The billionaire investor who co-chairs Donald Trump’s transition team said people who lead the administration during a second term will have to demonstrate loyalty “to the man” as well as his policies.
Trump transition official Howard Lutnick’s comment on comments to the Financial TimesThey are just the latest demonstration of how Trump will try to staff an administration of purists, after becoming angry that some of his former closest advisers turned out to be ‘RINOS’ or unintelligent.
Lutnick, who runs the New York investment firm Cantor Fiztgerald, ruled out that some of Trump’s first terms did not sufficiently comply with the program.
“Those people were not pure to his vision,” he said. “Everyone is going to be on the same side.”
“And everyone will understand the policies, and we will give people the role based on their ability, and their fidelity and loyalty to the policy, as well as to the man,” he said.
Trump has long valued loyalty and for years has vented against those he believes have failed to demonstrate it, while keeping by his side even advisers who have suffered personal and professional setbacks.
People who get jobs in a second Trump term will get the job in part by demonstrating “their fidelity and loyalty to the policy as well as the man,” said billionaire Trump transition co-chairman Howard Lutnick.
Trump is seeking re-election even though a surprising number of former top aides now oppose him.
Among them is former Vice President Mike Pence, who had been the public face of Loyalty for four years, but appears in Jack Smith’s latest appearance privately urging Trump to “recognize that the process is over” despite the Trump’s continued claims of massive voter fraud. Trump would say before the Capitol riot that Pence lacked “courage” and in August called him “delusional.”
Former White House chief of staff John Kelly said last year that Trump “has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution and the rule of law,” in surprising on-the-record comments to CNN last year. Trump would call him “a criminal with a very small brain and a very big mouth.”
Lutnick also repudiated Project 2025, the document produced by a group of former Trump administration figures that the Trump campaign has repeatedly said does not represent Trump or his campaign.
“The 2025 project is an absolute zero for the Trump-Vance transition,” Lutnick said.
In addition to Lutnick, who raised $15 million For Trump at a fundraiser in the Hamptons, Trump’s transition is co-chaired by wrestling executive Linda McMahon, who led the Small Business Administration during the Trump Administration.
He resigned from his position in 2019 to run a pro-Trump PAC. Some other Trump Cabinet secretaries, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, resigned on January 6.
Trump removed his 2016 transition chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has become a vocal critic of Trump.
In case Trump wants an additional display of loyalty, his two adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, serve as honorary co-chairs and have been is expected to be evaluated for loyalty and ideology.
Trump spoke to host Hugh Hewitt about “loyalty” shortly before the Democratic convention, when his former press secretary Stephanie Grisham is among those who denounced him.
“I spent four years. I know people better than anyone in the history of Washington,” he said. ‘I know the good, the bad, the stupid, the smart. I know the weak, I know the loyal.
‘Loyal is interesting, because loyal is never really known until certain moments, until certain events happen. Loyalty is very interesting,’ he reflected. ‘That’s something you never really know, but you learn about. And, frankly, that’s a little hit and miss. A little unpredictable.