It’s election day! So let’s look at possible cabinets

Whether it’s Kamala Harris or Donald Trump in the White House next, they’ll bring an entire entourage of cabinet members, loyal staffers, and other assorted hangers-on.

So, who are these people running Washington next and, by extension, shaping the world? Let’s take a look at the names being floated for the top international jobs.

For Trump’s secretary of state, the names doing the rounds include:

• Richard Grenell: the loyalist wore many hats during Trump 1.0, including as ambassador to Germany and presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations, before ending up in Washington as the acting Director of National Intelligence. When Intrigue asked him what a Trump 2.0 foreign policy would look like, he said it’d be very much like Trump 1.0, just sharper. Meanwhile, a senior German banking official reiterated to us that Grenell’s more assertive, America-first vibes won him few friends in Berlin.
• Mike Pompeo: one of Trump’s longest-serving cabinet members, Pompeo got high marks from the Oval Office for his tenure as secretary of state, even if some of his guideline-breaching tasks irritated the occasional employee. But there’s speculation Pompeo, a former cavalry officer who graduated top of his class at West Point, might be seeking to land at the Pentagon as defence secretary instead.
• Other names getting thrown around include Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, Tennessee senator andformer US ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty, plus Trump’s former national security advisor Robert O’Brien.

And speaking of national security advisors, Trump 1.0 actually featured four of them: Michael Flynn, John Bolton, H. R. McMaster,and Robert O’Brien. While McMaster and Bolton have since become Trump critics, O’Brien has been busy writing job applications op-eds backing Trump’s ‘peace through strength’ strategy. And Trump has previously vowed to bring back Flynn, after pardoning him for lying to the FBI. China hawk and former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby is also likely to re-emerge somewhere.

Now onto a potential Harris team, starting with secretary of state:

• Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the current US ambassador to the UN, was one of several career diplomats pushed out of State after Trump took office in 2017. She’s well-known in diplomatic circles but has catapulted to broader viral attention over the past year, as the US official raising her hand to veto Gaza ceasefire resolutions at the UN.
• Delaware senator Chris Coons, who famously looks a lot like German leader Olaf Scholz, has said he’d “seriously” consider the role if offered. And Connecticut senator Chris Murphy seems to have thrown his hat in the ring too, penning his own job application op-ed in the FT calling for a US foreign policy that promotes “common good over shameless profit seeking”.
• There’s also ex-ambassador to Turkey Jeff Flake, a former Arizona senator and Republican who endorsed Harris in September, even campaigning for her at a “country over party” event in his home battleground state. He was well-regarded in Ankara, with one diplomat telling us that Flake knew when to be a politician and when to be a diplomat, and it helped him “get sh*t done.”

But… a Republican in a Democrat’s cabinet, you ask?

This kind of thing is actually a hallowed tradition in American politics, not to mention a critical plot point in season seven of The West Wing. And Harris has already pledged to continue it, presumably in hopes of swaying on-the-fence voters and contributing to any post-electoral unity.

So Flake seems a solid chance, along with Republican ex-congressmen and veterans Adam Kinzinger (a Russia hawk) and Mike Gallagher (a China hawk). And in case you were wondering about Mitt Romney, he’s already ruled out joining a Harris cabinet.

As for Harris’s national security advisor? It’s widely assumed Harris will appoint her current advisor Phil Gordon. He’s a classic US foreign policy guy with expertise in European affairs plus extensive ties to the Middle East, even penning a book on failed regime change there.

INTRIGUE’S TAKE

Interestingly, multiple US ambassadorial roles still remain empty around the world (including in Colombia, Myanmar, and the Dominican Republic), drawing ire from appointees and host governments alike. This reflects the fact that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been gripped by partisan antics, grinding its once-routine operations to a halt.

Oh, and while a Harris presidency would be more of a continuation, we’ll be watching whether a Trump victory again motivates US diplomats to step down. One serving diplomat told us they would consider bailing, but the electoral whiplash since 2016 has shown them that US politics will eventually roll on, while a pay cheque is harder to replace.

Anyway, these are just two examples of how down-ballot and off-ballot choices can still shape the way the US engages with the world. Happy voting!

Also worth noting:

• The Harris team has reportedly also assembled a team to develop a new approach to Africa, led by former US attorney-general Eric Holder.