Comparing Biden and Trump’s cabinet choices

Comparing Biden and Trump’s cabinet choices

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WASHINGTON – One of the most urgent tasks facing a new president is to assemble a central group of advisers to serve in the cabinet.

Donald J. Trump valued negotiators and personal wealth and demanded loyalty. In doing so, he created an office made up mainly of wealthy white men with limited government experience, imitating himself. His administration was the richest of any American president: his secretaries of education, trade and the Treasury, as well as his first secretary of state, were worth a total of at least $ 1.3 billion and up to $ 2.9 billion, based on financial disclosures.

President Biden took a different approach, drawing on policy-makers with experience in government for most of his cabinet nominees, many of whom he worked for decades.

The new president also prioritized diversity in filling his circle of key advisers. He is on his way to set up the most diverse cabinet in American history. Biden appointed many more women and more non-white members to the cabinet than Trump, and chose the first openly homosexual person to be cabinet-level secretary.

Here’s a look at some of Team A’s lineups.

Treasury

Mr. Trump chose Steven Mnuchin, a wealthy financier with connections to Wall Street and Hollywood, to head the department that oversees fiscal, economic and debt policies. Mr. Mnuchin, who financed films like “X-Men” and “Avatar”, took up the post with no government experience after serving as president of national finance for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. He spent almost 20 years at Goldman Sachs and later became involved in hedge funds. In 2009, Mr. Mnuchin was part of a group of investors who bought a bank that had been confiscated during the 2008 financial crisis.

Biden turned to Janet L. Yellen, a former Federal Reserve chairman with a long career in economics and whose work is well known, including about two decades at the Fed. She was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration. She was confirmed as secretary of the Treasury by a bipartisan vote of 84 to 15 and is the first woman to hold office. Ms. Yellen is now responsible for helping Biden prepare the $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package he proposed, conduct it through Congress and – if approved – oversee the distribution of aid money.

state

Trump sought out Rex W. Tillerson, a chief executive of Exxon Mobil, which drew concerns from both Democrats and Republicans at the time about what appeared to be a comfortable relationship with Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia. Mr. Trump at the time called Mr. Tillerson “a world-class player and negotiator” and saw Mr. Tillerson’s command in the oil business as an asset. “For me, a big advantage is that he knows many of the players and knows them well,” said Trump at the time. “He does huge business in Russia. He does huge business for the company. “

Biden chose Antony J. Blinken, his closest foreign policy advisor and a longtime advisor who started working at the State Department during the Clinton administration. Mr. Blinken was Mr. Biden’s national security adviser while he was vice president and helped to develop the country’s response to the Arab Spring. He was also a key player in the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts to bring together more than 60 countries to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Trade

Mr. Trump chose Wilbur Ross, a wealthy investor and Trump campaign donor, to run the department, which comes with a portfolio of technology regulatory oversight, climate change policy and climate monitoring, economic data collection and promotion of American industry. Mr. Ross made his fortune from private equity investments. At one point, he was known as the “king of bankruptcy” for buying, restructuring and selling steel and other industrial companies. He took office at age 79, with no government experience.

Gina M. Raimondo, governor of Rhode Island since 2015, has experience in government and finance. Before becoming governor, she was a state treasurer and founded a joint venture company that helped finance several start-ups. She has been a rising star in the Democratic Party and has been praised for her effort to reopen schools in Rhode Island during the coronavirus pandemic. It put public and private schools on the same schedule to streamline plans and opened rapid virus testing sites for students and teachers only. She also set up a statewide contact tracking system for schools.

Health and Human Services

Trump chose Tom Price, a doctor who has been a Republican member of the House since 2005, to lead the department with a focus on dismantling the Affordable Care Act, the signature legislation of former President Barack Obama. When Price was chairman of the House Budget Committee, he supported plans to move Medicare out of its unlimited commitment to pay for medical services, a move that could have increased costs for some people. Republicans said Price would draw a doctor’s attention to the department, which they said was full of strict regulations.

Biden appointed Xavier Becerra, a former California congressman and attorney general, who, with a profile in criminal justice and immigration issues, was considered a more likely candidate for attorney general. But he fought for years against the Trump administration on health issues, among other issues, including the environment, immigration, education and civil rights. The day before Biden was sworn in, Becerra announced that he would join a group of 18 attorney generals to fight the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency’s final rule, which scientists say aims to block new public health protections, limiting research that the agency can consider. If confirmed, he would be the first Latino to take office and a leader in Biden’s battle against the pandemic.

Housing and Urban Development

For the large housing agency that oversees housing coupon and rental assistance programs for low-income families, neither Trump nor Biden turned to someone with experience in housing policy.

Mr. Trump chose Ben Carson, a renowned retired neurosurgeon with no government experience who ran briefly against Trump in the 2016 primaries. He became one of the first to support Mr. Trump. As a child, Carson sometimes relied on public assistance, having grown up in a poor part of Detroit. But instead of advocating such assistance, Carson has teamed up with Republicans who believe that welfare promotes dependency.

Biden’s choice, Marcia L. Fudge, has represented Ohio in the House since 2008 and she is the former president of Congressional Black Caucus. Prior to that, she was mayor of Warrensville Heights, a suburb of Cleveland. Although she hoped to be Biden’s agriculture secretary, she said she would be honored to lead the housing agency. She has no experience working with housing policy, but has focused on food security issues as chairman of the Chamber of Agriculture’s nutrition subcommittee.

Energy

For the agency with a portfolio that includes oversight of the United States’ nuclear weapons arsenal, 17 national laboratories and a series of energy research and development initiatives, including climate change programs, Trump sought out Rick Perry, former Texas governor . Although Perry brought the government experience to work, he did not have a basic understanding of what the department he was assigned to lead was doing. During a failed presidential candidacy in 2011, he even called for his elimination. In his 2010 book, “Fed Up! Our struggle to save America from Washington, ”Mr. Perry rejected the established science of man-made climate change, calling it a“ fake, artificial mess ”.

Four years later, Biden chose Jennifer Granholm, champion of renewable energy development and two-term Michigan governor, who some have credited with lifting the state out of the 2008 recession. She has no experience in the department’s nuclear programs, but since leaving in office, she championed renewable energy as a way to help expand state economies, which Biden focused on in his virus recovery plan. If confirmed, she will be a key member of Biden’s team of climate change experts charged with tackling global warming.

Trump chose Betsy DeVos, a wealthy philanthropist, Republican fundraiser and a big supporter of charter schools and vouchers, which allow students to use taxpayer money to pay tuition at private, religious and for-profit schools. During her confirmation process in 2017, the Senate was so divided over whether she should take the job that Vice President Mike Pence had to break the tie. Many educators felt that Ms. DeVos was deeply disconnected from public schools and questioned how she could manage such a large bureaucracy in charge of overseeing educational policy. Neither she nor her children attended public schools.

Mr. Biden chose Miguel Cardona, the commissioner for the Connecticut Department of Education, who attended public schools as a child and taught them during his teaching career. He became director of one of the state’s schools and then, as the state’s education commissioner, supervised more than 1,800 employees. If confirmed, he would be the first Latino to lead the department and oversee plans for children affected by the pandemic to return to school.

Environmental Protection Agency

Scott Pruitt, Trump’s choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, came to the post with experience in challenging the agency’s regulations on oil and gas policies and an agenda to undo the Obama administration’s efforts on climate change. Before taking office, he was Oklahoma’s attorney general, closely linked to the fossil fuel industry. As attorney general, he was part of an effort behind a coordinated legal fight against the Obama administration’s climate rules.

Michael Regan, Biden’s choice to run the agency, is North Carolina’s top environmental regulator and credited as the country’s largest coal ash cleaning settlement. He worked as an air quality specialist at the EPA during the Clinton and George W. Bush governments. If confirmed, Mr. Regan will help oversee the reconstruction of the agency after four years of Mr. Trump unraveling half a century of pollution and climate regulations, and diminishing the science that underpinned them.

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