Donald Trump isn't exactly known for appointing orthodox cabinet members. He chose a climate change skeptic to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and tapped a pro wrestling magnate to head the Small Business Administration. As such, it's worth taking Trump's claim that he’d consider appointing JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon as Treasury Secretary with a grain of salt. In fact, Trump himself now says he's not quite sure who made that claim.
In looking at who Trump is likely to pick for the Treasury post, his track record suggests the best clues will come from following the money. Consider that Trump's Treasury Secretary the first time around was Steven Mnuchin, the man who helped him raise more than $100 million. Or that the wrestling executive he appointed to the SBA was one of his largest donors.
While Trump's former U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer and Trump’s SEC chairman Jay Clayton, are being floated as possible picks for Treasury, they may lack the profile—or the personal fortunes—to make the cut for one of the most high profile posts in government, whose duties include being the chief financial officer of the government and U.S. Governor of the International Monetary Fund.
According to Aaron Klein, a senior fellow at the non-profit Brookings Institute’s center on regulation and markets, the best way to predict who Trump might choose is to look to what he did last time around. “Rather than look at who Trump says he might appoint, look at who Trump picked as Treasury Secretary," he wrote in an email this week. "Mnuchin was Trump's top fundraiser, a partner at Goldman Sachs with little Washington experience. Now look at Trump's top donors and start from there.”
Like Trump, who followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming a real estate magnate, Mnuchin followed his own father in achieving huge wealth and influence at Goldman Sachs. In May of 2016, Mnuchin was selected to be Trump’s national finance director, eventually helping raise more than $169 million, not counting the candidate's own contributions, earning him the moniker, Trump’s top fundraiser.
The former CIO of Goldman Sachs, Mnuchin was appointed Trump’s Treasury Secretary in February 2017, continuing a recent tradition of Goldman execs in the position, including former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, Robert Rubin, who Bill Clinton nominated in 1995 and former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson, who George W. Bush nominated in 2006.
This time around, Trump’s national finance director is Meredith O'Rourke, identified in her LinkedIn profile as a Republican political fundraiser, based on Tallahassee, Florida. In November 2022, the same month Trump authorized the registration of Donald J. Trump For President 2024, Inc, with the Federal Election Commission, O’Rourke was appointed the organization’s National Finance Director and Senior Advisor, according to her LinkedIn profile.
A Financial Times report this weekend puts Trump's total amount raised at $757 million, though it's unclear how much of that O'Rourke may have raised. Last month, she set up a "Trump authorized" GoFundMe page for the victims of the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump, which has raised $6.5 million of a $1 million goal. Trump's likely opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris, says it raised $81 million in 24 hours, and has since surpassed $100 million. Fortune reached out to O’Rourke, and RedCurve.com, which filed the FEC papers, and has yet to receive comment.
Beyond Trump's top campaign staff, it's also worth considering whether he'd tap top donors for Treasury or another Cabinet position. According to filings hosted by OpenSecrets, those donors include the wrestling exec, Linda McMahon, who gave Trump $5 million in this election cycle alone, and who has expressed interest in "serving" again. Other notable donors include Timothy Mellon, heir to the Mellon banking fortune, who donated $75 million to Donald Trump this election cycle. Then there is the $1 million Trump received from Howard Lutnick's Cantor Fitzgerald, and $5 million from the former chairman of Marvel Entertainment, Isaac Perlmutter and his wife Laura Perlmutter.
Of course, not everyone who made Trump money is a fundraiser or donor. Earlier this week the New York Post published a report that asset management giant Blackrock had “handled Trump’s investment portfolio for years.” When Trump invited Blackrock CEO Larry Fink and others to the White House in 2017 he reportedly called out to Fink: “Larry did a great job for me. He managed a lot of my money. I have to tell you, he got me great returns.”
So why did Trump call out Dimon? According to Klein, doing so served to highlight Dimon’s recent frustrations with the Democratic Party.
“Jamie Dimon is a brilliant man whom I cannot fathom would ever be willing to pledge fealty to Trump,” Klein wrote Fortune. “Trump knows this and has zero intention of appointing Dimon but knows that by from floating Dimon's name Trump seems more reasonable than radical.” JPMorgan declined to comment for this report.
