Lobbyists Get the Boot as Trump Team Reshuffles
President-elect Donald Trump is huddling with his transition team, working to fill key positions in his cabinet.
"Very organized process taking place as I decide on cabinet and many other positions," Trump posted on Twitter.
One of the first moves by the leader of the transition team, Vice President-elect Mike Pence, was to purge any lobbyists from official roles, making good on a campaign promise.
Meanwhile, the Trump team is reshuffling. Gone is adviser and former Congressman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., although he simply said his work was done. He's been replaced by former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney.
Also, former presidential candidate Ben Carson turned down a cabinet job, saying he preferred to work from outside the government. But he will probably still be an unofficial adviser to the new president.
And there are reports Trump is considering Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for attorney general. The two met Tuesday.
One appointment being picked apart by the media and Democrats is campaign strategist Steve Bannon, former head of the conservative news outlet Breitbart.com. He's been accused by the Left of catering to white nationalists.
"People didn't vote for Trump so that he could bring a white supremacist into the White House," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., complained.
Brietbart.com not only disagrees with that label, The Hill website reports it plans to sue an unnamed media organization over it.
"Breitbart News cannot allow such vicious racial lies to go unchallenged, especially by cynical, politically-motivated competitors seeking to diminish its 42 million monthly readers and its number one in the world political Facebook page," the news outlet said in a statement. "Breitbart News rejects racism in all its varied and ugly forms. Always has, always will."
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, many Republican lawmakers who spent the past year avoiding Trump are now rushing to jump on the "Trump Train."
The news comes as House Republicans re-elected their entire leadership team, including Speaker Paul Ryan, who announced, "Welcome to the dawn of a new, unified Republican government."
The Democrats, whose political power in Washington is now greatly reduced, are surveying the wreckage from the recent election and trying to chart a new course. They postponed their leadership election and could oust California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi as minority leader.
But congressional Republicans, with a lot of wind in their sails and an ambitious agenda, are getting ready to hit the ground running when Trump assumes office, taking on Obamacare and promising, among many other things, the most ambitious overhaul of the tax code in three decades.
