It seems like the world has been taken by storm. Many seem to be fixated on every move of the incoming US administration, focusing on every pick and stipulating what may greet us ahead. But what is really brewing in the upcoming Trump administration? And how do experienced politicians feel about this?
Sid and Justin sat down for a call with Congressman Brad Schneider to gather his views on the recent democratic loss and understand democratic strategy going forward. They now break down what each of Trump’s picks across all aspects of the administration may signal about his policy and internal thinking.
The Transcript
Justin: Welcome back to another episode of the Statesman Speaks.
Sid: from the statesman, this is, Sid
Justin: And Justin
Justin: Our topic of discussion for this podcast is President-elect Trump’s recent re-election to office in non consecutive terms marks a historic election the likes of which has not seen since Hoover.
Sid: However, as with any presidential transition, President Trump is now tasked with carefully selecting his closest advisors who will inform him on his policy decisions for the next four years.
Sid: Because of this, just by gaining insights into his picks and decision making we can learn what a second Trump administration may entail and what that says about Trump himself.
Sid Let’s dive right in
Justin: Trump’s most notable picks, among the notable Elon Musk, RFK JR, Vivek Ramaswami, in their own respect can reveal a lot about the priorities of the next Trump administration.
Sid: Congressman Brad Schneider, representative of the 10th congressional district in Illinois, weighs in on the matter.
Schneider: I suspect we’ll see a lot more of the same of what we saw in the first administration, only with more confidence and less guardrails. How he, you know, broke with convention a lot of times, sometimes breaking the convention isn’t a negative, but other times, it can create chaos. And we saw in the first four years quite often that then President Trump created a lot of chaos and confusion. My hope is that in the next administration, we have less of that. Based on early actions of the transition team, I’m not all that confident.
Sid: To start off, we have major changes in the incoming administration’s economic plan including a wide array of policies and regulatory changes. Scott Bassett, Trump’s appointment to the treasury sector role, gives us a good overview of what might be in store.
Sid: Bassett, who formerly was a big democrat donor and worked under the famed investor George Soros, advocates for strong tariff imposition on other countries. For instance, he has proposed a 60% tariff on China, which is America’s largest trade and military competitor. He views tariffs as a way of sanctioning American competition and protecting domestic interest. With president Trump himself advocating for tariffs, we may see higher tariffs which could lead to an inflationary environment. Whether these tariffs are negotiation tactics is unclear.
Sid: His next economic pick is David Sacks has been appointed to dictate the administration’s crypto policy. Sacks previously worked at PayPal in its early days and is a strong pro trump as well as pro crypto advocate. With his appointment, it’s evident the administration is prioritizing crypto and making the US the leading world advocate of digital currencies like crypto.
Sid: Finally we have Trump’s pick for the chairman of the SEC: Paul Atkins. Atkins, unlike the current SEC chairman Gary Gensler, is a very pro crypto pick. Also unlike Gensler, Atkins aims to reduce ESG, environmental social governance, regulations allowing businesses to not be forced to disclose their environmental impact. Alongside ESG Atkins hopes to reduce regulations overall and have a more hands off approach to businesses. All these policy initiatives are a sharp turn from those of the previous one.
Sid: Moving on to overhauls to government operations
Justin: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who Trump tapped to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency plan on paving the way for Trump’s administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, cut down on excess governmental regulations and wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies. Both men envision adjusting and changing the size and scope of the government and figuring out ways to efficiently navigate government roles while simultaneously making sure taxpayers get what they want.
Sid: now over to border security
Justin: President-elect Trump has announced Tom Homan as his new administration’s border czar, putting a 30+ year immigration enforcement veteran at the head of his mass deportation of illegal immigrants, starting in places like Chicago. Homan, the second Trump appointee was announced his role after White House chief of staff Susie Wiles ran Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in an acting capacity in 2017 and 2018 before announcing his retirement.
Sid: and next up we have health
Sid: Robert F Kennedy Jr has been nominated by Trump to be the next US health secretary. Kennedy plans on challenging various science consensus on health including vaccines. He aims to eliminate liability protections for drug companies allowing for them to be responsible for potential damages companies may cause on public health. Additionally Kennedy plans on removing fluoride from public water which AP claims is “one of the biggest public health successes of the past century.”
Sid: Congressman Schneider highlights possible problems he sees with the incoming health administration under RFK Jr.
Schneider: We also know that vaccines have made a huge contribution, really, over the last 150 years in enhancing and improving public health, no better example than the polio vaccine, which gave us the opportunity to virtually eradicate polio around the world. And yet we’re seeing because of ideas that Mr. Kennedy has bought into has spread polio was on the rise, rise in places around the world, and there’s threats that will come back here in the United States. We need to follow the science. We need to make sure that we are being honest in our assessments of what challenges are, and thoughtful in our development of solutions or recommendations to move forward, and to the extent that anyone’s willing to do that, I will work with them. The extent that they’re just going to bring idea ideology or ideal ideological rigidity, that’s going to make it that much harder.
Sid: Kennedy has also vowed to overhaul Department of Health and Human services’s staff by ensuring former pharma employees are not automatically allowed an entrance into government jobs as has been happening (this phenomenon is infamous called the ‘revolving door’)
Sid: Kennedy also feels the public health establishment focuses too much on infectious diseases and not enough on a problem he calls the chronic disease epidemic. He blames it on greedy corporations which focus too much on keeping Americans unhealthy which is beneficial for their bottom line.
Sid: finally Kennedy plans on implementing changes to the FDA, many of which are unorthodox relative to previous republican administrations. Kennedy has suggested barring drugmakers from advertising on TV, a multibillion-dollar enterprise that accounts for most of the industry’s marketing dollars. He’s also proposed eliminating fees that drugmakers pay the FDA to review their products, allowing the agency to hire extra scientists to speed up their work. Replacing those funds would require billions in new appropriations from the federal budget. Kennedy has suggested clearing out entire departments and promised to end FDA’s aggressive suppression of unsubstantiated therapies such as psychedelics.
Sid: Lastly, we have national security
Justin: Kash Patel has been well-known for years within Trump’s orbit as a loyal supporter who also shares the president-elect’s skepticism of the FBI. In a book last year titled, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth and the Battle for Our Democracy,” he proposed a more modest reform of having the headquarters moved out of Washington in order to prevent institutional capture and curb FBI leadership from engaging in political gamsmanship. Essentially, he plans on calling for a comprehensive housecleaning of elected leaders and journalists, and intends to expose the injustices and flaws of the judicial system.
Justin: Interestingly, Trump isn’t inviting Nikki Haailey and Pompaeo. We will investigate more into the hidden meaning of this. Something else to explore is that Trump did not hire family connections this time of year. We have seen the consequences of the ethical break of suggesting some family member such as his daughter or son-in-law to have a role in his administration, so it is interesting to see how Trump breaks away his usual stature of nepotism.
Sid: To sum up, we have drastic policy changes in the upcoming Trump administration on all fronts including Economic, health, border, national security, among others. Trump’s economic picks show the new administration’s embrace of crypto, tariffs, and reduction of national debt through tax as well as spending cuts.
Justin: We also have new changes along the lines of border, government operations and national security. Trump’s new administration aims to increase border enforcement by starting with mass deportations.
Sid: With all this, we also have the health of the general public. With RFK Jr’s new policies, we can expect to see sweeping changes in the privatized healthcare sector, the FDA, as well as the water drank by everyday Americans.
Sid: And that concludes our podcast! Thanks for listening, tune back for the next episode on the Statesman Spekas!