Firehouse Partner Alex Conant told PRWeek that communicators should start building coalitions to shape the policy agenda ahead of the upcoming Trump administration
December 5, 2024
With weeks to go until President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in for a second term, communicators are focused on scenario planning and coalition building. Here’s a look at their to-do lists
Disruptors. Skeptics. Loyalists.
Those are three ways to describe President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for his cabinet and other important posts.
“These people have been chosen because Trump wants to change the way Washington operates,” says Dan Scandling, senior director in APCO’s government relations practice and comms director for Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) from 2000 to 2014 and the late Rep. Herb Bateman (R-VA) from 1990 to 2000. “Anything anyone knows about this town — or thinks they know about this town — is about to be turned upside down.”
Alex Conant, founding partner of Firehouse Strategies and communications director for the 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) — Trump’s one-time rival and now pick for secretary of state — says this cabinet will be driven by personality.