President-elect Donald Trump likes to promote himself as being separated from party ideology and is open-minded to receiving input from former Vice President Al Gore as he is from former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
However, he now is nearly finished with his Cabinet choices and has picked one of the most conservative teams for domestic policy in history. That sets him up for difficult decision and possible conflict with some supporters when he starts his term in January.
Internal conflicts have appeared with close to every selection he has made.
He said he would save both Social Security and Medicare then picked Tom Price who has been an advocate for making sweeping revisions in Medicaid and Medicare, to be the head of Health and Human Services.
Trump has put working people’s burdens at the top of his to do list, yet his choice for Secretary of Labor Andrew Puzder is an executive who spoke about how modern technology can replace human workers.
The picks by Trump for his Cabinet have included Washington outsiders, billionaires and some former rivals.
Even as aides of Trump put out the word that his daughter Ivanka would be an important voice in the administration that favors curbing global warming, the president-elect named his head of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt who has on repeated occasions expressed his skepticism for the scientific consensus about climate change.
On Monday, Trump announced a news conference would be delayed until January that he promised would be held sooner addressing his conflicts of interest with his businesses.
He defied ideologues of the party and won the goodwill of many by dramatically persuading the Carrier Corp to maintain some of the manufacturing of the company in Indiana to save jobs rather than have them sent to Mexico.
Despite being criticized over the singling out of one company with tax incentives as well as implicit threats to it contracting business with the government, Trump used that publicity from the deal to help promote a message to U.S. workers, those in particular in manufacturing, were at the top of his list.
One analyst who has studied politics for decades said that many of Trump’s supporters are invested more in giving the system a shake up from top to bottom than they are in any particular form of policy agenda.
