United States | They’re hired

What Trump’s picks suggest about how his presidency will go

Loyalty, competence and an appetite for disruption are among the traits he is filtering for

A duplicated photo of Donald Trump pointing at the camera with red gradients.
Illustration: The Economist/Getty Images
|WASHINGTON, DC

AFTER DONALD TRUMP won the presidential election in 2016—when he was a former television star rather than a former president—he managed the White House transition as if he was staging his reality show, “The Apprentice”. Aspiring cabinet members arrived at the tower that bears his name in New York and walked past TV cameras. That series was drawn-out, with celebrity appearances, including by Kanye West. This time Mr Trump is directing a tighter show: deliberating at his estate at Mar-a-Lago away from cameras and issuing his hiring verdicts over social media at a much faster pace. Unfortunately, the outcomes are hardly saner.

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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “They’re hired”

From the November 16th 2024 edition

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