Published: 3:04am, 21 Nov 2024Updated: 4:01am, 21 Nov 2024
There’s a common trait that US president-elect Donald Trump is clearly prizing as he selects those to serve in his new administration: experience on television.
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Trump loves that “central casting” look, as he likes to call it.
Some, like his choices for defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, and transport secretary, Sean Duffy, were until recently television hosts on Trump’s favourite network, Fox News. Mike Huckabee, his pick for US ambassador to Israel, hosted the Fox show Huckabee from 2008 to 2015 after his time as Arkansas governor.
Mehmet Oz, a former syndicated talk show host and heart surgeon, was tapped Tuesday to head the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that oversees health insurance programmes for millions of older, poor and disabled Americans.
He would report to Trump’s choice for health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jnr, himself a regular on the cable news circuit.
Just spitballing here, but what if the Attorney General and the Secretary of HHS fight each other in an octagonal cage?
Trump, a former reality television star himself, has made no secret of his intention to stack his administration with loyalists after his decisive 2024 election win – including some whose lack of relevant experience has raised concerns among lawmakers.