Trump’s leaked Cabinet shortlist is even more horrifying than you think
Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Ben Carson and Pam Bondi are just some of the extreme anti-LGBT Republicans up for crucial posts in Trump’s cabinet, according to a leak.
In the latest in a string of major leaks from President-elect Trump’s transition team, Buzzfeed News today published a preliminary list of proposed Cabinet picks.
Despite running on an anti-establishment platform, the leaked list – which is not finalised and includes multiple choices for many of the roles – is comprised primarily of establishment Republican politicians and millionaire business lobbyists, including an oil tycoon and a venture capitalist.
A number of names on the list will not go down well with LGBT people.
One of the most concerning mooted appointments is Attorney General, with Florida’s Pam Bondi on the shortlist.
While Obama’s Attorney Generals Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch have tirelessly supported LGBT rights, filing many briefs in support of marriage equality and anti-discimination protections, Bondi has the polar opposite record.
Serving as Florida’s top law official, Ms Bondi fought bitterly against same-sex marriage until the very week that weddings began – filing desperate taxpayer-funded attempts to stall on the issue, and later being dubbed Loser of the Year for her actions.
Bondi went beyond the pale to fight against equality, claiming in a legal brief that “disrupting Florida’s existing marriage laws would impose significant public harm”, and would cause “significant financial and logistical problems”.
The list also confirms that Dr Ben Carson, who had already managed to leak his own involvement, is under consideration to be Secretary of Health or Education.
Dr Carson previously insisted that same-sex marriage is a Marxist plot from the New World Order, claiming in a speech to a listed anti-gay group that gay weddings are part of a plan “to destroy unity [and] bring America down.”
Carson has repeatedly been forced to apologise when caught making overtly homophobic comments – apologising after he was caught comparing gay people to paedophiles, and again apologising after he was caught claiming that prisons ‘prove’ being gay is a choice.
His repeated humiliations have not dissuaded him, however – he recently compared gay couples to conjoined twins.
Meanwhile In contention for Secretary of Commerce is rabidly homophobic former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee made his own ill-fated bid for President earlier this year, attempting to pitch himself as the evangelical candidate. He rallied behind Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, compared anti-LGBT activists to Martin Luther King, labelled gay parents ‘destructive’, and ‘joked’ that he wishes he were transgender to spy on teenage girls in the shower.
A few months ago he urged the GOP to keep on trying to roll back same-sex marriage and LGBT equality.
Huckabee insisted: “If the party makes a substantial change on issues like life or marriage, it will be disastrous because whatever they think they gain, they’re wrong.
“[Gay marriage] happened very quickly in the United States. We really don’t know what the social consequences are.”
If none of that is scary enough for you, we have just six words: Secretary of the Interior Sarah Palin.
Buzzfeed’s full list is below.
Attorney General:
Gov. Chris Christie
Attorney General Pam Bondi
Sen. Jeff Sessions
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani
Secretary of Commerce:
Christie
Former Nucor CEO Dan DiMicco
Businessman Lew Eisenberg
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee
Sen. David Perdue
Former Sen. Jim Talent
Agriculture Secretary:
Gov. Sam Brownback
National Council of Farmer Cooperatives CEO Chuck Conner
Gov. Dave Heineman
Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller
Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue
Secretary of Education:
Ben Carson
Hoover Institution fellow William Evers
Secretary of Energy:
Venture Capitalist Robert Grady
Businessman Harold Hamm
Secretary of Health and Human Services:
Former New Jersey state Sen. Rich Bagger
Ben Carson
Newt Gingrich
Gov. Rick Scott
Secretary of Homeland Security:
Christie
Sheriff David Clarke
Secretary of the Interior:
Gov. Jan Brewer
Gov. Mary Fallin
Grady
Hamm
Oil Executive Forrest Lucas
Rep. Cynthia Lummis
Former Gov. Sarah Palin
Secretary of Defense:
Former Gen. Mike Flynn
Stephen Hadley
Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr.
Sessions
Former Sen. Jim Talent
Secretary of State:
John Bolton
Sen. Bob Corker
Gingrich
Treasury Secretary:
Rep. Jeb Hensarling
Businessman Carl Icahn
Banker Steven Mnuchin
Chief of Staff:
Reince Priebus
Director of Office of Management and Budget:
Sessions
Secretary of Labor:
EEOC Commissioner Victoria Lipnic
Veterans Affairs:
Rep. Jeff Miller
White House Counsel:
Donald McGahn