In normal times, I would go to the top of anyone’s curriculum vitae or curriculum. Serving at the White House has typically been a passport to lucrative employment on a corporate board, in the lobbying industry, or at a prestigious Washington thinktank.
But alumni of the Donald Trump administration may have a tough wake-up call. The outgoing president has proved so disturbing and divisive that those who are perceived to be his facilitators can be rejected when looking for an alternative job.
“These people are going to carry that stain for the rest of their lives,” he said Moe Vela, a former senior adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. “The further we move away from his mandate, the more historians, political scientists, political agents and only history itself will discover, reveal and continue to demonstrate how corrupt it was. And as this continues, the stain will only get darker and bigger. “
Presidential transitions can be brutal cases. Officials who got used to working on America’s most famous speech, giving their opinion on economic and national security issues that reverberated around the world, suddenly found themselves thrown into Washington’s cold after the inauguration of the new president-elect on a gloomy January day.
But there is usually a support network in place, including the next K Street, the home of political lobbying firms, and a number of thinktanks in the capital and beyond. Condoleezza Rice, former secretary of state for President George W Bush, is now the director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, which also gave shelter to Trump’s former students, Jim Mattis and HR McMaster.
White House press secretaries can thrive in the media or in the corporate world. Jay Carney, who was a spokesman for Barack Obama from 2011 to 2014, is senior vice president and head of public relations at Amazon. His successor, Josh Earnest, who was an analyst at NBC News and MSNBC, is now senior vice president and director of communications for United Airlines.
But Kayleigh McEnany, who currently occupies the podium, may find this job more difficult to achieve. She has been an unapologetic supporter of Trump’s treatment of the coronavirus pandemic and false allegations of electoral fraud, as well as a fierce criticism from the press. Oliver Darcy, CNN’s senior media reporter, recently asked himself: “Did McEnany ever provide the press with any useful information at one of these supposed briefings? It is difficult to remember any real news that was released or offered at these events. “
McEnany can seek to follow in the footsteps of Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, he is now the host of the conservative TV channel Newsmax. She appears regularly on Fox News and can formalize the deal. (Successor to Spicer, Sarah Sanders, published a memoir and it is rumored that she is planning a race for governor of her home state, Arkansas.)
But for others, the future is more difficult to discern. The daughter of the president and senior adviser Ivanka Trump, and her husband Jared Kushner, also a senior adviser, are considered persona non grata in New York, where they hoped to resume their former lives. Alternatively, Ivanka is considering a candidacy for a seat in the Florida Senate.
Ben Carson, the housing secretary, told confidants that he wants to start a thinktank, reported the Axios website. Carson “wants to start an organization that promotes Trump’s policies and fosters bipartisan dialogue, a source in his inner circle told Axios.”
Stephen Miller, a senior adviser who championed Trump’s immigration policies and efforts to overturn the election, is unlikely to succeed in Joe Biden’s Washington, a firmly democratic city. The then homeland secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, was booed, questioned and greeted with shouts of “shame!” and “ending family separation” at a Mexican restaurant in 2018.
Vela commented: “I don’t think there will be anywhere in the United States, or anywhere in the world, that the best known and most recognizable people can go again where they will not encounter any appearance of resistance, at least for the foreseeable future. “
Expressing the hostility towards Miller felt by many, Vela, an LGBTQ and Latino businessman and activist, added: “Frankly, he is so vile that, unless he rehabilitates or has some redemptive situation, I do not understand the contribution he makes to the human family. “
There are some possible refuges in Washington. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank that received speeches from Trump officials and endorsers, and the Federalist Society, extremely influential in appointing more than 200 conservative judges by the president, could welcome those who remained loyal to the end.
But Rick Wilson, a co-founder of Project Lincoln, who worked to secure Trump’s electoral defeat, warned that his advisers and accomplices will now be stigmatized everywhere. “It will be a unique difference from the traditional idea that you worked at the White House and ended up with a fabulous set of jobs ahead of you,” he said.
“It has always been a trade-off to enter any administration to obtain credentials and experience and career advancement. This will likely have the exact opposite result than anyone else expected. Nobody left this covered with glory. They left there looking beaten, corrupt, humiliated and ashamed, so this is a very different scenario from any previous government. “
Wilson added: “No corporate board is going to say, ‘Oh, hey, I need a Trump administrator on the board’, unless you’re the guy from MyPillow [Mike Lindell, an ardent Trump supporter]. I don’t really see it as a career benefit for someone who has traditionally been perceived. “
In the past, employees who are leaving their jobs can potentially return to a previous career. After serving in the Bill Clinton White House from 1993 to 1997, Elaine Kamarck returned to the academy when she joined Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
“My guess is that Donald Trump will create some kind of political organization, using all the money he has raised, claiming that the election was stolen, and that the operation will employ some of the people,” she said. “I think that children are likely to try to save the business empire again.
“Some of them may have political aspirations, but I don’t see many of the people close to Trump becoming lobbyists because Trump has never had good relations with Congress and he certainly does not. I don’t see them joining thinktanks because there are no scholars among them. “
Kamarck, senior research fellow in governance studies at the Brookings thinktank institute in Washington, added: “Look, Donald Trump didn’t have a normal presidency, so he won’t be a normal post-presidency either.”