Losing Candidates Find a Landing Place in the Trump Administration: From the Politburo

Welcome to the online version of From the political officean evening newsletter that brings you the latest reporting and analysis from the NBC News Politics team from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, we look at how President-elect Donald Trump is filling his incoming administration with candidates who lost recent high-profile elections. Additionally, Chief Political Analyst Chuck Todd explores the parallels between today’s political climate and that of the late 1800s.

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Losing candidates find a landing place in the Trump administration

By Sahil Kapur and Matt Dixon

President-elect Donald Trump is tapping a roster of staunch allies for major federal government positions after losing elections to Democrats in recent years — in some cases in part due to their ties to Trump himself .

Choices include:

• Two former Georgia senators who lost their 2020 elections after promoting Trump’s false claims that he won that election. David Perdue, who lost the 2022 gubernatorial primary while echoing Trump’s denial of election, is named ambassador to China. Kelly Loeffler has been chosen to lead the Small Business Administration.
• Doug Collins, the former pro-Trump congressman who lost a Georgia jungle primary to Loeffler in 2020, has been chosen to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs.
• Trump’s hand-picked candidate for Georgia Senate in 2022, former football player Herschel Walkerwas chosen to be ambassador to the Bahamas. Walker ran as a MAGA protégé and lost, but he remained a staunch Trump supporter.
• Mehmet Oz, the doctor and television personality whom Trump elevated to a Pennsylvania Senate candidate two years ago, has been chosen to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
• Kari Lake, the Trump ally who lost Arizona gubernatorial elections in 2022 and Senate elections in 2024, has been chosen to lead Voice of America, an international news channel backed by U.S. funding.
• Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore. – who lost her re-election to a Democrat who linked her to Trump and in derision told voters she stood “by her man’s side” – was chosen as Secretary of Labor.
• Lee Zeldin, the Trump-aligned former New York congressman who lost his 2022 gubernatorial race, has been chosen to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.

For Trump, the dominant philosophy behind such choices boils down to one word: loyalty.

“He values ​​loyalty, stopping abruptly. Sometimes, beyond everything else. We weren’t surprised that one of the people you mentioned was chosen,” said a Trump ally familiar with the transition process. “Not only are they qualified for the positions to which they are nominated, but they have also demonstrated great loyalty to President Trump. He’s trying to change Washington and wants people he knows he can trust.”

Trump’s decisions to raise these numbers empower avowed loyalists and have a problem: Those who dared to challenge Trump have been excluded or ignored.

This includes Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador during Trump’s first term, who later challenged him for the Republican presidential nomination, and Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state of Trump but is now seen by many in the MAGA movement as disloyal.

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The next big reform movement is about to start now

The last time the United States had three consecutive presidential terms, the calendar year began with an “18.”

Between Ulysses Grant and William McKinley, America actually had five consecutive single-term presidencies, including Grover Cleveland’s two non-consecutive terms.

All the elections during this period were quite close and all were very much about which party could bring the country together and move it forward after the civil war. And while the divisive issues of that era were different than those of this era, the mood and frustration of the country in the late 1800s seems to rhyme with the mood and frustration of the early 2000s.

For example, the issue of wealth inequality – or simply the idea that the system is rigged for the rich – was a belief at the time (think Gilded Age), and it is certainly a dominant belief today ‘today. There is a strong argument that we are now in a new golden age, with enormous wealth accumulated and created during this period of technology-driven transformation. The gap between rich and poor has never seemed wider.

But ultimately, this period of political instability and frustration sparked a movement to reform the country’s political system. At the turn of the century came what we now call the Progressive Era. In 30 years, the public has demanded more from its government, including things we take for granted today, like ensuring food security and worker safety. It was at this time that urban areas established regular waste collection, then considered a public health problem. The modern environmental movement also took hold during this era, with its emphasis on preservation and conservation, as well as grassroots beautification efforts, including the construction of parks and other shared spaces.

Politically, this era granted women the right to vote, the direct election of senators, and the addition of more rigorous government oversight of the economy, leading to the first major breakup of corporate monopolies. business.

There is no doubt in my mind that the public would like to see a period of real reform and modernization of our public institutions. Given that our politics seem to repeat (or at least rhyme with) the latter part of the 19th century, it’s not so hard to think that, just as the inequality and polarization of the Gilded Age triggered the Progressive era of the early 20th century, century, that today’s new golden age could give rise to something similar.

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That’s all that’s coming from the politburo for now. If you have any comments (like or dislike), please email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com

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