Loyalty was one of the essential criteria that Donald Trump followed when choosing the members of his new cabinet. His television skills were also another of the requirements that the mogul applied, which made the associated channel Fox News prey to many of his appointments.
The people who will be in charge of Defense, Energy, Transport or National Intelligence come from Fox, as well as the future “border czar”. Other names are not directly linked to the network, but they are also famous on television, such as the future US ambassador to Israel or Dr. Mehmet Oz, who will head Medicare.
Oz will move from selling vitamin supplements online to heading the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that oversees health insurance coverage for more than 160 million Americans. During the pandemic, Oz has favored the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, a treatment that Trump has said he is following despite a lack of evidence on the effectiveness of these products and the risks involved.
Chris Wright, who has no prior political experience, came to Trump’s attention through his appearances on Fox and will now be the new Energy Secretary. Wright is the CEO of Liberty Energy, a hydraulic fracturing located in Denver.
Former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, with a pro-Russian profile and who will now be director of national intelligence, was one of Fox’s favorite faces. Future Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy rose to fame in the 1990s on a reality TV show. MTV and until his appointment, he hosted a show on Fox Business.
Tom Homan, the “border czar” as Trump called him, is a regular face on Fox, even though under the previous Republican presidency he was one of the architects of the immigration policy consisting of separate families.
Christian television star and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee will be the new U.S. ambassador to Israel. Trump plans to send an evangelist to the Holy Land amid the whirlwind of violence promoted by Tel Aviv in the region.
Linda McMahon, who founded the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) conglomerate with her husband, was chosen for the Department of Education, which Trump has proposed dismantling. WWE is one of the major audiovisual platforms for professional wrestling.
Even in choosing Pam Bondi as the new attorney general after Matt Gaetz withdrew from the nomination, Trump took her television appearances into account when making his selection.
Although the most explicit case is surely that of Fox weekend host Pete Hegseth.
If certified by the Senate, Hegseth would move from program manager status Fox and friends to oversee 1.3 million active-duty troops as he leads the Pentagon as secretary of Defense. In addition to being a well-known face on the network, Hegseth also sports a series of tattoos linked to white supremacy (such as “Deus Vult”) and he is accused of sexual assault against a woman.
Although Gaetz resigned amid the investigation into having sex with a minor, the main motivation for his resignation was that he would not gain enough support in the Senate for his case to be certified. It is unlikely that the few wayward senators who dared to go against Trump’s designs want to expose themselves to further pressure from the party machine. We cannot therefore guarantee that Hegseth will suffer the same fate as Gaetz.
Trump’s fondness for Fox network personalities is nothing new. The revolving door between the Republican government and television already existed during his first term.
Between 2017 and 2020, there were at least 20 changes from Fox to Trump’s cabinet, including Anthony Scaramucci, Richard Grenell, Heather Nauert, Morgan Ortagus and Bill Shine.
Trump, who built much of his fame on reality The apprentice, He highly appreciates his people’s ability to behave in front of the cameras. Basically, the elected president seeks to create a government which, in a certain way, is a replica of himself: loyal personalities aligned with his agenda and with the reflexes that television requires.
In an interview, Kellyanne Conway, a former adviser to Trump during his first term, said the president-elect appreciates having a team “that knows how to be public” and able to send a clear message. As an example, Conway cited Joe Biden’s administration, which, although it spent its entire term trying to convey certain messages, failed to reach ordinary people. The truth is that one of the big problems with Biden’s economic policy was that, despite good macroeconomic indicators, he failed to convey the message that the economy was doing better.
That Trump wants a team that knows how to communicate is also nothing new if we take into account that the Republican was able to return to the White House thanks to a campaign marked by lies and which prioritized creation of a story – fictional, in many cases. – be based on facts.
With four years to go and a list of election promises to keep, such as the “largest mass deportation in the history” of the United States, it is necessary to have a team that knows how to sell the slightest progress as a so-called success. .
