OPINION
If all goes well, President Trump will win a second term in November and return to the White House with a mandate to Make America Great (MAGA), again.
That will put him in position to not only drain the swamp, but also rein in the powerful Big Tech companies that have repeatedly censored, exploited, and harmed the American people.
But in what could be the final months of the Biden administration, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appears to have other plans.
Sen. McConnell is doing his best to install more swamp creatures within the deep state before Trump makes his triumphant return.
The Kentucky senator is laying the groundwork to derail Trump’s agenda before he even takes office by selecting Big Tech-friendly nominees for various federal agencies that require bipartisan membership, such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
If confirmed, these picks are likely to go out of their way to subvert Trump’s efforts to curtail Big Tech’s power.
Although these candidates are technically nominated by President Joe Biden, federal law says these seats must be filled by Republicans. Longstanding swamp practice dictates that McConnell is the Republican who gets to choose.
A dozen of his nominees are currently waiting for action, like Melissa Holyoak and Andrew Ferguson for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and J. Todd Inman for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Based on their records and resumes, it’s not clear that many of these nominees will be supporters of President Trump’s policy priorities.
Holyoak, in particular, appears to be unaligned. "[Holyoak’s] background is very problematic for anyone who believes in Big Tech accountability," one insider on Capitol Hill told the New York Post.
She spent five formative years as an attorney at the Big Tech-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which referred to President Trump’s 2019 Big Tech antitrust review as “persecution” and has called for abolishing all antitrust regulation.
This galaxy-brained thinking is completely out of step with the American people. Polling has repeatedly shown that voters — and Republican voters in particular — support curbing the immense influence of Big Tech.
According to one poll commissioned by my employer, American Principles Project, 58 percent of voters think Congress should pass antitrust legislation to "rein in the power of the largest tech companies."
Big Tech-funded groups have found even stronger support. And a more recent poll shows that 86% of Republican voters want to see new Republican FTC commissioners with strong records of opposing Big Tech monopolies.
Because of Holyoak’s extreme views on Big Tech appeasement, a number of conservatives have publicly opposed her nomination.
In a letter to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee, three right-leaning organizations alleged that Holyoak has "spent her career to date trying to kneecap these kinds of basic steps on the part of government to ensure a free market that’s fair to everyone" and argued that her "ties to global Big Tech corporations make her wholly unsuitable for the position."
But the wisdom of the Holyoak nomination isn’t really the point.
The more important question is: why should Mitch McConnell, of all people, be the one making any of these picks?
McConnell doesn’t speak for the Republican Party.
He barely speaks for a majority of Republican senators. And he is absolutely loathed by Republican voters — a full 58% of Republicans disapprove of the way McConnell is handling his job, while only 26% approve. He has practically the same approval rating among the Republican base as he does among Democrats.
If anyone is choosing these people, it ought to be President Trump. Trump is the only person with a plausible claim to leadership in the Republican Party right now.
He won the GOP primary and is the de facto nominee.
If he wins in November (which looks increasingly possible) the Republicans appointed to fill these agency vacancies will be working in his executive branch.
The last Trump administration was plagued by a million obstacles — ideologically opposed leadership in Congress, inexperienced appointees, faithless staffers, the administrative state, and so on.
Already, much time and effort has been spent in trying to locate and interview potential hires for the next Trump presidency who would actually agree with his policies and have success implementing them.
Against this backdrop, it makes absolutely no sense to put McConnell in charge of staffing the executive branch.
To make matters worse, it’s common knowledge on the Hill that McConnell has sought a deal with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to trade confirmation of these nominees for the confirmation of Democratic nominees also pending before the Senate.
The last thing Senate Republicans should do is sabotage President Trump’s second term agenda and then pretend it’s a good enough deal to give Schumer the ability to confirm more Biden officials.
Let’s just be honest: Mitch McConnell has run roughshod over the Republican Party and the conservative movement for a long time.
This is just what he does — and he’s effective at it. But Republican senators have the opportunity to finally put a stop to it.
Instead of relinquishing control over these appointments to the swamp, let’s hold the line until after the election and let President Trump decide who he thinks will best advance the MAGA agenda.
Jon Schweppe is the policy director at American Principles Project. Follow him on X @JonSchweppe.
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