Trumps Cabinet: Worst in History

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/01/19/donald-trum...

 

Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury: Mnuchin has never served in government and has no experience in setting macroeconomic policy,
but he did lead Donald Trump’s fundraising effort. In advance of his confirmation hearing, Mnuchin “failed to disclose his interests in a Cayman
Islands corporation as well as more than $100 million in personal assets.”

Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services: Rep. Price, a doctor who has taken a particular interest in legislating on health care,
has a habit of trading in health care stocks that are affected by the legislation he writes; he also recently got a “sweetheart deal” on stock in a foreign biotech firm.

Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education: DeVos, a billionaire Republican donor, has spent much of her adult life attempting to destroy public education in America.
Despite that work, at her confirmation hearing she displayed a shocking ignorance of basic issues in education policy, though she did opine that schools should
be able to have guns in them to ward off grizzly bear attacks.

Andrew Puzder, Secretary of Labor: If Trump had searched America to find the individual most hostile to the rights of workers, he could not have done much better than Puzder,
the CEO of a fast-food company. The man who will be responsible for safeguarding workers’ rights is an ardent opponent of minimum wage increases and laws mandating things
like break time and overtime pay; his company has been repeatedly cited for wage theft. 

Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: The former presidential candidate, who has precisely zero experience in housing policy, was apparently appointed
to lead this department because he’s one of the few African-Americans Donald Trump has met.

Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management and Budget: Mulvaney was just revealed to have employed a nanny without paying payroll taxes for her, to the tune of over $15,000.

Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce: The billionaire investor just realized that one of the dozen or so household staff he employs was undocumented.

Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior: Rep. Zinke is a former Navy Seal whose career was hampered by the fact that he was caught repeatedly billing the government for personal
trips home which he falsely claimed were for the purpose of scouting training locations.

Scott Pruitt, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency: Like Puzder and DeVos, Pruitt seems to have been chosen for his fervent opposition to the mission of the agency
he’ll be leading. As Attorney General of Oklahoma, he sued the EPA multiple times over its efforts to enforce environmental laws. In his confirmation hearings, he refused to commit
to recuse himself from the cases among those that are still open, in the apparent belief that there isn’t anything wrong with essentially being both plaintiff and defendant in a lawsuit.
When asked about lead poisoning, a vital and longstanding environmental issue that gained new urgency with the poisoning of the water in Flint, MI, he said that he had “not looked at the scientific research on that.”

Michael Flynn, National Security Adviser: Flynn, an ardent Islamophobe and purveyor of lunatic conspiracy theories, was fired from his last job in government because of mismanagement.

Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State: Tillerson has no government or diplomatic experience, though he has been to many countries that have oil.

Nikki Haley, United Nations Ambassador: Haley’s foreign policy experience consists of going on a couple of trade missions as governor of South Carolina.

That’s not to mention the sub-cabinet appointments who are already in trouble, like the Army secretary who punched out a concession worker at a horse auction or the
national security spokesperson revealed as a plagiarist, nor the fact that Trump’s senior adviser used to run a white nationalist web site and the President-elect intends
to employ his family members, all while insisting again and again that ethics laws don’t apply to him.