There are roughly 1,200 positions in the federal government that require Senate confirmation, including the senior officials who make up the president’s Cabinet. The first Cabinet official was confirmed in 1789 when the Senate unanimously approved President George Washington’s nomination of Alexander Hamilton to be treasury secretary.
The confirmation or denial process is a matter of 100 senators making judgement calls to determine whether a nominee is professionally qualified, exhibits leadership skills, is ethically fit, is morally just, doesn’t carry “baggage” and has the temperament for the job.
The adage “patience is a virtue” will most likely be tested by President-elect Donald Trump, his nominees, senators and the public in 2025, as the Center for Presidential Transition notes the confirmation process lasts around five months.
As our senators determine the fate of Trump’s nominees, the credibility of the senators is as much on the line as are the candidates and Trump himself. Here’s the question: Will the senators judge each candidate based on what is best for America’s 335 million citizens (people before party) or make the confirmation process a show of obedience to the president and/or politics (party before the people)?
Peggy Noonan, revered columnist for the conservative Wall Street Journal, wrote on Dec. 19: “Republican Senators must approach the hearings with gravity because … they are life-and-death appointments.” Furthermore, the Wall Street Journal characterized Trump’s Cabinet picks as “unconventional,” “lacking expertise” and reflecting “his idiosyncratic ideological impulses”.
Two recent polls should be an alert to our senators and cause them to think twice before voting “yes” on a Trump nominee: 1) A Dec. 5-9 AP-NORC poll found only three in 10 Americans have confidence in Trump’s Cabinet picks and 2) a Fox News poll revealed 50 percent disapprove of the president-elect’s Cabinet selections (even though 93 percent of Fox News viewers identify as Republican).
The media has been paying close attention. Chuck Todd of NBC News identified Pete Hegseth (Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (for the Department of Health and Human Services) and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (for director of national intelligence) as a “ low-character crowd.”
Other high-profile nominees under scrutiny include: Jay Bhattacharya, Pam Bondi, Tom Homan, Howard Lutnick, Linda McMahon, Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, Elise Stefanik and Russell Vought.
Let’s face the facts. Nominating and confirming good Cabinet members has never been a hallmark of America’s presidents and senators. For starters, Andrew Jackson fired all of his Cabinet members except his postmaster general.
Here’s a sample of other poor picks:
- John F. Kennedy dismissed CIA Director Allen Dulles, who botched the Bay of Pigs operation.
- Lyndon Johnson removed Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara for escalating the Vietnam War.
- Attorney General Richard Kleindienst and three White House associates (H.R. Haldeman, John Erlichman and John Dean) were released from duty by Richard Nixon for their involvement in the Watergate scandal.
- Gerald Ford terminated several Nixon holdovers in what became known as the Halloween Massacre.
- Jimmy Carter requested the resignation of his entire Cabinet (very few resigned).
- Ronald Reagan dismissed Anne Gorsuch, his EPA administrator, for mismanaging $1.6 billion in the hazardous waste cleanup program.
- When Secretary of Education Lauro Cavazos proposed blocking federal aid designed for minority students attending college, George H.W. Bush quickly ended his employment.
- Bill Clinton discharged William Sessions, the FBI director and Mike Espy, the secretary of agriculture.
- George W. Bush booted Paul O’Neill, secretary of the treasury, and Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense.
- Barack Obama ousted CIA Director David Petraeus and Michael Flynn, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
- Trump also fired Flynn, who has the distinction of being terminated by two different presidents. More than 90 percent of Trump’s executive officers turned over during his first presidency.
- Joe Biden’s executive officer turnover rate stands at 71 percent.
Obviously, presidents and senators have not always made good decisions on Cabinet members. Turnover is costly and is an obvious sign of poor management and poor judgement. Period.
We can do better. Don’t sit idly by during the current confirmation process without expressing your thoughts to your senators.
After you’ve done your due diligence of examining the background of the 12 Cabinet picks identified above, call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your two senators’ offices. A staff member for each will answer your call, whereupon you can apprise them of your pick thoughts, which will be relayed to your senators.
Witnessing how your senators vote on each nominee will tell you whether their judgement matches yours. as well as if they put the people before the party or the party before the people.
Don’t fret over Trump’s Cabinet nominations; take action now before it’s too late. As noted in the Book of Common Prayer: “speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Corbin is professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.