No president-elect cabinet picks today but plenty of speculation about who’s next and reaction to the choices so far. Chief Political Correspondent Michael Aron joins Correspondent Michael Hill.
Hill: Michael, welcome, what’s the general reaction to the president-elect’s cabinet appointments?
Aron: Michael, the reaction depends on where the person sits. If you’re a progressive Democrat, like Cory Booker, you’re not too happy with what you’re seeing in Washington and New York right now as Brenda Flanagan found out talking to Booker yesterday.
Booker: I mean the signals have been awful. I don’t know if you knew this but I had hair before, but I pulled it all out when I started seeing. No, I mean, I feel like the loss was painful and then who he’s been picking has just been repeated punches in the guts. If you look at somebody like Sen. Jeff Sessions — who I served with in the Senate — he’s been the number one opponent of criminal justice reform. Even when you have Republicans like Chuck Grassley, Ted Cruz and others actually pushing for justice reform this is a guy that’s saying no. And then pulling people around him like [Steve] Bannon who has run the website, the probably premiere website for misogyny, for bigotry, for hate. Those are the things that are really disturbing to be and actually make me filled with more conviction to fight this
Aron: So that’s one man’s opinion. I would divide the picks into the controversial and the noncontroversial. The controversial — Jeff Sessions for attorney general, General Michael Flynn to be the national security advisor and Steve Bannon as we just heard to be the White House chief strategist for the president-elect. The noncontroversial writes [Reience] Priebus as White House chief-of-staff, Nikki Haley for U.N. ambassador — even though she has no foreign policy experience — Betsy DeVos to be secretary of education — even though she has no governmental experience — and Congressman Mike Pompeo of Kansas to be the CIA director. I just add one more thing, Donald Trump has shown that he’s willing to appoint people who have no experience, the way he has no experience. Bannon doesn’t have governmental experience and neither does Haley. He’s also shown that he’s willing to support someone who didn’t support him. Nicki Haley supported Marco Rubio in the primary and said some harsh things about Donald Trump.
Hill: Gov. Christie supported Donald Trump where does he stand in all this?
Aron: Gov. Christie, as we all know, visited Trump in Bedminister last weekend in that parade of job candidates, but he seems to have fallen out of the conversation this week, until this morning. The Star Ledger reported that he’s under consideration for secretary of energy, for homeland security. They attributed that report in part to the Washington Post, but then the New York Times had a story later today listing all the possibilities for all the departments and Christie was not among the three or four for energy, was not among the four or five for homeland security so it’s hard to know and the irony is that one of Christie’s kitchen cabinet members — Bob Grady of Wyoming who runs a capital markets fund out there, but who advises Gov. Christie and has a long history in New Jersey Republican politics — is on the short list for either energy or interior. So it would be ironic if Bob Grady got something and Chris Christie didn’t.
Hill: We know what progressives think, we have a clear picture of that. What about moderates what are they feeling about these picks?
Aron: I think moderates are breathing a sigh of relief. The president-elect has back tracked on building a wall, on repealing Obamacare, on canceling the Paris Climate Accords, on overdoing it with water boarding and investigating Hillary Clinton. So, I think there’s a sense in moderate circles that this guy is going to govern a little bit more from the center than the kind of yahoo candidate he appeared to be at certain points in time.
Hill: Chief political Correspondent Michael Aron. Thank you, Michael.
Aron: Thanks, Michael.