A substantive way to do that would be for him to announce his prospective cabinet now. Administrations function in large part by the department secretaries the president appoints, and they have tremendous power to shape the character and agenda of a presidency. Potential Trump appointments should include former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley as secretary of state and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp as secretary of commerce. Never-Trump Republicans and even Democrats should also be invited onboard. By showing the American people that he will surround himself with and defer power to serious and strong leaders, even those that were once his rivals, Trump will evince that his White House would promote healthy presidential pushback and that his second term will be more sober and focused than the first.
He should also pledge not to have any Trump family members or goofball buddies on the White House staff. No one wants his ill-equipped sons Don Jr. or Eric in the West Wing or unqualified Trump cronies like the MyPillow guy in important federal posts. His second administration should be laser focused on staffing solely for competence and loyalty to the country and the Constitution, not for nepotism or fealty to Trump himself.
And if Harris can perform a total political rebrand, as Walz certainly has multiple times, why can’t Trump?
He can start by ditching the name calling. Not only is it unseemly, but it’s tired. That playbook may have worked eight years ago, but it doesn’t now. He also needs to knock off his reckless election denialism and Jan. 6 demagoguery. Enough is enough with that garbage, and Trump should disavow it.
Trump instead would be wise to lock into a substantive conversation with the American people on policy. Now that’s a winner of a topic for him. Voters want a smaller and more efficient federal government and a return to fiscal responsibility — and the economic benefits that come with those things. They know weak foreign policy has made the world more dangerous and that Democrats’ feckless approach to crime has left American cities less safe.
Trump should pen a commentary for each of the major ten U.S. newspapers, which would include this one, detailing his position on each of the top issues facing voters this election: inflation, illegal border crossings, health care, jobs and the economy, abortion, the environment and climate change, crime, foreign policy, taxes and government spending, and federal entitlements. That kind of detailed transparency would show courage and intellectual heft — and draw quite a contrast to the vacuous Harris-Walz campaign, which cannot even cobble together enough substance to post policy statements on their website.
