Trump’s Cabinet, as Seen on TV

Get out your headshot and résumé: Donald Trump is deep in the throes of casting his second-term Cabinet. But rather than looking for the best and the brightest in each specific field—whether that be homeland security or education—it seems Trump and his team have cast their gaze on the brightest stars…from his television screen.

A not insignificant number of Trump’s top picks to head top agencies have extensive backgrounds in television.This probably shouldn’t come as such a surprise; Trump himself, after all, rose to national prominence after starring on The Apprentice. Vice President-elect JD Vance's childhood in Appalachia was fictionalized into a terrible movie. Elon Musk, co-head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, hosted Saturday Night Live not too long ago (again, just like Trump). Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, can be found on the periphery of Hollywood alongside his wife, Curb Your Enthusiasm actor Cheryl Hines. Another potential Trump appointee was Matt Gaetz for attorney general. Gaetz has been a frequent fixture on the nightly news over allegations that he had paid for sex, including with an underage girl. (No charges were ever brought, and Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing.) He announced on Wednesday that he was withdrawing from attorney general consideration.) Trump has now turned to former Florida attorney general and longtime ally Pam Bondi to run the Justice Department.

Even with Gaetz out of the running, Trump’s remaining Cabinet choices are baffling. His nationwide search has led him to the far corners of Fox News and reality television. Potential Trump appointees have appeared on programs including but not limited to The Real World, WWE: Raw, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Here’s a breakdown of some of the characters who might be relocating from Hollywood to Washington come 2025.

Sean Duffy: Secretary of Transportation

Sean Duffy, Trump’s nominee for transportation secretary, is arguably the potential Cabinet member with the most reality TV bona fides other than the president-elect himself. These days, you can find the former Republican congressman from Wisconsin cohosting The Bottom Line on Fox Business, but his television credentials stretch much further back than that. In 1997, Duffy was a cast member on The Real World: Boston, the sixth installment of MTV’s iconic reality television program. As a cast member, Duffy was constantly at odds with his Black female housemate, Kameelah Phillips, whom he compared to Hitler and accused of reverse racism. (For what it’s worth, Phillips is now an ob-gyn who supported Kamala Harris.)

“She wants to have that racism right now, that same mentality for the Black people against white people now in 1997,” Duffy said at the time, on camera. “That’s what Hitler thought.”

But wait, there’s more! As often happens with buzzy Real World contestants, Duffy continued his reality television journey the following year on Road Rules: All Stars, the first season of MTV’s long-running road trip series that eventually morphed into the competition series The Challenge. On Road Rules: All Stars, Duffy met Real World: San Francisco alum Rachel Campos (more on her later), whom he would eventually marry and have nine children with. Before they cranked out those kids, Duffy would return to reality television, appearing as a contestant on Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons in 2002 and winning the whole damn thing with his partner, Elka Walker.