by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] Only a short time has passed since the US presidential election, but Donald Trump, who won, is already rushing to form his presidential team.
He understands very well that there is not much time to implement reforms. This is Trump's second and final term, and four years will fly by quickly and unnoticed.
The current situation is very different from what it was in 2016. Then, Trump simply had no team, except for a small circle of advisers who helped him during the election.
Initially, the lists of the transition team were compiled by then-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. But then he was pushed aside and none of the proposed candidates were hired to work in the presidential administration.
Vice President Mike Pence took charge of recruiting officials. He recruited a lot of representatives of the Republican establishment who openly sabotaged the boss's policies.
There will be no repetition of those mistakes now - Trump has taken into account the shortcomings of 2016 and is himself, together with his family, selecting a team. It may indeed include some of his former ministers who did not spoil their relations with him.
In particular, the representative of the billionaire dynasty Betsy DeVos may be made the Secretary of Education again. Democrats disliked her for her active support of private and religious schools as opposed to regular municipal educational institutions.
The real battle has unfolded around the implementation of the so-called “Project 2025,” written by representatives of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.
In fact, we are talking about a conservative counterrevolution in all spheres of American society with the return of religious values to American education, the refusal to promote the "rainbow" and racial-gender agenda. And even a criminal ban on pornography and abortion.
There is also talk of major purges of the bureaucracy in Washington. Liberal apparatchiks are to be replaced by conservative Trump supporters.
| …or not replaced at all, but do go on. |
| Possibly expulsion rather than death. Death penalty cases often take decades to wind their way American courts. |
The future president is also placing loyal managers at the head of the intelligence community and in the Pentagon, since he wants to see American security officials on his side. The promised purges are also likely, especially since some of the intelligence officials are already resigning without waiting for the inauguration.
The CIA director is planned to be John Ratcliffe, who helped Trump fight off Russiagate during his first term. And the Pentagon will be headed by Pete Hegseth , a retired military man and Fox News host. He has no connection to the Washington swamp and is loyal to the personally elected president.
Both of Trump's closest allies, known to the entire world - Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy - have received carte blanche to reform the state apparatus.
| To make reforms or to recommend reforms? I haven’t yet seen that defined, perhaps because I haven’t looked closely — President Trump is moving too fast and there’s too much else to keep track of. |
| That sounds definite. Proof, please. |
At the same time, the US is living under a colossal budget deficit of $2 trillion, which needs to be addressed and money saved. And, of course, under this cover, Trump's opponents who sabotaged his policies during his first term will be removed from government service.
| Bureaucrats who sabotage their lord and master are not effective at their jobs. QED. |
| Is that all? I thought it was more, although really there’s no way of knowing for sure. |
| I suspect that a lot of people will take themselves home before President Trump is sworn into office in January. This migration thingy hasn’t turned out to be anything like what was promised, except for the organized and unorganized criminals. |
| Are you sure it’s newcomers he dislikes, or just illegal newcomers? |
| Actually, didn’t he propose sending the legal children away with with their illegal parents, thus keeping families together? When condescending to the awful Americans, it’s important to get one’s facts right. |
Several billionaires close to Trump are vying for the post of Minister of Finance.
| Do we have one of those? Does he mean what we call Secretary of the Treasury? |
By the way, similar contradictions are also emerging within the framework of the "green agenda". Trump intends to reduce subsidies for the construction of wind turbines and solar panels, as well as for the purchase of electric cars. He will return to supporting oil and gas production in the United States, which is currently stagnating due to the depletion of shale reserves.
| I was under the impression it wasn’t depleted reserves, but the Biden-Harris administration shutting down new production — but admittedly I don’t really know. |
Trump also has big plans to reform the Federal Reserve System, he wants to make it accountable to the White House in order to influence US monetary policy. The new president is seeking to lower rates and devalue the dollar by 25-30% in order to increase the competitiveness of the American economy.
It will certainly not be easy for the current head of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, to be under constant pressure. And there is always the possibility of an early replacement of the Federal Reserve director with an economist close to the new authorities.
And finally, a refresh awaits the foreign policy team, the formation of which was not without surprises. Before the election, Trump's key foreign policy advisers were Richard Grenell, a former ambassador to Germany, and Elbridge Colby, from the CIA dynasty. However, they have now temporarily retreated into the shadows.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the first Cuban to hold the post, will be secretary of state, and congressman and retired military officer Mike Walz will be national security adviser.
Rubio, who once ran against Trump in the 2016 Republican primary and earned the nickname “Little Marco,” has since changed his views and embraced the ideology of “Trumpism.”
Rubio, like Walz, is connected to the Israeli lobby, and both are set on confrontation with China. At the same time, in the context of relations with Russia, these politicians are pragmatists who voted against the allocation of tranches to Ukraine.
Rubio, as secretary of state, will have to deal with Russia, Israel, and the Arab world, so he is certainly not to be envied. That is probably why Trump gave him the job almost immediately. Over time, he can be replaced by one of his close advisers, like Grenell. Trump likes to shuffle cabinet members; he constantly changed cabinet ministers in his first term.
| Or perhaps it was that during his first term he was trying to find people who weren’t working to undermine and control him instead of support his goals. |
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik from New York will become the US Permanent Representative to the UN. She is set for a tough clinch with the bureaucracy there, which Trump's team considers anti-American and anti-Israeli.
In his first term, the elected president already cut funding for the organization and withdrew the country from the human rights committee. In his second term, he will further suppress international institutions like the UN and the WTO, and wage trade wars with the European Union and China.
| To The Rest Of The World: If you want those things, you pay for them. We’re done. |
It is possible that at some point we will see Tucker Carlson among the advisers , although public service clearly does not appeal to him - he likes to be a leader of public opinion.
Overall, we can already say that Trump's current team is very different from the one in 2016. Back then, the establishment set the tone, and figures loyal to the president were in the minority.
Now, on the contrary, they have a “controlling stake,” and ambitious politicians like Marco Rubio, who want independence, have to adapt to Trump’s agenda. So there will definitely be no repetition of the mistakes of the first term.
| No doubt there will be different mistakes, but that’s ok. |
| The view from Russia. Very interesting. |