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You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition - December 22, 2016
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This is the December 22, 2016, edition of a daily email sent from November 2016 to September 2017 that covered Donald Trump's presidential transition team, potential cabinet appointees, and the different policy positions of those individuals who may have had an effect on the new administration. Previous editions of "You're Hired" can be found here.
Trump has announced a slew of significant appointments in the past 24 hours. None of them require confirmation by the Senate.
- Kellyanne Conway - counselor to the president
- White House senior communications team
- Sean Spicer - press secretary
- Hope Hicks - director of strategic communications
- Jason Miller - director of communications
- Daniel Scavino - director of social media
- Peter Navarro - director of trade and industrial policy
- Carl Icahn - special adviser to the president on regulatory reform
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president
We’ll start with Conway, whose announcement was made this morning. A longtime Republican pollster and analyst, Conway served as Trump’s campaign manager from mid-August 2016 through the election and has been one of the campaign’s most visible public faces. Before taking on the role of campaign manager, she was a senior adviser to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Before that, she managed a pro-Ted Cruz super PAC. Conway has a law degree from George Washington University and, in 1993, founded a polling company focused on women voters.
The counselor position is a senior-level adviser role and is part of the Executive Office of the President, the circle of the president’s closest advisers and strategists. The counselor works directly with the president and often focuses on political and messaging strategies. In a press release, the Trump transition team stated that Conway would “continue her role as a close advisor to the president and will work with senior leadership to effectively message and execute the Administration's legislative priorities and actions.” Conway had previously discussed serving the Trump administration in an outside role.
White House Communications Team
Trump’s communications team will be responsible for shaping his administration’s communications and messaging strategy—including speeches—and developing policies on media and press access to the White House. Throughout the 2016 campaign, Trump had a tenuous relationship with the press and temporarily blacklisted several organizations. Earlier in the month, Trump’s pick to serve as his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, stated that “change is going to happen” in regards to the White House’s press traditions and relationship with the media. Kellyanne Conway, however, added in an interview today, “This will be a traditional White House in the sense that you will have a great deal of press availability on a daily basis and you'll have a president who continues to be engaged with the press.” Below are the team’s four senior members which were announced today.
Sean Spicer, press secretary
Spicer, a member of Trump’s transition team, is the chief strategist and communications director for the Republican National Committee. He previously held communications positions for Republicans in the U.S. House and for the U.S. Trade Representative. The press secretary is responsible for crafting and releasing official statements from the White House and oversees interactions with the media, such as press briefings.
Hope Hicks, director of strategic communications
Hicks is a communications consultant with the Trump Organization and served as the communications director for Trump’s presidential campaign. She previously worked for a public relations firm in New York. Her relationship with Trump began through work for Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. During the campaign, Hicks was involved with Trump’s social media strategy, media appearances, and print interviews. Her role in the White House will reportedly focus on Trump’s media appearances.
Jason Miller, director of communications
Miller is a longtime communications strategist for conservative candidates, primarily working with them to produce advertisements and engage with the press. He worked as a senior communications strategist for Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign before joining Trump’s campaign in a similar capacity in June 2016. He has also worked with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), and Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.). The communications director is generally responsible for shaping the administration’s broader communications strategies.
Daniel Scavino, director of social media
Scavino was the director of social media for Trump’s campaign and is the founder of Scavino and Associates, a social media management company. He also worked for the Trump Organization's golf division, most recently as the executive vice president and general manager of Trump National Golf Club. As director of social media, Scavino will oversee the administration’s communications strategy on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. The latter has become an important component of Trump’s political identity. He was personally active on Twitter throughout the campaign and has continued to be so since the election. Trump will inherit the @POTUS account, the first official presidential Twitter account, after his inauguration in January. This includes the account’s 12-million-plus followers (Trump has more than 17 million followers on his personal account). Tweets from the Obama administration will be archived under the account @POTUS44, and the @POTUS account will start off with a blank timeline.
Navarro holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University and is a business professor at the University of California-Irvine. He was instrumental in the development of the Trump campaign’s international trade policies, which have focused on opposition to trade deals such as NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump has argued that trade deals have caused the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and have overwhelming benefited countries like China. Navarro holds similar views. He is the author of the book Death by China in which he criticized the Chinese government for what he calls “currency manipulation” and “unfair trade practices,” which, like Trump, Navarro links directly the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. Navarro later turned the book into a documentary film.
Navarro has also voiced support for Trump’s proposals to impose tariffs on Chinese imports to the U.S. “Tariffs are not the end game. Tariffs are a negotiating tool. If China wants access to the world’s largest market, it must play by the rules. ... China will respect Donald Trump," said Navarro. In September 2016, he and commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross authored a white paper in support of Trump’s trade economic and trade policies. You can read that here.
As assistant to the president and director of trade and industrial policy, Navarro will lead the newly created National Trade Council. In a press release, Trump’s transition team stated the council will work alongside other Executive Office councils, like the National Security Council and the National Economic Council, to “advise the President on innovative strategies in trade negotiations, coordinate with other agencies to assess U.S. manufacturing capabilities and the defense industrial base, and help match unemployed American workers with new opportunities in the skilled manufacturing sector.”
Carl Icahn, special adviser to the president on regulatory reform
Icahn is a billionaire financial investor and philanthropist. He is the founder of Icahn Enterprises, a conglomerate company with investments in a variety of industries, including energy, auto manufacturing, casinos, and real estate. He has developed a reputation for buying up stakes in various companies and reshaping corporate boards. Icahn was an early supporter of Trump and often served as an informal adviser to his campaign.
Icahn has spoken critically of federal regulations such as the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation law—though he has said Trump shouldn’t “torpedo it”— and the Renewable Fuel Standard—which Trump supports. He has also criticized regulatory agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency. Icahn reportedly played a role in Trump’s selection of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as the next EPA chief. Pruitt has called himself a “leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.” We wrote about him earlier this month. Icahn is also said to have played a role in Trump’s selection of Steven Mnuchin as treasury secretary and Wilbur Ross as commerce secretary.
Icahn will not have an official role with the Trump administration, meaning he won’t receive a salary and won’t need to step away from his current business endeavors. A press release stated, “Carl Icahn will be advising the President in his individual capacity and will not be serving as a federal employee or a Special Government Employee and will not have any specific duties.”
Critics of Icahn’s position in the Trump administration have argued that Icahn will have a hand in crafting regulatory policy that directly affects businesses and industries in which he has financial interests. Icahn responded to these criticisms in an interview on CNBC this morning, saying, “I could understand saying that I shouldn't be involved in owning these [companies] if I were making policy. I'm not making any policy - I give my opinion. And I think I'm good at that.”
See also
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition
- Donald Trump presidential transition team
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