Trump staffing on track, transition team member says at WSU

A member of Donald Trump’s transition team said Thursday that the president-elect is not behind in staffing the White House.

Alan Cobb, who served as national coalitions director of the Trump campaign and has just been appointed to the transition staff, said it is routine for presidents to choose much of their staff after the inauguration in January.

Noting that the president-elect has to staff about 4,000 positions, he said the strategy is to fill the most important positions first and then go from there.

Cobb, who spoke at Wichita State University, offered no insight into the possibilities of Kansas officials, including Gov. Sam Browback, Rep. Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State Kris Kobach and U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, being asked to take on positions in the upcoming administration.

“Tim Huelskamp is very knowledgeable about agriculture policy, as is Gov. Brownback,” he said.

When a student questioned Cobb about whether Trump would govern as the political outsider he ran as, Cobb pointed to some of Trump’s early appointees.

Trump tapped Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus as his chief of staff. Cobb said that even though Priebus held that top political position, “he is hardly an insider.”

“Steve Bannon (Breitbart media executive and Trump’s choice for strategy director) is hardly an insider,” he said.

The perception of insiderism also was a factor in Trump switching transition team leaders, Cobb said.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie “was removed and (Vice President-elect) Mike Pence put in because of that,” he said.

Cobb, a former executive with Koch Industries and Americans for Prosperity, said he became involved in the Trump campaign through his association with Corey Lewandowski, who managed the early portion of the campaign.

Cobb said that when he joined the Trump team, he didn’t expect to win.

With 17 Republican candidates in the running at the start, political operatives who thought they would win were kidding themselves, he said.

He likened it to the NCAA basketball tournament. Even with a strong team, the likelihood is that someone else from the large field will win.

Asked about Trump’s widely publicized off-camera comments about women, Cobb drew chuckles from students when he said, “He’s always had a very high opinion of women.”

He said Trump has always shown respect to his wife, Melania, his daughters and female executives in his far-flung business enterprises and that voters took into account the “whole body of evidence” instead of the few minutes of comments publicized during the campaign.

Cobb called the issue a “straw man.”

“He wouldn’t have so many women supporters if they believed that’s the (real) Donald Trump,” he said. “He wouldn’t have so many women executives and so many women members of Congress and others that are supporting him.”

Cobb also said Trump had proposed some family leave policy items “that are very favorable toward family and women and some child care tax credits, etc., that the Republicans haven’t in the past.”

The woman who asked the question, Linda Michael, said she wasn’t satisfied with the answer she got.

“I don’t think he really addressed the question,” Michael said. “I don’t think (Trump) has a very good view of women. He’s got an ego the size of the Trump Tower, and he thinks women will do whatever he wants them to do.”

This story was originally published November 17, 2016 at 12:41 PM with the headline "Trump staffing on track, transition team member says at WSU."