President-Elect Donald Trump's transition team is actively rejecting a possible Department of Health and Human Services senior role contender, according to Politico.
CNN senior reporter Andy Kaczynski wrote via X, "wow: Donald Trump’s transition team has rejected a push to install a prominent Project 2025 author Roger Severino in a senior role at the Department of Health and Human Services over concerns that his strident anti-abortion views would prove too controversial."
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Per Politico's report, "According to six people familiar with the situation, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations," some of Trump's team members "worried Severino’s nomination would further inflame fears among voters and moderate Republican lawmakers that Trump might widely restrict abortion access, distracting from the rest of the president-elect’s agenda, though they added that Trump officials remain open to appointing other anti-abortion officials at HHS."
The team's rejection of Severino comes as "anti-abortion groups had been lobbying" for the Trump ally, the report notes.
"Heritage was lobbying hard," a source told Politico.
However, "the internal feeling was that [Trump campaign manager Chris] LaCivita and that crew had spent a lot of political capital trying to kill Project 2025 and they didn’t want to do this because that would be going backwards."
Politico's full report is available here.
