More white men called Doug have been nominated for Cabinet positions in President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration than African Americans.
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and former Georgia Congressman Doug Collins will both head to the Senate in 2025 for the appointments process, where Congress will decide whether or not they are fit for the roles Trump selected them for. Conversely, no African Americans have been nominated for any Cabinet positions yet.
Burgum has been tapped as secretary of the interior, while Collins was nominated to be secretary of veterans affairs. The two Dougs join the likes of Florida Senator Marco Rubio, former Representative Matt Gaetz, and Fox News host Pete Hegseth on the list of appointments that need to be approved by the Senate in January.
Trump’s Cabinet is on track to be the least diverse this century.
Doug Burgum and Doug Collins. The two Dougs, both nominated for cabinet positions, outnumber the Black American cabinet nominees.
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Trump’s announced nominees are currently 81 percent white. Of the 11 cabinet nominees already chosen, nine are white, as is Vice President-elect JD Vance. This reflects the diversity of his first Cabinet in 2017, which was 82 percent white.
Newsweek contacted the Trump transition team for comment via email.
Former White House attorney May Mailman, who served during Trump’s first administration, today defended the lack of diversity, saying: “We are less interested in what somebody looks like or what their sex is, and we are far more interested in whether they’re going to execute the president’s agenda and whether they are going to unleash American businesses, whether they’re going to weaponize the Department of Justice against people who don’t agree with them politically and against businesses that don’t agree with them politically.”
“If we are going to celebrate things on the basis of diversity, then you can’t gain the respect that you want and you deserve,” Mailman added. “If the president put someone somewhere it is because he trusts them, because he thinks that they are going to do a great job and that is empowering.”
Rubio, Trump’s pick of secretary of state, would become the first Latino to serve in that role. And former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, was the first Samoan-American to be elected to Congress.
By comparison, President Joe Biden entered office with two African Americans in his Cabinet; Lloyd Austin as secretary of defense, and Marcia Fudge as secretary of housing and urban development.
Biden also appointed Deb Haarland as the first Native American to serve as secretary of the interior.
Elsewhere in his second administration, Trump has selected Susie Wiles as the first female White House chief of staff, and longtime communications chief Steven Cheung, an Asian American, as his Director of Communications.
In addition to the vice president, who is elected, Cabinet consists of 15 department heads and 10 Cabinet-level officials. Only the White House chief of staff and national security adviser don’t require Senate confirmation.
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