PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump Jr. said Sunday that any backlash from the Washington establishment over his father’s unconventional Cabinet picks proves they are exactly the kind of disruptors voters demand .
The young Trump insisted that the team is now around the president-elect knows how to build an administration, unlike when his father first took office.
“The reality this time is that we actually know what we are doing. We actually know who the good guys and the bad guys are,” he told Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “And it’s about surrounding my father with people who are both competent and loyal. They will keep his promises. They will deliver his message. These are not people who think they know better than unelected bureaucrats.”
After Donald Trump’s election in 2016, he supplied his first administration with picks from mainstream Republican and business circles, tapping figures such as the former CEO of Exxon Mobil. Rex Tillerson, which was his first as Secretary of State.
Today, Trump values personal allegiance over political experience.
This resulted in selections such as former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetzwhich faced a Chamber ethical investigationas Attorney Generalanti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of Ministry of Health and Social Services And Tulsi Gabbarda former Democratic lawmaker who has in the past publicly expressed sympathy for Russian causesas director of American intelligence services.
On Sunday, Trump continued to add to his team, naming Brendan Carr, the top Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, as his new chairman.
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Carr said recently that the commission’s priorities should be to “get a handle on big tech” and wrote the FCC chapter of Project 2025, an agenda the conservative Heritage Foundation has outlined for a second Trump term. Trump claimed he knew nothing about the effort, but some of its themes were consistent with his statements.
The five-person commission has a 3-2 Democratic majority until next year, when Trump can appoint a new member.
Some of his picks could struggle to be confirmed by the Senate, even if Republicans hold the majority in January.
Donald Trump Jr. suggested that was precisely the idea.
“A lot of them are going to face retaliation,” but “they’re going to be real disruptors,” he said. “This is what the American people want.”
He said there are “backup plans” if Senate confirmation is problematic in some cases, but “we obviously go with the strongest nominees first.”
Trump Jr. also recalled eight years ago, when his businessman father was new to Washington and its ways. “A lot of this process is just something we didn’t understand in 2016, where he came to Washington, D.C., he had no experience,” he said.
Now, his son says, Trump knows what to expect.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, Republican of Missouri, said the president-elect had “a unique opportunity to make this change, to permanently take on Washington and return power to the people.”
“You have to have people you trust to go into these agencies and have a real reform agenda,” Schmitt told “Sunday Morning Futures.” He said he sees “real momentum for these nominations to be confirmed to actually deliver on what President Trump promised on the campaign trail.”
On the same show, Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, said: “We don’t need help from the Democrats. We have the numbers. But, he added, Trump needs “a team around him that will help him.” He can’t do it alone.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate tapped by Trump alongside businessman Elon Musk to lead a new effort on government efficiency, also predicted a reluctance on the part of mainstream Washington to pledge of steep federal cuts that he said showed the need to “win quick victories through executive action.” .”