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--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Leinbaugh. It's Friday, November 8th.
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--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: Yesterday, President-elect Donald Trump took the first step to putting together his new administration. Trump announcing tonight that his White House chief of staff will be Susie Wiles. She becomes the first female chief of staff in U.S. history.
--:-- Guest 1 (Andrew Restuccia): The White House chief of staff is often the first position a new president will fill. And there will be many more before Inauguration Day. What does this task of appointing a whole new administration look like? What does it entail? It is a just gargantuan feat. You have the entirety of our government nearly changing over.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: That's our colleague Andrew Restuccia. On top of that, you have every government agency's leadership is going to change over in, you know, over a 24-hour period.
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--:-- Guest 1 (Andrew Restuccia): You have 4,000 political appointee positions. More than 1,000 of those need to be confirmed by the Senate.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: So, how has Trump talked about forming a new administration? So he has said that there are things that he wants to do differently. The main thing comes down to hiring. And he's more convinced than ever now, now that he's won a second term, that his worldview is the right one. And so they want to avoid hiring people that come from a different worldview.
--:-- Guest 1 (Andrew Restuccia): Loyalty will be sort of the core thing that they're looking for in all staff, across from low-level people to the highest levels of government.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.
--:-- Guest 2 (Howard Lutnick): Donald is a dealmaker. You know, the president's a dealmaker. He wants to make a deal with each other.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: And notably, Lutnick has been a pretty vocal defender of Trump on cable news, which we know that the president spends a lot of time watching.
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--:-- Guest 2 (Howard Lutnick): He cares about business in America. I know he cares about business in America. He cares about regulation.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: And about a year ago, Trump called Lutnick and said, hey, I'd love to get your help getting reelected. And he became a little bit more involved in his campaign.
--:-- Guest 1 (Andrew Restuccia): Lutnick is a lifelong New Yorker. And there was one experience decades ago that shaped him. His firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, had offices in the World Trade Center. When the plane struck on 9-11, all of his 658 employees who were in the office that day were killed, including his brother.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: And so that process of hiring thousands of people over years to rebuild his company was one of the selling points for putting him in charge of personnel on the transition.
--:-- Guest 2 (Howard Lutnick): And let's go select the greatest government we've ever had, have smart people do it, really get great people to commit to serving the government, which I have every day, everywhere I go.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: As you look at these short lists for all these different jobs, what do you see? What, like, is a unifying characteristic of the candidates on these lists?
--:-- Guest 1 (Andrew Restuccia): I would say the unifying characteristic is that they are loyal to President Trump. They have publicly and privately shown fealty to him repeatedly.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: Yesterday, Trump picked his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Who is she?
--:-- Guest 1 (Andrew Restuccia): Yeah, she is the sort of person that has been credited, at least in part, with getting Trump back into the White House. She was the co-manager of Trump's presidential campaign this time around.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: What do you see as the significance that Xi is his pick?
--:-- Guest 1 (Andrew Restuccia): I think it says that Trump is interested in, at least in this moment, is interested in trying to have a calming and steadying force in his orbit.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: Okay, so let's talk about an important post in terms of the economy and money, the Treasury Secretary. Who's on that list?
--:-- Guest 1 (Andrew Restuccia): Yeah, so there are two sort of finance veterans at the top of the list. The first is a guy named Scott Besant. He is a longtime investor, and he has grown quite close to President Trump over the last year and a half.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: And there are still many more important roles that will be vital to Trump's policy agenda. like Homeland Security for his immigration plans and Secretary of State for global affairs.
--:-- Guest 1 (Andrew Restuccia): And during his campaign, Trump leaned on some influential people who will likely get roles in his administration. Elon Musk, Trump has said that he's going to be, you know, overseeing the sort of government efficiency commission, which is going to try to cut at least $2 trillion in federal spending, which is a huge number, and experts say that might be difficult to actually achieve.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: On Wednesday, Trump was on a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Elon Musk made an appearance.
--:-- Guest 1 (Andrew Restuccia): Given that Trump has done this transition before, do you think that will make this one smoother?
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: Trump himself has said, and the senior advisors have said, that he now knows how to do this job. It's no secret that in 2016, when he won the election, a lot of people in Trump world were surprised. They might not like to admit that, but they were.
--:-- Guest 1 (Andrew Restuccia): We know that from our reporting. This time they are. Not only the Trump team, but lots of outside groups have been preparing for this for years. They have assembled lists of people that they want to work in the government. They've assembled detailed policy proposals.
--:-- Host: Kate Leinbaugh: That's all for today, Friday, November 8th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal.
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