Trump seemed positively giddy that all of these important people were suddenly willing to work for him. And although his populist supporters lamented the presence of so many swamp creatures in his administration, establishment Washington expressed pleasant surprise at the picks.
A consensus had formed that what the incoming administration needed most was "adults in the room." To save the country from ruin, the thinking went, reasonable Republicans had a patriotic duty to work for Trump if asked. Many of them did.
Don't expect it to happen again. The available supply of serious, qualified people willing to serve in a Trump administration has dwindled since 2017. After all, the so-called adults didn't fare so well in their respective rooms. Some quit in frustration or disgrace; others were publicly fired by the president. Several have spent their post-White House lives fielding congressional subpoenas and getting indicted. And after seeing one Trump term up close, vanishingly few of them are interested in a sequel: This past summer, NBC News reported that just four of Trump's 44 Cabinet secretaries had endorsed his current bid.
Even if mainstream Republicans did want to work for him again, Trump is unlikely to want them. He's made little secret of the fact that he felt burned by many in his first Cabinet. This time around, according to people in Trump's orbit, he would prioritize obedience over credentials.
"I think there's going to be a very concerted, calculated effort to ensure that the people he puts in his next administration they don't have to share his worldview exactly, but they have to implement it," Hogan Gidley, a former Trump White House spokesperson, told me.
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