Transition to Governing, 3

Preparing for Trump II: Rubio's Triumph and the Victory of Experience

In this post:

1. The biggest story of the transition is the selection of experienced governing leaders

2. Marco Rubio’s “evolution” pays off. In a sense.

The biggest story about the transition to Trump II is that Mr. Trump is selecting people with serious governing experience. That might change at any moment, of course, but so far, he is opting for people who know their way around governing.

After his first election, he surrounded himself with many people who had zero experience in governing. In the White House, this included his daughter and son-in-law as well as his first chief of staff. But it also included cabinet secretaries.

I wrote a report about this in 2017. I compared Trump’s initial cabinet to those of recent presidents and found:

Trump’s domestic cabinet appointees have fewer years of experience in government service than the previous administrations analyzed. Six of Trump’s appointees have no government experience, while previous administrations had a maximum of two nongovernment appointees.

Trump acted as though anyone could govern. He was wrong, of course. His first administration struggled mightily as a result.

This time around, he is hiring people with meaningful governing experience. Here’s my list of those selected so far, the offices they will fill, and one example of their previous governing experience:

• John Ratcliffe to be head of CIA: US House

• Mike Waltz to be National Security Advisor: US House

• Marco Rubio to be Secretary of State: US Senate

• Elise Stefanik to be UN Ambassador: US House

• Mike Huckabee to be Ambassador to Israel: Governor