Your feedback ensures we stay focused on the facts that matter to you most—take our survey
You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition - February 13, 2017
Trump Administration (first term)  Vice President Mike Pence Cabinet • White House staff • Transition team • Trump's second term |
Domestic affairs: Abortion • Crime and justice • Education • Energy and the environment • Federal courts • Firearms policy • First Amendment • Healthcare • Immigration • Infrastructure • LGBTQ issues • Marijuana • Puerto Rico • Social welfare programs • Veterans • Voting issues Economic affairs and regulations: Agriculture and food policy • Budget • Financial regulation • Jobs • Social Security • Taxes • Trade Foreign affairs and national security: Afghanistan • Arab states of the Persian Gulf • China • Cuba • Iran • Iran nuclear deal • Islamic State and terrorism • Israel and Palestine • Latin America • Military • NATO • North Korea • Puerto Rico • Russia • Syria • Syrian refugees • Technology, privacy, and cybersecurity |
| Polling indexes: Opinion polling during the Trump administration |
This is the February 13, 2017, edition of an email sent from November 2016 to September 2017 that covered Donald Trump's presidential transition, 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.
Key staff overview
In addition to tracking the legislation, executive orders, and policy positions of the new Trump administration, Ballotpedia has also identified some of the key staff and advisors to President Trump. Today, we highlight three influential staff members helping to shape the administration’s policy and messaging.
See our list of the administration’s key staff and advisors here.
Steve Bannon
Bannon has been in the news in the first weeks of the Trump administration because of his high-profile position. His official title is chief strategist. When announcing staffing appointments, the Trump transition team listed him above the incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus. Since Trump’s inauguration, Bannon has also been appointed to the Principals Committee—a role typically reserved for generals—on the National Security Council. Bannon co-authored Trump’s inaugural speech and was one of the primary authors of Trump’s early executive orders.
Bannon’s career is the most eclectic of Trump’s high-level advisors and staff. He served in the U.S. Navy and as the special assistant to the chief of Naval operations. After, he attended Harvard Business School and worked at Goldman Sachs.
Through an ownership stake in Castle Rock's television rights, including the syndication of Seinfeld, Bannon has earned millions of dollars. In addition, Bannon consulted on Biosphere 2 an experimental project in which eight people lived in a domed terrarium for two years. He has also written and produced a number of films,including Occupy Unmasked about the Occupy Wall Street movement.
He is perhaps most famous for having taken over Breitbart News in 2012, a website that The New York Times called “a small but potent media empire designed to directly challenge the country’s cultural and political elite, whom [Bannon] sees as incorrigibly detached from working-class America and responsible for dismantling its backbone.”
Kellyanne Conway
Conway has been a conservative commentator since the 1990s, when she frequently appeared on talk shows. She started The Polling Company, a research and consulting firm, in 1993, focusing largely on women voters and young voters. According to her company biography, Conway, as a pollster, has worked with former Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), Steve King (R-Iowa), and Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). She has also been an advisor for other politicians, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) as well as Mike Pence (R-Ind.).
Conway began the 2016 election cycle as the president of the pro-Ted Cruz super PAC Keep the Promise I. She left the organization in June 2016 and became a senior advisor to Donald Trump's presidential campaign in July 2016. She was initially hired to be a senior advisor to campaign chairman Paul Manafort. At the time, Trump described Conway as “a data and messaging expert and terrific on TV." After Manafort resigned in August 2016, Conway took over as campaign manager.
Dan Scavino
Scavino is the White House’s director of social media and manages the official @POTUS account. When the president isn’t tweeting from his own phone, it is likely that you’re reading Scavino’s words. He’s known Trump for 20 years, having first met him while in college. While a student at Plattsburgh State University, Scavino caddied at the Briar Hall Country Club in Westchester, New York, a position that put him in contact with Trump as well as the president of Coca-Cola. In 1998, when Scavino graduated, he took a job as a regional manager with Coca-Cola for five years.,n 2003, Trump bought Briar Hall and made it into Trump National Golf Club; Scavino became the assistant clubhouse manager. Scavino eventually worked his way up to executive vice president of the Trump Organization’s golf division, a position that reported directly to Trump.
Scavino has been tweeting on behalf of the president for Trump’s entire political career. He joined the presidential campaign in June 2015 as an advisor and was promoted to director of social media in February 2016.
Votes expected today
Steven Mnuchin
Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s choice to be the next secretary of the treasury, is expected to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate tonight. Mnuchin’s nomination has been contested by Democrats, who object to his past work as an investor with Goldman Sachs and as the head of the bank OneWest. Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee boycotted his vote in committee on January 31.
David Shulkin
Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, David Shulkin, is also expected to be confirmed today. Shulkin, who has been the undersecretary for health in the VA since June 2015, was unanimously recommended to the Senate by the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs on February 7.
See also
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition
- Donald Trump presidential transition team
| |||||||||||||||||||
