Talk:List of former Trump administration officials who endorsed Kamala Harris

Is this article necessary?

From its title, this article purports to be a list of once pro-Trump bureaucrats ("former Trump administration officials") who have now turned to opposing him. However, this really isn't the case. The vast majority of these entries are holdouts from the Obama administration who were replaced within the first one or two years of Trump's leadership. Unless the President-elect has the power to dismiss officials before they come into office, there are always going to be officials with differing politics who technically "served" in an opposing politician's cabinet.

So what's the point of this article? To list officials whom Trump replaced soon after he got into power who have (unsurprisingly) endorsed Trump's opponents? Why? How is this notable at all? At most, this should be an article of Trump appointees who now endorse Harris, but even that wouldn't make much sense unless this is a category of people that has been notably covered by reliable sources. Loytra (talk) 00:47, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Agreed - I removed all the holdovers and kept just the Trump appointees Superb Owl (talk) 23:41, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

The name of the article should probably be changed in this case to "List of Trump appointees who endorsed Kamala Harris" (and same for the Biden page if not merged) since technically "Trump administration officials" does include carry-overs if they weren't immediately fired, but I agree it's weird to have an article with mostly Obama appointees. Relinus (talk) 22:25, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Since there is likely to end up being close to 100% crossover, I propose merging List of former Trump administration officials who endorsed Joe Biden and List of former Trump administration officials who endorsed Kamala Harris, either as (a) List of former Trump administration officials who endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris or (b) List of former Trump administration officials who endorsed Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or (c) List of former Trump administration officials who endorsed Joe Biden and/or Kamala Harris. If there is someone who endorsed one but not the other, that can be noted with inline parentheses, similar to how we note someone of the opposite party in standard endorsement lists. Relinus (talk) 22:44, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

disagree I think it is helpful to have both lists - one that is static (all the sources for Biden are from 2020) and one that is actively being updated (Harris sources obviously only from 2024) (updated) Superb Owl (talk) 22:54, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Comment: I'd also note that if this proposal fails, the Kamala Harris list likely needs major updating anyway as there are a number of names currently in the Biden list but not here yet which likely should be. Relinus (talk) 23:00, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. NLeeuw (talk) 06:38, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

• Support, with a preference for option c. While an endorsement of Biden prior to his withdrawal may be regarded as an implicit endorsement of Kamala Harris as vice-president, it's not clear that this endorsement can be stretched to Harris/Walz as president/VP. That would be WP:OR/WP:SYNTH. Any endorsement to Biden(/Harris) prior to withdrawal needs to be "updated" by the endorsing person after the withdrawal to count as an endorsement to Harris(/Walz). Plus, a lot of people critical of Biden later came out in favour of Harris. Options a and b don't properly cover those scenarios, and it is best to have only 1 list article where all these details and nuances can be explained, therefore, option c covers it best. We might even make a table out of it clarifying pre- and post-withdrawal positions expressed by these former Trump officials so as to be clear where they stood and stand, respectively.NLeeuw (talk) 06:27, 5 September 2024 (UTC)