Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote a book about Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet entitled Team of Rivals.  The book examined the members of Lincoln’s Cabinet, many of whom had run against him for President.  Before being nominated in 1860, Lincoln was a relative unknown outside Illinois.

Once elected, he chose Cabinet members who all were better known, more respected, and better educated than himself.  These were men such as William Seward (Secretary of State), Salmon P. Chase (Treasury Secretary), and Edward Bates (Attorney General).

Doubtless, the prominent men who joined Lincoln’s Cabinet expected to manage country bumpkin Abraham Lincoln and run the government as they saw fit.  They were mistaken.  In the midst of a civil war, Lincoln managed his Cabinet and kept the Union intact.  Lincoln made clear who was in charge.  In one famous incident, Lincoln asked the opinions of his Cabinet members on a pressing issue.  Every Cabinet member voted “No.”  Then Lincoln voted.  The “Aye” had it.

As this is written, Donald Trump is compiling his Cabinet.  His choices have some parallels with the Lincoln Cabinet, as they include people who previously were his political rivals.  Marco Rubio (State) ran against Trump in 2016.  Doug Bergum (Interior) ran against Trump in 2024.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (HHS) was a Democrat who supported Trump only after he was purged from the Democrat Socialist Death Cult that has become their Party.

Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence) was another Democrat who was unwelcome in that Party and joined the Trump campaign.

That said, the upcoming Trump Cabinet is not so much a Team of Rivals, as a Team of Loyals.  Or maybe more accurately, the Trump Cabinet is a Team of Truthfuls.  Donald Trump learned the lessons of his first term the hard way.  I said then, and I repeat now, that the upheavals, what with hirings and firings Trump had in his first Cabinet, were inevitable.

In 2016, Trump was an outsider who embarrassed both Parties by beating them at their own game.  Democrats hated him, and Republican loyalists, the very people who would have flocked to serve in a Jeb Bush Cabinet, stayed on the sidelines to avoid the wrath of Never Trumpers.

Trump had no one to turn to for advice.  The Bushes hated him more than the Democrats.  Trump had to fill 4,000 jobs.  Without a pool of top level candidates for those jobs, he turned to people like Reince Priebus for help.  As a result, Trump made a number of personnel mistakes, chief among them Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who ushered in the phony Mueller probe that hamstrung Trump for two years.

This time it’s different.  Trump has compiled a team he knows and can trust, and more importantly, he now understands how Washington works.  This makes him all the more dangerous, so far as his enemies are concerned.  Typically, the Left is denouncing the Trump picks as unqualified “loyalists.”

In actuality, all are qualified for their positions, and the “loyalist” label frankly is ludicrous.  All presidents staff their cabinets with loyalists.  It would make little sense to choose ineffective enemies, a fact Trump well understands after Term One.  Anybody remember Mad Dog Maddis, Rex Tillerson, and John Bolton?  That’s not going to happen again.

My Team of Truthfuls description derives from the inescapable fact that, time and again, despite the incessant drumbeat of Democrats and their lap dog media, Trump’s judgments and pronouncements have proven to be right.  These nominees stood up to the abuses they took and kept telling the truth.

Trump said the CIA and FBI spied on his 2016 campaign.  The Left scoffed.  He was right.  Trump said the Steele Dossier was fake.  The Left scoffed.  He was right.  The Left lambasted Trump for his objections to Covid mandates.  It turns out he was right again.

What Trump has done is to compile a group of people which is uniquely qualified to uncover corruption, fraud and abuse in government agencies, and to tell the American public the truth about the way its government is being run.  And there is no better example of this than in HHS and its constituent agencies.

RFK, Jr. is nominated as Secretary of HHS, to pursue his Make America Healthy again agenda.  There are some concerns, most of them unfounded, about his stance on vaccine safety.  I’m all for trying to make mass produced food products more healthy, as Americans lead the world in eating ultra-processed crap, and therefore lead the world in obesity and diabetes.  I’m less comfortable with the notion of government mandates.  That said, a fresh approach would be welcome.

The picks to lead the medical agencies in HHS are a veritable Who’s Who of the physicians who were persecuted by Anthony Fauci and friends during the Wuhan Plague, and were later proven to have been right.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (National Institutes of Health) was ostracized by the medical community for his opposition to Covid mandates.  He was a signatory of the Great Barrington Declaration, which proposed shielding the most vulnerable (elderly) population, while achieving herd immunity for those at reduced risk from the virus.  He was denounced  as a “dangerous” “fringe scientist.”  In the end, he was right.

Dr. Marty Makary (FDA) is the John’s Hopkins oncologist who was denounced by “Mr. Science” Fauci and company for opposing vaccinating children an opposing school closing mandates, and for daring to prove that the Covid death rate was under 1%, instead of the 3-4 % figure being used by the Fauci group.  He told the truth regardless of the consequences.

Dr. Janette Nesheiwat (Surgeon General) is another physician who questioned the effectiveness of the Covid vaccines, and felt the wrath of the Establishment.  Dr. Dave Weldon (CDC) likewise was an outcast over vaccine effectiveness.  These nominees, it is hoped, will turn their agencies away from politics and back to science.

What the Trump nominees also have in common is their abilities to perform oversight for their respective agencies.  Oversight is supposed to be the job of the Congress, which has become compromised and too often cedes its authority to regulatory agencies.  This being the case, you need someone in those agencies to keep them honest.  The Trump picks at Justice and Defense fit that description.

AG nominee Pam Bondi can be trusted to remove the dead wood and Trump obstructionists from the top level of the Justice Department.  FBI nominee Kash Patel is uniquely qualified to reform the FBI.  Pick up his book Government Gangsters, some time.  Lots of FBI executives who participated in the Russia Gate with hunt of Trump should be updating their resumes right about now.

The best evidence that Patel is the best choice for the FBI came this week.  Swamp Creature John Bolton, who was fired by Trump, denounced him as no more than a Trump loyalist.

In his time at the Defense Department, Patel documented massive cost overruns and fraud in Defense procurement.  Trump nominee Pete Hegseth can be counted upon to uproot these abuses, and he has a mandate to end the idiotic DEI programs and return the military to its proper role – killing people and breaking things.

Assuming Trump can get his nominees through Senate confirmation, his second term shouldn’t be plagued by the problems he faced before.  The Left and the Never Trumpers are on the run, and much of the Resistance has collapsed.  Let’s hope the Team of Truthfuls get to do their jobs.