Trump’s transition team will require ‘loyalty’ if people want to work in possible White House return

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

The co-chair of the Trump campaign’s transition team has said that aspirants wishing to join a potential second administration will be vetted for loyalty to the former president as well as his policies.

The head of the investment firm Cantor Fitzerald and Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick told the Financial Times in an interview that the goal is to avoid the high rate of turnover seen in Trump’s first term.

Lutnick told the paper that the loyalty pledge would help Trump put his agenda in place at a “speed no one’s ever done before.”

Speaking about some appointees and advisers who grew adversarial during Trump’s first term, Lutnick said: “Those people were not pure to his vision.” “They’re all going to be on the same side,” Lutnick said of a potential second term. “And they’re all going to understand the policies, and we’re going to give people the role based on their capacity — and their fidelity and loyalty to the policy, as well as to the man.”

Lutnick is leading the transition team alongside Linda McMahon, who previously headed the Small Business Administration. Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, Donald Trump Jr, former Democratic and Independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, and former Hawaii Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard all have honorary positions on the transition team.

Lutnick also attempted to put some distance between Trump and Project 2025, a plan put forward by the Heritage Foundation arguing for a sharp right turn of the federal government when the next Republican president enters office.

The investment firm head, who joined the transition team in August, called the rightwing agenda “radioactive” even as those who wrote the plan back Trump and Vance.

“Project 2025 is an absolute zero for the Trump-Vance transition,” Lutnick told the Financial Times.

Vance wrote the foreword to Dawn’s Early Light, a book by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.

Democrats frequently reference the plan as they argue that a possible second Trump administration would be much more rightwing than many voters may think. Democrats argue that Project 2025 is an agenda that will boost presidential power and remove individual freedoms by pushing states to report on miscarriages and abortions, make cuts to Medicare and Social Security, and get rid of the Department of Education.

Lutnick told the Financial Times that his role in choosing possible appointees in a second Trump term was akin to a painter making a “mosaic” and that any prospective appointees would need to be ready for a “fast and furious” term in office if Trump wins.

The co-chair revealed that he has donated more than $10m to the campaign and $500,000 to the transition, on top of the $75 million he has raised. In 2008, Lutnick took part in the Celebrity Apprentice, hosted by Trump, and he has previously given money to Democrats, The Guardian noted.

Lutnick’s brother died in the 9/11 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center. Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 employees in the attacks.

The co-chair noted that finding new staff was similar to what he now does on the Trump transition.

“You go to world-class people that you rate highly, and you ask them to help you,” he told the Financial Times.