Donald Trump's Cabinet has 2 bankers, 2 generals, 3 business executives, and 1 wealthy philanthropist
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
When you color President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet by numbers, the resulting image is stark. Politico Playbook did exactly that Tuesday morning, deciphering the professional field of each and every Cabinet member Trump has selected so far.
While Trump has made space for three business executives, he still hasn't handed a single spot to a Democrat, which Politico reported breaks with a "long tradition of nominating someone from the opposing party." He has exactly the same number of generals (two) as he does members of Congress. The number of bankers in his Cabinet (two) exceeds the number of former Cabinet officials (one). With the recent addition of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry as energy secretary, Trump's Cabinet now has two governors. And he has exactly one billionaire philanthropist, one physician, and one state attorney general.
That breaks down to only a handful of Trump's Cabinet picks having prior government experience. Jesse Lehrich, Hillary Clinton's former foreign policy spokesman, laid out what some of the others' areas of expertise are:
Article continues belowThe Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Lack of experience aside, Ed Kilgore writes for the Daily Intelligencer, "perhaps the most disturbing feature of the Trump Cabinet so far is the number of appointees who do not believe in the core missions of the agencies they are being asked to run."
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com