Billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel says he wishes President Donald Trump had ‘appointed more competent people,’ calls his second Cabinet ‘not very smart, but very loyal people’
Billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel says he wishes President Donald Trump had appointed “more competent people” during his second term.
Thiel took a look back at Trump’s two administrations during an interview with German journalist Mathias Döpfner on the “MD Meets” podcast.
When asked if he regretted supporting Trump in 2016, Thiel said it was still too early to make that call.
However, he did criticize some of the people in the administration.
‘Appointed competent people’
“Ten years later, how would you analyze his achievements? How would you analyze his failures? Where do you stand today with regard to the last two years, and the first term of the president?” Döpfner asked.
“My fast answer is, you should ask me in 10 years or so, and we’ll see in 10 years how it all works out,” Thiel said.
He added that Trump should have “appointed more competent people” in his administration.
Different mistakes
“I think the two administrations kind of made opposite mistakes,” Thiel said. “You know, the first administration brought in all these people who couldn’t agree, and it was just all this internal fighting.”
He continued, “The second administration I think had all these — they overcorrected for the mistake of the first term with all these loyalty tests.”
Thiel said Trump’s focus on loyalty had led to some questionable staffing choices.
“You got sort of, you know, an administration staffed by not very smart, but very loyal people. And so, there are all sorts of ways it can be criticized,” he noted.
Republicans’ future
Thiel said he was concerned that voters were becoming so frustrated with the Republican Party that they could gravitate toward the Democratic Socialists.
“I worry in the United States that the kind of exhaustion with the Republican establishment that happened with the Bush family, that happened in 2016, we’re about to see with the sort of Clinton-Obama center-left establishment, and the last three elections, 2016, Trump, the sort of anti-establishment person, won the Republican primary,” he explained.
“Hillary [Clinton], the establishment person, you know, barely beat Bernie Sanders. And then again, the establishment won in 2020 and ’24,” the entrepreneur added.
Democrats’ future
Thiel said he was unsure whether the Democratic Party would be in control in 2028.
“I don’t know if they’ll be able to do it in ’28. And the Democratic Party is the more important party. That is the establishment party in the U.S. The Republican Party is always a little bit the anti-establishment one,” he noted.
“So, if the Democratic Socialists take over the Democratic Party, that’s a much bigger deal. And that is like — I don’t know — the end of America.”
Although Thiel was open to “disruption” in 2016, he said he doesn’t “want disruption of the Democratic Socialist variety. That seems catastrophic.”
“I worry that the establishment Democratic Party has failed as badly as the establishment Republicans. And so, we are going to get this disruption, and there is a risk that the U.S. will shift very far to the left. That’s the real disruption we’re going to get,” he concluded.