Former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro is praising President-elect Joe Biden, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris for their cabinet picks.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are living up to their promise to appoint a cabinet that looks like America, and we know that representation does matter,” Castro said during an appearance on MSNBC on Monday.
He added:
“What also matters though is as soon as January 20, 2021, comes around, then we need in earnest to start reversing the damage of the Trump administration and to go beyond where we were a few years ago to build off of the work of the Obama administration. So there are going to be very high expectations on what they do.”
Host Lawrence O’Donnell argued Alejandro Mayorkas, the first Latino to lead the Department of Homeland Security, “will put a completely different frame” on how he does the job.
Castro called Biden’s decision to tap Mayorkas for the position a “welcomed change.”
Check out his comments below:
He noted Mayorkas has the experience, but he has also lived “an immigrant’s American dream story.”
Castro explained Mayorkas is a “political refugee who understands that we are a nation of immigrants, refugees, of asylees and wants to approach this with a kind of common sense and compassion instead of cruelty that we’ve seen from the Trump administration.”
He acknowledged there is work to be done to “reform” the Department of Homeland Security and to reverse the “bad policies” the Trump administration has implemented.
Biden announced his first slate of cabinet picks on Monday, as IJR previously reported.
The General Services Administration also revealed on Monday it would officially acknowledge Biden’s transition and allow his team to access government resources allocated to facilitate the transition process.
