US President-elect Donald Trump reportedly has settled on Gen. John F. Kelly as secretary of homeland security, which would make the retired Marine Corps officer the third member of the nation’s military brass tapped to serve at the highest levels of his administration. Even before the story leaked this week, concerns had been expressed on Capitol Hill that the Trump administration will be top-heavy with officials who cut their teeth in American politics as military commanders.
“I’m concerned,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democratic member of the Foreign Relations Committee, told The Washington Post. “Each of these individuals may have great merit in their own right, but what we’ve learned over the past 15 years is that when we view problems in the world through a military lens, we make big mistakes.”
If the Pentagon is racking up top spots in Trump’s inner circle, it still lags behind Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs. This development is more of a surprise than the reliance on retired military officers. During the 2016 election contest, Trump made a campaign issue of Goldman Sachs’ outsized clout in Washington. He argued during the primary that the Wall Street firm exercised “total control” over Republican rival Ted Cruz — and made the same accusation about Goldman Sachs’ influence over Hillary Clinton. The Trump campaign aired a television ad that included a photograph of Goldman Sachs’ CEO while warning of a “global power structure” — presumably including Goldman — that was disenfranchising American workers.
But that was then, and this is now. On Friday, NBC News reported that Goldman executive Gary Cohn had been tasked with heading the National Economic Council, a White House-based group of advisers with deep sway over administration policy. He’s not the first. The Trump transition previously announced that Goldman Sachs veteran Steven Mnuchin is the pick to be secretary of the US Treasury. In addition, two other former Goldman Sachs hands, hedge fund manager Anthony Scaramucci and “kitchen Cabinet” adviser Steve Bannon, have Trump’s ear on policy and personnel decisions.
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