Exclusive data: Trump's record pace for Cabinet picks
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Trump in D.C. last week. Photo by Allison Robbert - Pool/Getty Images
President-elect Trump has set a modern record for staffing his government, with 12 Cabinet-level appointments in the 12 days since the election.
- That's five times faster than President Biden made the same number of picks for his administration — and four times faster than Trump's pick for his first administration, according to calculations for Axios by David Marchick, dean of the Kogod School of Business at American University and an expert on presidential transitions.
Why it matters: Trump either "has the best and most efficient transition ever," Marchick said, or "is blowing up all norms and making picks on the fly without vetting, research or Senate consultations."
By the numbers: Trump took an average of eight days post-election to make 12 Cabinet-level picks. Biden and President Obama took almost 40 days. President George W. Bush, slowed by the Bush-Gore litigation, took 50+.
- Marchick, lead author of the 2022 book, "The Peaceful Transfer of Power: An Oral History of America's Presidential Transitions," told us: "Biden, Obama and Bush followed well-established vetting processes. Trump has blown up those norms."
The latest: Trump named fracking executive Chris Wright as Secretary of Energy yesterday.
- Wright is the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy — a fracking technology and oilfield services company — and an outspoken advocate for the industry, Axios' Nick Sobczyk reports.
- Wright drank fracking fluid on camera in 2019 to demonstrate its safety.
Will Scharf will be White House staff secretary, a powerful position that controls the flow of information to the president.
- Scharf "has played a key role in defeating the Election Interference and Lawfare waged against me, including by winning the Historic Immunity Decision in the Supreme Court," Trump said in the announcement.
Go deeper: Tracking Trump's cabinet
