All the President’s rich, white men: how the new cabinet breaks down
Women and ethnic minorities are scarce in the new top team
In a campaign characterised by catchphrases and slogans, Mr Trump repeatedly told voters that he was going to “drain the swamp” in Washington. It was a slippery phrase, and he variously used it to attack the political elite, the media, corporate lobbyists and Wall Street, a catch-all term for the establishment who prospered while ordinary Americans had suffered. Here’s how the cabinet stacks up, in numbers, so far.
(In the interests of making a direct comparison as possible, we compared only the 20 cabinet-level positions Trump has named so far, and only compared the first set of appointments that each president
made in office.)
1. On diversity, Trump is taking us back to the 1980s
With the exception of George W Bush’s cabinet, the prominence of white men in the top jobs had been gradually falling from Mr Reagan through to Mr Obama. Mr Trump’s cabinet is the whitest and most male since 1989 – and this isn’t the only way that the President-elect will plunge women’s rights back into the 1980s.
Reagan authored the “Mexico City Policy” in 1984, a rule which states that federal funds cannot be given to any foreign NGOs that perform abortions, or provide information about abortion services, which left millions of women in developing countries without access to vital healthcare. Global abortion providers, who to lost hundreds of millions of dollars in funding when the policy was last in place, fear that Trump will reinstate the policy in his first few days in office.
2. There are more billionaires than black people in Trump’s cabinet
If we count Betsy deVos as a billionaire (The Guardian does, Bloomberg does not) there are three confirmed billionaires in Trump’s cabinet. If we don't, there are two: Wilbur Ross and Linda McMahon. Either way, there is just one black cabinet member: Ben Carson, Secretary for Urban Planning and Housing, and just two women of colour.
3. There are just three women in Trump’s cabinet so far
Previous presidents haven’t had a fantastic record – but Mr Trump has picked less women than Mr Clinton and Mr Obama, and is on a par with George W Bush – but neither Mr Clinton or Mr Obama picked more than 35 per cent women across the roles we’re comparing.
4. Trump’s cabinet, combined, are worth more than the GDP of the world’s 39 poorest countries. We’ve mapped them.
Estimates of the net wealth of Mr Trump’s cabinet have ranged from $6bn (£4.9bn) to $14bn (£11.3bn). Even if we take the most conservative estimate of its collective wealth, the cabinet is still worth more than the gross domestic product of 39 countries.
One of these countries is the Central African Republic, where 63 per cent of the population lives on less than $1.25 (£1) a day. Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s secretary to the Treasury, drove a Porsche while he was an undergrad at Yale, and followed his father to become a multi-millionaire banker at Goldman Sachs.
5. It’s the most corporate cabinet since Reagan (and probably ever)
Mr Trump fought his campaign on the strength of his business empire. He’s staying true to his promise to run the country like one of his companies, with half of his picks so far having significant business experience before being appointed.