After the ongoing debacle flowing forth from Pres.-elect Donald Trump’s nominations of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, Peter Hegseth for Defense, and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, the Trump transition team is now at a standstill over disputes regarding the next major major cabinet nominee – Treasury Secretary. The in-fighting has spilled over such that some worry that Trump’s original choices are now on the outside looking in, leaving Trump “annoyed” according to reports, as well as possible frustration over Elon Musk’s continued presence, perhaps even inserting himself in the process.

The root of the problem is that Trump wants a Treasury Secretary who can both put sweeping tariffs in place while at the same time retaining Wall Street’s support with stocks rising. That hope may well be mutually exclusive. And yet, according to The Washington Post’s report, Trump himself is undeterred.

Meanwhile, see if you can follow Elon’s positioning on tariffs and his favorite candidate, Transition chair Howard Lutnick:

“In a Saturday morning post on X, the social network he owns and runs, Musk praised a foreign leader’s decision to cut tariffs — the same import taxes that Trump wants to raise to the highest level in a century. Several hours later, Musk posted that Howard Lutnick, Trump’s co-transition chair, would be a better choice than hedge fund executive Scott Bessent for treasury secretary,” the outlet reported Saturday. “Musk’s endorsement of Lutnick is likely to exacerbate the substantial confusion and even fear in Trump’s orbit about the central role Musk appears to be playing in personnel and policy decisions for the new administration.”

“Exacerbate confusion” is not a term you want associated with your transition. Making it worse, it’s now all impacting Trump’s mellow, as originally reported by the Wall Street Journal and then presented by Rawstory:

“All of the jockeying has at times annoyed Trump and his senior aides, according to people familiar with the matter, prompting some close to him to wonder whether the president-elect will choose a different candidate altogether.”

At this point, perhaps he should just go with someone else. (I am sometimes questioned as to whether I am giving Donald Trump advice – no. He wouldn’t take it anyway and I’m merely observing while attempting to retain some sanity.) If Trump doesn’t have his heart set on any given candidate, then perhaps he really should toss aside all the insider favorites and pick some wildcard – equally loyal, always – in order to demonstrate that he won’t be manipulated by those around him. It is a thought. Something is bothering him, though he has no one to blame but himself for Gaetz, Hegseth, and Gabbard. Thinking on it some, maybe now is the time that he should trust his very handsomely paid staff? Worth considering.

Meanwhile, over on “X” we have reporting on the amount of time taken over the Treasury Secretary pick – fitting, given that he or she will have to sell those tariffs – quite literally, to the rest of the world:

Good luck on finding pro-tariff folks on Wall Street. Perhaps stocks would rise on a decision that doesn’t rise to “Gaetz-level” panic and instead hits “Stage-Rubio” – someone that most at least agree can do the job. With regard to the “delay” in the nomination process, the transition team says only:

“President-elect Trump is making decisions on who will serve in his second Administration. Those decisions will continue to be announced by him when they are made.”

Right. So get back to us when there is a decision. Honestly, they probably now wish that they could’ve taken 30 days or so before making any announcements. They wish. But there would’ve surely been leaks regarding maneuvering in the background. Tough call, though they probably want a few back.

Another tough call is whether there comes a point when someone tells Musk that he has to go. As much as Elon may enjoy seeing himself as a co-president there are no co-presidents, especially around this one. Donald Trump isn’t going to like seeing “Elonia” trending on “X.” There are already Trump staffers referencing Musk as “the guest who wouldn’t leave” and you know it’s bad when it happens to be the richest guy on earth. Imagine the work Musk must be putting in.

And:

Yeah, not a good look at all. If Elon really is a big Trump backer – and it remains to be seen if Musk is actually pro-Trump or just hiding as pro-Musk, he really should at least offer to back off and see if he is told to stay. Meanwhile, it does fall to a staff member to tell Elon to leave if it’s becoming a problem. No one wants to be “that guy” and yet they are all obligated to protect “the” guy – it’s kind of a wonder how it hasn’t happened already. Maybe Trump actually wants Elon around… But man, we’ve seen that play out many times before and it’s not pretty. Entertaining occasionally, never pretty.

The Treasury Secretary pick is the last big big one, at least until Trump decides he may want another shot at one of the others. Given that the goal really is to use sweeping tariffs and thereby upend global assumptions on free trade, it is absolutely necessary to find someone who can deal with the near-instantaneous and chaotic backlash. A trade war, multiple ones on multiple fronts, seem certain. There will be immediate implications on everything from basic federal income to possible lay-offs, product sitting around… it is actually hard to limit the imagination as to possible ramifications.

So they better take time. It will almost surely be Howard Lutnick in the end. After all, why even head up a transition team if you’re not going to be one of the biggest transitioned? There are worse picks and they don’t want to take too much time on the off chance that they actually manage to name one.

God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and @JasonMiciak

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8 COMMENTS

  3. He’s not even president for ages yet, but he’s already managed to surround himself with chaos.

    Four more years of this?

    Maybe he will be good for tackling global CO2 levels causing climate change?

    Crashing the world economy would certainly help that.

    9

    • In Soviet Russia they had a concept, “wrecking” (vreditel’stvo), which Stalin was always accusing his enemies of. (Similar to “sabotage”). Putin understands this concept very well. He doesn’t even have to instigate it, with Trump it comes naturally.

      1

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