Behind the Curtain: The Cabinet pageant
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President-elect Trump plans to weigh in on roughly 40 top cabinet, agency and White House jobs from a makeshift Situation Room at Mar-a-Lago, where he's surrounded by TV monitors displaying profiles of potential picks.
- The interactive array lets aides instantly summon a multimedia menu covering whatever position or person he wants to consider next, transition sources tell us.
Why it matters: The process is just getting rolling, and includes lots of surprise names, including some for big jobs.
- The real lists exclude many names floated publicly by people who claim to have knowledge of the process but actually don't, officials tell us.
Behind the scenes: Each digital dossier includes tightly edited clips of a prospect's TV appearances, so Trump can get a sense of how effective they'd be in delivering his message.
- The video also helps him gauge whether they fit his Central Casting vision of authoritative, impressive underlings.
Between the lines: We routinely get tips and text messages touting the prospects of administration hopefuls who have been definitively crossed off Trump's list.
- Elon Musk, Vice President-elect JD Vance and transition co-chair Howard Lutnick are among the small group intimately involved in choosing the most powerful — and sensitive — jobs.
The big picture: As we told you last week, Trump is looking for two things — experience and loyalty. His early picks fit this bill: Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff ... Tom Homan as "border czar" ... Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as UN ambassador.
- New today: Stephen Miller, Trump's immigration hawk, will be named deputy White House chief of staff for policy. The position doesn't require confirmation.
What we're watching: The roles with the most juice are yet to come, including the secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury and Homeland Security, and directors of the FBI and CIA.
- The legal team, including attorney general and White House counsel, will be equally important — given Trump's eagerness to stretch the power of the presidency, and his promise to seek retribution against enemies.
The transition has outside firms conducting more traditional vetting of hundreds of candidates for senior jobs, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported earlier on the digital résumé presentations.
