DONALD Trump will find a space in his administration for “kindred spirit” Matt Gaetz, but his relationship with Elon Musk is the “million dollar question,” a geopolitical expert has said.
As Trump’s second-term cabinet begins to take shape, an expert has revealed what we can expect that team to look like.
Last week, Gaetz, who has been accused of sleeping with a 17-year-old girl and paying her to attend sex parties, stepped down as Trump’s pick for attorney general.
The former Florida representative denies any wrongdoing but said he had become a distraction to the president-elect’s team.
But despite his replacement by Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, Randall Schmollinger, a geopolitics expert from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in New York, has said he believes Trump will find a role for Gaetz.
“Matt Gaetz has been an ardent Trump supporter from the very start,” he told The U.S. Sun.
“He’s been a standard bearer for the MAGA movement, and I think he’s unlikely to go away.”
Schmollinger added that he believes Trump will grant Gaetz “some role in that administration, whether in an official capacity, or whether he’ll just be someone the president can call upon when he needs advice.”
Gaetz’s return to politics is complicated by the fact that he resigned his seat in the House of Representatives.
But Schmollinger explained that Trump will likely call upon Gaetz’s ability to “drive people’s attention,” a characteristic he shares with the Republican.
“They are kindred spirits in that way,” he added.
A QUESTION MARK AROUND ELON MUSK
Increasing attention has been paid to Trump’s relationship with X and Tesla boss Elon Musk, who has been one of the president-elect’s top backers.
Billionaire Musk has been tasked with heading up Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (also known as DOGE – in reference to the Musk-backed cryptocurrency Dogecoin).
In a statement shortly after his election victory earlier in November, Trump said Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy would “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.”
What influence this will give Musk within the Trump administration still remains to be seen, but Schmollinger believes that relationship will be a defining part of his second term.
“That is the one-million-dollar question,” he said.
Donald Trump’s Cabinet Picks
In the days following his dominant Election Day victory, President-elect Donald Trump has begun carving out his future administation.
Here’s a list of Trump’s confirmed cabinet picks:
- Susie Wiles – White House Chief of Staff
- Dr. Mehmet Oz – Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
- Stephen Miller – Deputy Chief of Staff
- Bill McGinley – White House counsel
- Tom Homan – “Border Czar”
- Elise Stefanik – Ambassador to the United Nations
- Lee Zeldin – Environmental Protection Agency administrator
- Marco Rubio – Secretary of State
- Kristi Noem – Homeland Security Secretary
- Mike Huckabee – Ambassador to Israel
- John Ratcliffe – CIA director
- Pete Hegseth – Secretary of Defense
- Mike Waltz – National Security Advisor
- Steven Witkoff – Middle East envoy
- Elon Musk & Vivek Ramaswamy – Department of Government Efficiency
- Tim Scott – Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee
- Tulsi Gabbard – Director of National Intelligence
- Matt Gaetz – nominated for Attorney General but later refused the position
- Pam Bondi – nominated for Attorney general just hours after Gaetz’s withdrawal
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services
- Jay Clayton – US Attorney for the Southern District of New York
- Doug Burgum – Department of Interior
- Todd Blanche – Deputy Attorney General
- Karoline Leavitt – White House Press Secretary
- Chris Wright – Energy Secretary
- Doug Collins – Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs
- William McGinley – White House Counsel
- Steven Cheung – White House Communications Director
- William Owen Scharf – Assistant to the President and White House Staff Secretary
- Dean John Sauer – Solicitor General of the US
- Commissioner Brendan Carr – Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
- Linda McMahon: Education Secretary
- Matthew Whitaker – NATO ambassador
- Scott Bessent – Treasury Secretary
- Keith Kellogg – Special envoy to Russia, Ukraine
“Obviously, a lot can happen in the next four years, and they are both big personalities, but I think what we’ve seen from both of them and what they both recognize in one another, is a certain X-factor, a certain tendency to surprise and to think outside the box about what is going to happen and where they see things going.
“Musk has a very well-defined vision in his mind of where he sees American humanity going in the future, and I think Trump is very much the opposite,” he said.
“He picks a direction and goes that way without much clarity about where it is he’s going, so they actually complement each other.”
Schmollinger added that Musk could bring a “clarifying vision” to Trump’s more instinctive style of governance.
But that prediction came with a warning.
“Both Musk and Trump are going to do whatever they think is best for themselves,” he said.
“I worry that Musk getting too close to the regulatory environment does give him too much control over the business landscape.”
Still, Schmollinger pointed to Musk’s leadership in the growth of electric vehicles, as well as his takeover of Twitter, as signs that he can use his influence to shape the political agenda under Trump.
Musk told a Trump rally in October that he believes the US government budget can be slashed from its current $6.5 trillion by “at least” $2 trillion.
He has also called for some 75% of government employees to be made redundant.
However, Schmollinger added that he believes the 75% figure is potentially an exaggeration.
He said that both Musk and Trump have a tendency to make bold, over-ambitious claims as part of a “public-facing persona,” but to be more open to compromise behind the scenes.
That being said, Schmollinger added that a drastic act from Musk’s DOGE agency should not be ruled out.
“We’ve seen him do that with Twitter before where he got in there and cut 75% of the workforce and still had a functional app,” he said.
“But Musk doesn’t know what it is to have a government agency and what it is to work within Washington.
“I don’t think that he is going to cut 75% of the government overnight.”
