So, there has been a lot of talk about qualifications for various executive appointments. This, in many ways, is a fully subjective exercise. I will note from the onset that “subjective” does not mean that there is simply no way to differentiate between the quality of given nominees, but simply that there is room for reasonable differences. I do think that it should be obvious to any reasonable observer when a given candidate is either highly qualified or not qualified in some substantive way. Of course, making such judgments requires a certain level of understanding of a given job, as well as that job’s relative importance.
Let’s start with the basic constitutional requirement for the positions in question: there are none. We find in Article II:
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
Basically, the president nominates and if the Senate approves, the nominee is “qualified” in that sense of the term. For what it is worth, the words “cabinet” and “department secretary” do not appear in the US Constitution. Congress creates the departments.
The lack of formal requirements immediately muddies the waters. Most jobs require specifics, like a master’s degree or experience doing X, Y, or Z, but for these appointments, that is not how these jobs work.
As a general matter, what do I expect out of executive branch nominations?
I expect that a person being appointed to one of these positions has some combination of experience dealing with managing large bureaucracies, extensive governmental experience, and some connection, if not actual expertise, in the policy area in question.
I will admit that I have a bias toward as much policy connectivity as possible, but also can balance that off with proven appropriate managerial acumen. I have a deep and definitive preference for expertise. I think that we are better off if appointees have both the appropriate leadership/managerial skills needed to run a large organization and some level of true expertise relevant to the job.
There is also the significance of the jobs themselves. Some appointments are simply more significant than others. The Department of Defense is more important than the Department of Housing and Urban Development, for example.*
Additionally, when it comes to Trump appointees, I am skeptical that there is much consideration at all to any of this. As such, I am skeptical about the entire group of picks because it seems the main considerations are a combination of appearing on TV and personal loyalty to Trump (not the office, not the Constitution, him as a person).
I will further note that, as someone who for many years was in the middle of the hiring process, a minimally qualified person is often inadequate, and the question is not “Does this candidate meet the minimum threshold?” but “Can we get someone better?”
So, I would put Trump’s nominees into three broad baskets: the qualified, the minimally qualified, and the unqualified. Based, again, on their resumes and the jobs themselves, keeping in mind that there are a lot of potential candidates.
In the first category, I have repeatedly noted Marco Rubio for State to be a perfectly normal pick.** CBS has the current list of picks here. Astute readers will note that I have not commented on most of them. Other normie picks include Elise Stefanik for UN ambassador, Huckabee for ambassador to Israel, Tom Homan for “border czar,” Brendan Carr for FCC chairman, and Michael Waltz for NSA. I have opinions about the quality of some of those picks and/or significant policy disagreements, but these are all normie picks insofar as they are some combination of political payback and policy congruence.
If I am feeling charitable, Noem for DHS and McMahon for COE are minimally qualified, with McMahon at least having some experience in the executive branch overseeing the Small Business Administration. And Noem was governor of a state, which is legitimate executive experience.
But, I have called both of them unqualified. Why?
Noem has a resume (state legislative, US House of Representatives, Governor of SD) that is enough to suggest a cabinet position (not unlike Doug Burgum to the Interior). However, not only do I think that the DHS Secretary needs a stronger resume than Noem’s, but I find that her own assertions in her book that her willingness to put down a puppy shows she is a person of action (there was also the goat story, via the link). I think anyone who thinks that cruelty is a sign of leadership is unqualified for more power, especially in a position like DHS. I think she will enable the kinds of cruelty towards immigrants being advocated by people like Homan, Miller, and Trump. My guess is that she will be confirmed.
Regarding McMahon, let me note that the current Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, holds three degrees in education, taught in public schools, and worked in state-level education administration. That is what a highly qualified candidate looks like. McMahon’s resume is better suited to other areas. Then you have things like (via USAT), this: Trump’s education secretary nominee once said she had an education degree. She doesn’t. and this (via The Hill: Trump’s education pick Linda McMahon accused of negligence in WWE child sexual abuse lawsuit). It is not unreasonable to assert a better candidate could be found. I do expect that she will be confirmed.***
The main ones in the absolutely unqualified category are Hegseth, Gabbard, and RFK, Jr.
Again, in terms of legal/constitutional qualifications, they all are “qualified.” By that definition, so am I, but I assure you that while I have more managerial experience than Hegseth, I should not be put in charge of the Pentagon.
Hegseth should be obvious. Yes, he’s a veteran, but that is far from enough. His main qualification is being a TV host. He has no experience with running a small organization, let alone a large one. That doesn’t even get into his retrograde view on women in combat, the tattoos, and his sexual assault allegation (not to mention his general character, not that that seems to matter to the GOP any longer).
I know that Gabbard served in Congress and is a veteran, having served in combat. Those items are not enough to be the Director of National Intelligence, not by a long shot. She has no managerial experience of relevance, and she has no training or expertise in intelligence. Worse, she sounds like a paid propagandist for Putin. I am not saying she is. Indeed, I assume that she isn’t, but the way she talks on the subject of Ukraine sounds like a Kremlin spokesperson. Now, so do Trump and some of his allies, so maybe this is a feature and not a bug for him. Regardless, running ODNI is a big and very important job. She is not prepared to do it, and if she gets the job, our allies will be very reluctant to share intelligence with us the way that has been the norm for decades (and that is understating the situation).
An important part of my overall view of the “qualifications” of specific individuals chosen reflects not just their own resumes, but what they say about the chooser and the overall tapestry being woven by the selections. For example, in a more normal administration, someone like McMahon, for example, would be the poor quality pick that is explained away by her political work for a pro-Trump PAC.
There have to be pro-Trump Republicans who have adequate experience and who know things about DOE, DHS, DoD, and the ODNI who can be appointed. Instead, we are being given people who objectively are underqualified, if not grossly so in some cases.
All of this brings me to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
I had been thinking about this already and then I saw this piece in PJ Media: You’ll Need to Hit the Showers for a ‘Sanewash’ After This Ridiculous RFK Hit Piece.
Setting aside the profound irony that the piece is an attempt to sanewash Kennedy, I would note that it fits a broader pattern wherein I am seeing pro-Trump partisans finding themselves not only defending this pick but often parroting RFK, Jr.’s talking points.
For example, Senator Mullin (R-OK):
Here’s Howard Lutnick, part of the transition team, starting at around the :30 mark, spouting RFK, Jr.’s rhetoric about vaccines and autism. This is rapidly becoming, if not has already become, mainstream in the GOP.
As I have noted more than once, I am old enough (and I know a lot of our readers are old enough) when there was this list of things called “childhood diseases” that most people could expect to get as children (and that many people in the past died from). Prominent examples were mumps, measles, chicken pox, and whooping cough. I had both mumps and chicken pox as a kid. They were no fun. I knew lots of kids who got one or all of those diseases. By the time my kids (who are now all in their 20s) were kids, these diseases were largely unheard of. Why? Because of vaccines.
My mother-in-law had polio as a child. But that disease has been effectively eliminated. Why? Vaccines.
Smallpox, same deal. Vaccines!!
The only reason we can convince ourselves that none of this matters is because if you are in your forties or younger, all of this talk sounds like scurvy and the plague–i.e., echoes of some bygone ancient era.
And autism rates are up primarily because we have diagnostic tools that we used to not have.****
And here’s Senate-elect Jim Banks (R-IN) doing something similar.
The clip references the current HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, which is a good segway back to the PJ Media article, which tries to assert that Kennedy is more qualified than Becerra.
It is an odd and poorly constructed piece and spends a substantial amount of time engaging in anti-trans bigotry aimed at Rachel Levine, currently an assistant secretary of HHS. (BTW, if you are looking for the resume of someone qualified to serve, Levine’s is a great one.)
Here’s the opening paragraph:
America’s left just lost an election in which voters overwhelmingly rejected their current fad: that it is perfectly normal for men to be surgically converted into women, use women’s bathrooms and locker rooms, and compete against women on the sports pitch or in the ring. They could be chest feeding birthing persons for all we know.
So, yeah, not exactly a masterpiece in calm reason. Moreover, while it ostensibly defends Kennedy, it never actually does a good job of arguing in favor of Kennedy.
I’ll stipulate that RFK Jr. may not be the best candidate for HHS that ever was. But making the argument that Rachel Levine, a doctor who wears a skirt and claims men can be women, and Xavier Becerra, an attorney, are better is downright crazy talk.
So, here are some highlights of Levine’s career.
- Holds an MD from Tulane.
- She is a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine.
- Served as the secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health (2017 to 2021).
So, if you are looking for a good example of what “qualified” looks like, look at Levine. If you think she is unqualified because she is trans, then you might be a bigot (well, actually, there ain’t no “might” about it). Moreover, if you think RFK, Jr. is more qualified than Levine, your judgment is not to be trusted.
Becerra strikes me as a solid, if unremarkable, pick for Secretary of HHS, and he is radically more qualified than Kennedy. Becerra’s Congressional career placed him on appropriate committees of significance to HHS and his time as AG of California gave him executive-level experience overseeing a large bureaucracy. Is his resume as overwhelmingly impressive as Levine’s? No. But, of course, if the assistant secretaries have resumes like Levine’s, then all you need from the Secretary is appropriate knowledge and managerial experience.*****
Let me remind everyone that Kennedy has no experience with the federal government or in managing a large institution. Those two facts alone make him a poor pick. His off-the-wall views on a host of health-related issues make him utterly unqualified. Forbes provides a list of RFK Jr.’s Conspiracy Theories: Here’s What Trump’s Pick For Health Secretary Has Promoted. Also, via Newsweek, What RFK Jr Has Said About Chemtrails Conspiracy Theory.
The evidence is overwhelming that Kennedy lacks sufficient grounding in reality to be trusted with any position of power, let alone to be put in charge of anything, let alone Health and Human Services.
To return to the point from above, if you find yourself having to defend the pick of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as a qualified pick, you might just be a hack who is allowing partisan allegiance to override your better judgment. Also: if you frame your whole piece around disrespecting Rachel Levine for no good reason, you are a bigot (doubly so if your bigotry leads you to assert that RFK, Jr. is more qualified than she is).
Part of why I am concerned about the qualifications of these picks, both individually and as a group, is because I fear that the generally poor nature of the picks is driving downward definitions of “normal” and “qualified”–especially for high-level picks (again, DoD, AG, DHS, HHS, ODNI). As such, it is not just about specific picks, but the cumulative effect of it all. The first Trump administration was bad enough. Thus far, this one is looking far worse. Truly terrible picks like Gaetz (even if withdrawn) just allow anyone else to look better. And when co-partisans and defenders of the administration can argue with a straight face that Bobby Kennedy is qualified, we are in trouble if we think that the government is actually supposed to govern.
*I thought, for example, that appointing Ben Carson to run HUD in the first Trump administration was a mismatch. Carson knew nothing about that area of policy. Indeed, here’s what I wrote in December of 2016: Ben Carson to Head HUD. I believe that is the only post on that subject from me. James and the late Doug Mataconis wrote quite a bit more about Carson. I did see some posts from me from 2015 about his presidential run. I was never a fan of Carson’s, insofar as he seemed to know a lot about brain surgery and very little about anything else. I could have seen him as Surgeon General. He did not have the managerial background, IIRC, to be in charge of any department. HUD, however, is low down the list.
**I am not thrilled that Rubio used to be an ardent opponent of Trump who Trump ridiculed, called names, and subsequently, Rubio acts like a lap dog. But that isn’t about qualifications, per se, but instead about the loyalty-to-Trump issue.
***Without getting even deeper into the McMahon pick, I would note this piece in Inside Higher Ed: Trump Picks McMahon as Education Secretary.
Picking McMahon, a wealthy executive with little experience in education, is a move reminiscent of Trump’s first term, when he appointed Betsy DeVos as education secretary. DeVos, a billionaire philanthropist known for her support of school choice, voucher programs and charter schools, was a controversial candidate whose confirmation required then–vice president Mike Pence to cast a tie-breaking vote in her favor.
Also,
Trump said that McMahon will bring decades of leadership experience as well as a “deep understanding of both Education and Business” to empower the next generation of students and workers. The president-elect also reiterated his campaign pledge to get rid of the Education Department.
She has very limited experience with education and I don’t think, contrary to a lot of the conventional wisdom, that experience in business is a Rosetta Stone that unlocks a person’s ability to run any organization.
****Without getting into details, I have direct experience with a family member and spectrum disorders. Also, my wife taught for a few years at a school that specialized in students with those issues. I am no expert, but know more about this topic than the average bear.
*****And in RFK’s HHS, we have things like putting a TV character in charge of CMS.
