Politics

Trump Unveils His White House Blacklist

ICED OUT

The president-elect took to Truth Social to share a list of people who would not be joining him in the White House this time around.

Trump's Black List
Photo Illustration by Victoria Sunday/The Daily Beast/Getty Images

Christmas may be over, but President-elect Donald Trump still has quite a few names on his naughty list.

In a Truth Social post published Wednesday night, the incoming 47th president of the United States named a handful of former White House staffers as “people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome,” and asked the public to not recommend job candidates that had previously worked with any of them.

“As of today, the incoming Trump Administration has hired over 1,000 people for The United States Government. They are outstanding in every way, and you will see the fruits of their labor over the coming years,” Trump began.

“We will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and it will happen very quickly! In order to save time, money, and effort, it would be helpful if you would not send, or recommend to us, people who worked with, or are endorsed by, Americans for No Prosperity (headed by Charles Koch), ‘Dumb as a Rock’ John Bolton, ‘Birdbrain’ Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, disloyal Warmongers Dick Cheney, and his Psycho daughter, Liz.

Donald Trump 01/15/2025 Truth Social post.

“Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, General(?) Mark Milley, James Mattis, Mark Yesper, or any of the other people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, more commonly known as TDS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!,” he concluded.

Trump has been public about his qualms with all of the people on the list, including his own previous right-hand man, former Vice President Mike Pence.

The two had a falling-out following the events of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, where Pence largely blamed Trump for the events leading up to the insurrection. Pence accused Trump of having endangered him and his family in his 2022 memoir, So Help Me God.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stands with Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence and acknowledge the crowd on the third day of the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stands with Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence and acknowledge the crowd on the third day of the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Chip Somodevilla/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Meanwhile others on the list, like former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Sen. Mitt Romney, have been staunch critics of Trump and his influence on the GOP. They both refused to support him in the 2024 election.

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan similarly voted against Trump in both the 2020 and 2024 election, telling Yahoo Finance at the Milken Global Institute Conference in May 2024 that he “wrote in a Republican the last time” and was going to “write in a Republican this time.”

Ryan also called Trump a “populist, authoritarian narcissist” while speaking at a virtual Teneo event in 2023. “Trump’s not a conservative,” Ryan said at the time. “He’s a populist, authoritarian narcissist. So, historically speaking, all of his tendencies are basically where narcissism takes him, which is whatever makes him popular, makes him feel good at any given moment.”

Then-President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address as US Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) look on in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.
Then-President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address as US Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) look on in the chamber of the US House of Representatives. WIN MCNAMEE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Another member on Trump’s blacklist, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, was also an outspoken critic of the president-elect, going so far as to liken him to a “dictator” in his retirement speech in 2023.

“We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, to a tyrant or dictator or wannabe dictator,” Milley said at the time in an apparent reference to Trump. He later added that the country’s troops did not put their lives on the line to watch “this great experiment in democracy perish.”

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Army Gen. Mark Milley looks on after getting a briefing from senior military leaders in the Cabinet Room at the White House on October 7, 2019 in Washington, DC.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Army Gen. Mark Milley looks on after getting a briefing from senior military leaders in the Cabinet Room at the White House on October 7, 2019 in Washington, DC. Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Milley also described Trump as a “fascist to the core” in a conversation relayed in legendary Washington reporter Bob Woodward’s 2024 book War.

“No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump,” Milley told Woodward. “Now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.”

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