As former President Donald Trump gears up for a possible second term, his transition team is taking steps to ensure his administration will have a different makeup than his first. A key part of this effort involves creating lists of individuals who will be barred from working in a future Trump administration, according to sources familiar with the process, who were cited in a Politico report.
The list reportedly includes a range of people, from those connected to the conservative Project 2025 policy blueprint to officials who resigned in protest after Trump’s handling of the January 6th Capitol riots. Others who are viewed as disloyal to the former president are also included, said two former Trump officials involved in the discussions, as per the report. The former officials described the effort as part of a broader strategy to avoid the staff turnover and internal leaks that plagued Trump’s first term.
Loyalty a key factor
Throughout his political career, Trump has emphasized the importance of loyalty among his staff. This new push to blacklist certain individuals underscores his commitment to surrounding himself with loyal allies in a second term. Leading the effort is Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., who serves as an honorary chair of the transition team.
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This effort to exclude certain people is not entirely new. Myron Ebell, who led Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency transition team in 2016, said he kept a similar list during Trump’s first run, known as the “Over my dead body” list. Ebell explained that the list included people he believed were unsupportive of Trump or aligned with “soft green Republicans” from the George W. Bush administration.
“The list kept getting longer as I thought of more people that I had thought of originally,” Ebell said. He also noted that the list was mostly successful in keeping certain individuals out of Trump administration positions, with the exception of some figures like former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who stepped down due to scrutiny over his business dealings.
Staffing challenges
The Trump transition team is not only focusing on banning certain people but also compiling a list of potential political appointees should Trump return to the White House. However, some conservative insiders reportedly worry that banning individuals tied to major policy initiatives like Project 2025 could complicate staffing for a future administration.
Despite these concerns, the transition team appears committed to maintaining strict standards of loyalty. Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s communications director, did not directly comment on the exclusion lists but reiterated that Trump’s future administration would focus on selecting the best people to “undo all the damage dangerously liberal Kamala Harris has done to our country.”
As preparations for a possible second Trump term continue, it remains to be seen how this strategy of banning staffers will impact the overall makeup of his team. However, it’s clear that loyalty will play an even more central role in a potential future Trump administration than it did in his first.
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