Trump’s ‘Enemies List’ Sparks Debate Over Loyalty and Key Appointments in Incoming Administration
Trump during a fund-raiser at Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Palm Beach, Fla., last year. (Credit: Doug Mills/The New York Times)
President-elect Donald Trump’s latest “enemies list” raised eyebrows not only for its existence but for the names it omitted, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday. The discussion followed Trump’s social media post naming 11 individuals he reportedly deems disloyal or problematic, despite his administration’s earlier denials of maintaining such a list.
“Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, told senators on Wednesday that there will be no enemies list,” Tapper noted. “But then Trump posted on social media just a few hours later, naming 11 people who I guess he feels have wronged him, that if you worked for them, you can’t work in his administration—including a number of people who worked for him in the last administration, like Mark Milley, James Mattis, and Mark Esper.”
Tapper continued, “Does that undermine the ‘no enemies list’? That looks like something of an enemies list.” Haberman acknowledged the apparent contradiction but added nuance. “I think there’s a difference between ‘we’re not going to hire certain people’ and ‘we’re going to prosecute certain people,’” she said.
“And I think that is the distinction there. I also would argue that Trump missed a few people who we know were on that list of his personally. It becomes unrealistic at a certain point to say, ‘I am not going to hire anybody who ever might have had an interaction with certain people or said certain things,’ but the Trump team has made loyalty, in their terms, a pretty top-of-mind focus as they are doing these hires.”
Tapper pressed further, asking who Trump might have overlooked. Haberman cited former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as a notable omission. “I don’t think he considers him an enemy,” she clarified, “but he’s generally not been embracing of him and made a point of saying that he was not rejoining the administration.”
Trump’s social media posts and ongoing focus on loyalty have drawn criticism, fueling concerns about the criteria being used for key appointments in his administration. While Bondi’s reassurances might suggest a formal enemies list doesn’t exist, Trump’s actions and statements indicate otherwise. With loyalty clearly a top priority, questions remain about how this approach will shape his incoming administration.
