“Accordingly, all intended nominees should refrain from any public social media posts without prior approval of the incoming White House counsel.”
Incoming White House chief-of-staff Susie Wiles has reached out to the nominees selected by President-elect Donald Trump for Cabinet positions to refrain from posting on social media as the confirmation hearings get started in the Senate after the winter recess. Wiles suggested in a memo obtained by The New York Post that Cabinet nominees not post without getting approval from the incoming White House counsel.
"While this instruction has been delivered previously, I am reiterating that no member of the incoming administration or Transition speaks for the United States or the President-elect himself," said Wiles in the memo. "Accordingly, all intended nominees should refrain from any public social media posts without prior approval of the incoming White House counsel."
The edict comes after a social media war of words between X owner Elon Musk and various MAGA proponents who differed with Musk’s promotion of H-1B visas for highly educated foreign nationals.
A Trump transition team source told The New York Post that Wiles' memo was not a consequence of the ideological infighting that dominated independent media over the weekend. But as the Post points out, Trump's nominees, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kristi Noem, and so many others have refrained from comment over the Christmas season.
Incoming White House counsel is David Warrington, who Trump announced for that role last month. In addition to the flurry of often raucous and sometimes ribald debate over who is sufficiently America First, Senate confirmation hearings for the cabinet nominees are also starting in January and that might be another reason for Trump to demand some silence from his team.
Trump appeared to side with Musk over the immigrant visas despite having been critical of the program in the past, while stalwart MAGA acolytes argued that “America First means the American people first.”
The Senate confirmation hearings will demand almost total solidarity from Republicans in the upper chamber as the GOP majority is slim. Some of Trump’s picks have not been warmly embraced by some liberal Republican senators. Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, has been in the cross-hairs of some Democrats because of comments he has made in the past about pursuing Trump’s political enemies. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has said after speaking with Patel he doesn’t believe the nominee has any intention of doing so.
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