationalism and racism Friedman represents. Friedman’s brand of extremism will likely extinguish any spark of hope left for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Friedman represented Trump in his past bankruptcy proceedings. He is the type who would seek to promote Israel to a full apartheid state, supporting annexation and showing no concern for the rights of the Palestinians or Israelis who want peace and justice. This choice is bankrupt. Friedman is a 1, a most reckless selection.
Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s national finance director during the campaign, is his pick for treasury secretary. Mnuchin has unusual qualifications. He ran a national bank, OneWest, that foreclosed on tens of thousands of Americans during the Great Recession. Many of these foreclosures were illegal, ruthless and fraudulent. OneWest engaged in systematic racial discrimination and predatory practices that particularly harmed seniors. Ironically, if confirmed, Mnuchin would likely be put in charge of dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Mnuchin was a co-founder and manager of the hedge fund Dune Capital. He also made partner at Goldman Sachs, where he had worked for 17 years. Trump got a lot of mileage during the campaign out of attacking Clinton’s speeches to Goldman Sachs, but then he cynically picks a Goldman Sachs alum for his treasury secretary.
This pick is a perfect example of Trump’s phony populism. Mnuchin also rates a 1. This guy is the prototype for an avaricious capitalist, a regular Gordon Gekko clone. We have very faulty memories if we can overlook all the misery caused by Mnuchin’s fraudulent foreclosures. He heartlessly profited from throwing thousands of Americans out of their homes.
Finally, I did want to mention South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s choice for head of the Office of Management and Budget. OMB is a little known, but very important, federal agency. As head of OMB, Mulvaney will be responsible for reviewing the budgets of all federal agencies and for ensuring they align with the administration’s priorities. He will also be doing cost/benefit analysis of federal regulations.
Mulvaney is a Tea Party member and a founder of the House Freedom Caucus. When the House Republicans shut down the government in 2013, Mulvaney saw the move as “good policy.” He is among the group widely credited with pushing former House Speaker John Boehner out of power in 2015. Mulvaney is an advocate of deep spending cuts and it remains to be seen whether he will support a Trump infrastructure spending bill. This is a person who sees spending cuts as more valuable than spending itself. Human needs do not appear to be part of his equation. Mulvaney rates a 3. He is extreme but at least he is not a Klan member.
I am not giving any awards today. Is there such a thing as an anti-award?
Trump ran as a populist but now, in an extreme post-election bait and switch, he seeks to fill his Cabinet and key agency positions with billionaires and extreme right-wingers who have little in common with the people who put him in power. If his nominees are confirmed, they are likely to undermine public education and obliterate the protections and services that benefit those voters who need them most.
One can only hope the Senate actually vets these folks. The American people deserve better.
(Jonathan P. Baird of Wilmot works at the Social Security Administration. His column reflects his own views and not those of his employer.)