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You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition - January 17, 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 January 17, 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.
Inauguration week is here, and in three days—January 20, 2017—Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. Throughout the 2016 election and as president-elect, Trump has outlined an ambitious first day in office. In today’s briefing, we take a quick look at some of the biggest issues that Trump has said he intends to address on day one of his presidency. Read further down for our coverage of today’s Senate confirmation hearings for Trump’s nominees for Secretary of Education and Secretary of Interior.
Trade
- Trump’s opposition to international trade agreements like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a key component of his 2016 campaign platform. In a short YouTube video that he released on November 21, 2016, he said that he would issue a “notification of intent” to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He made similar statements on the campaign trail and, in a September 2016 speech, added that he would notify participating NAFTA countries of his intentions to renegotiate that deal.
- Also related to trade, Trump said in an October 2016 speech that he would direct the Treasury Department to label China a currency manipulator and would direct the Commerce Department and the U.S. Trade Representative to, he said, “identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately.”
Ethics Reforms
- In October 2016, Trump outlined a series of ethics reforms that he said his administration would immediately pursue on his first day in office. Those reforms included the following:
- Propose a constitutional amendment that places term limits on all members of Congress
- Establish a hiring freeze on federal employees (except military, public safety, and public health)
- Establish a five-year ban on White House and Congressional officials from becoming lobbyists after leaving office
- Establish a lifetime ban on White House officials from lobbying for foreign governments
- Establish a total ban on foreign lobbyists raising funds for American elections
- Trump also mentioned the restrictions on White House officials becoming lobbyists in his November 21 video.
Immigration
- Trump kicked off his presidential bid by laying out his stance on immigration and has pledged to initiate policy on the topic on his first day in office. In his October 2016 speech, he laid out four actions that he plans to take on day one:
- Begin removing from the country more than 2 million undocumented immigrants with criminal records
- Cancel visas to countries that will not accept back these immigrants
- Suspend immigration from regions with a history of terrorism and where screening is more difficult
- Cancel federal funding for sanctuary cities
- Trump added to these actions in the November video, saying that he will direct the Department of Labor to investigate potential abuses of visa programs.
- In September, he said that his administration would begin implementing plans for the construction of a wall along the southern border.
- He also said that he will order the State Department to end the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the U.S. and to begin developing plans for the establishment of a safe zone in the Middle East.
Energy
- In the October speech, Trump said that he will lift a series of restrictions that the Obama administration has placed on energy development in the U.S. For example, he stated that he would allow the Keystone XL Pipeline to move forward. He also said, in both the October speech and the November video, that he would lift restrictions on the development of shale, oil, natural gas, and coal.
Healthcare
- Trump said in September that he will ask Congress to send him legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare on his first day in office, noting, “a Republican Congress and a Republican President can save Americans from this disaster in a single afternoon.” The Trump campaign website, in a section on healthcare policy, states, “On day one of the Trump Administration, we will ask Congress to immediately deliver a full repeal of Obamacare.”
- The Senate voted in favor of procedural steps last week that would allow the chamber to repeal the law with a majority vote and instructed the relevant committees to prepare legislation for the law’s repeal by January 27, 2017.
- In a press conference on January 11, 2017, Trump stressed that the repeal and replacement of Obamacare would take place simultaneously. “It’ll be repeal and replace. It will be essentially, simultaneously. It will be various segments, you understand, but will most likely be on the same day or the same week, but probably, the same day, could be the same hour,” said Trump. He went on to say that his administration intends to submit a replacement for Obamacare after Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom Price (R-Georgia), is confirmed. Price’s confirmation hearing with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is scheduled for tomorrow.
- House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) echoed Trump’s emphasis on repeal and replace, while talking to reporters on January 10. He said, “it is our goal to bring it all together concurrently. We’re going to use every tool at our disposal through legislation, through regulation, to bring replace concurrent along with repeal, so that we can save people from this mess.”
National Security
- In a September 2016 speech, Trump said he will convene his top generals and instruct them to formulate a plan within 30 days for defeating ISIS. In the November video, he added that he will ask the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to begin developing a cybersecurity plan.
Senate Confirmation Hearings
Two confirmation hearings for Trump cabinet nominees are taking place today: Interior Secretary nominee Ryan Zinke and Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos. We’ll cover them in more detail in tomorrow’s edition. In the meantime, here’s a preview.
Ryan Zinke, nominee Secretary of Interior
Zinke is appearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, a committee of 12 Republicans and 11 Democrats. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is the chair, and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is the highest ranking Democrat. Zinke was first elected to the House in 2014 to represent the state of Montana’s at-large congressional district. He was re-elected in 2016. Prior to his election to the U.S. House, Zinke served in the Montana State Senate from 2009 to 2013 and was a Navy SEAL from 1985 to 2008. We detailed his stances on public land use and management in December.
Though a supporter of Trump, he resigned from his position as a delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention in July 2016 over a disagreement with convention’s platform committee concerning public land management policy in the Republican Party Platform. The document, which was crafted and approved at the convention, called for “universal legislation providing a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states.” Zinke told the Billings Gazette that he supports better management of federal lands but not the transfer of federal lands to the states. “Quite frankly, most Republicans don't agree with it and most Montanans don't agree with it. What we do agree on is better management,” said Zinke.
Betsy DeVos, nominee for Secretary of Education
DeVos is appearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, a committee of 12 Republicans and 11 Democrats. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) chairs the committee, and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) is the highest ranking Democrat. DeVos is the chairwoman of the Windquest Group, an investment management firm in Michigan, and the former chair of the Republican Party of Michigan. She has donated to numerous conservative causes in Michigan and nationally.
You can read more about DeVos in a previous edition of You’re Hired. She has been a vocal advocate for school choice, broadly defined as educational alternatives for parents who do not wish to send their children to the local district public school to which they have been assigned. In a 2013 interview, DeVos explained, “what we are trying to do is tear down the mindset that assigns students to a school based solely on the zip code of their family’s home. We advocate instead for as much freedom as possible. … We think of the educational choice movement as involving many parts: vouchers and tax credits, certainly, but also virtual schools, magnet schools, homeschooling, and charter schools.”
See also
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition
- Donald Trump presidential transition team
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