Trump's Cabinet: Tess and Caroline

Betsy Devos:

Betsy DeVos is Trump’s pick for education secretary. She has no experience dealing with public schools,  and has never attended one or sent her kids to one. According to the Washington Post, she also has no experience “as an educator or education leader”. She supports charter schools, school voucher programs, and has experience lobbying for them. DeVos also advocates for online learning, home schooling,etc, basically anything but government funded schools. The voucher she advocated for would take money from public schools and provide taxpayer money to fund private schools. DeVos is a billionaire with a long history of money scandals that has no experience in government. She “stands at the intersection of two family fortunes that helped to build the Christian right”(New York Times). Devos is very religious and has participated on many Christian councils pertaining to politics. Her policies and ideas are dangerous to public education. She is only in the interest of making money, and has zero experience with public schools. Her extreme Christian values might contribute to major changes in American public education as well. She is not the right choice for this job, and her position may lead to major consequences.

Mike Pompeo:

Congressman Mike Pompeo had been the US Representative for Kansas since 2011. President Elect Donald Trump has appointed Pompeo as the CIA director. Although he has experience in government he does not have experience working with the CIA at any level.  He has very conservative views similar to Trumps. As said in the New York Time article about Trumps cabinet, “he is building an administration that looks a whole lot like himself.” Pompeo has made controversial statements including writing a 48 page addendum discussing how he believe Hillary Clinton is to blame for the incident in benghazi. He also believes Edward Snowden is a traitor to the US and deserves the death penalty for sharing the information that he did. Pompeo will be stepping up as CIA director and taking on challenges such as investigating Russian cyber-hacks and activity related to Isis. These broad conservative one sided claims do not help solve problems and need to stop when dealing with issues that affect our country's safety. Because he has no experience in the CIA he can only do so much to help the progress of the program. No policies have been shared about actions he is planning on taking once he is CIA director. We can only hope that even with a lack of experience that he will be successful in his job as CIA director.

Nikki Haley: Nikki Haley, South Carolina Governor, is Trump’s choice to be the UN Ambassador. She is “the daughter of immigrants, supports free markets and trade, and earned international attention for speaking out against the Confederate flag battle”(New York Times). She hasn’t always agreed with Trump’s politicians, and brings diversity to his cabinet. Haley has experience dealing with international issues concerning Syrian refugees and conflicts in Israel. She is pro-life and anti-abortion. Some are worried that her experience is “limited to South Carolina”, but she has more political experience than most of Trump’s nominees. She is probably the least contested of his choosings because she can appeal to a wide range of people and has a good rack record in SC. Her future policies as US Ambassador as not known because she lacks experience in federal government and concerning issues overseas. Overall, the majority consensus is that she is a good politician with lots of potential but not a whole lot of experience abroad.