American Taliban

Axios: “Lost in the noise of Trump’s most controversial picks is the simple, undebatable fact that this might be the most ideologically diverse cabinet of modern times.”

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to select Brooke Rollins, a former Trump administration policy adviser, to lead the Agriculture Department, the Wall Street Journal reports. “Rollins is the president of the America First Policy Institute, a group led by former Trump administration officials that spent months planning for a potential second term.

Playbook: “In a flurry of Truth Social posts last night, President-elect Donald Trump made a furious pre-holiday-week dent in his list of Cabinet and key sub-Cabinet nominations — naming nine picks in the span of about 70 minutes and ruining happy hour for all the reporters who suddenly had to freshen their pre-writes.” “Whether by design or by compulsion, the volume and timing of the announcements had the immediate effect of diffusing the scrutiny that might have been trained on any individual nominee.

Politico: “Blue cities represent the core of the Democratic base… But this year, the major cities accounted for smaller shares of the votes cast in the battleground states than four years ago — effectively ceding political power to suburban and rural voters who are, in aggregate, more conservative.”

“A common thread weaves through many of Donald Trump’s picks for his incoming administration, a quality the president-elect values as highly as loyalty and perhaps even more than conventional qualifications: a flair for television,” CNN reports. “He has plucked two Fox News stars from their airwaves – Sean Duffy for Transportation secretary and Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon.

“President-elect Donald Trump is considering tapping Richard Grenell, his former intelligence chief, to be a special envoy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” USA Today reports. “Grenell, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany and was acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s 2017-2021 term, would play a key role in Trump’s efforts to halt the war if he is ultimately selected for the post.”