Joe Biden Says He’d Consider Trump Supporter for Cabinet — But That’s Just Something He Thinks He Has to Say, Right?

President-elect Joe Biden told NBC News’ Lester Holt that he would consider nominating a Trump supporter for a cabinet position — in what was hopefully a reflexive nod to the principles of healing and forgiveness, and not something he’s serious about.

During his interview with the President-elect, which aired Tuesday night on NBC Nightly News, Mr. Holt punctuated his quizzing about the emerging Biden cabinet with this record-scratch-sound-effect-inducing question:

“Have you considered, for the sake of national unity, selecting or nominating a Republican, someone who voted for President Trump?”

Biden responded with an equally record-scratch-sound-effect-inducing “Yes.”

He went on to add that “We still have a lot more appointments to make,” that “I want this country to be united,” and that “The purpose of our administration is once again to unite the, we can’t keep this virulent political dialogue going. That has to end.”

Holt then leaned in a little harder, asking “Should we expect an announcement?”

“No,” Biden replied.

“Not ever, or not soon?” Holt asked.

“No, not soon,” Biden replied.

There are a number of ways to interpret Biden’s response, like maybe he means he’d pick a Trumpist in some theoretical, if he were caught in a Saw trap and had to either appoint a Trump supporter or release a bag of puppies into a vat of hydrofluoric acid sense, knowing the pick could be reversed on the grounds of duress, or all of humanity died off during the confirmation hearings and the only two people left alive for the cabinet were Kellyanne Conway and Ted Cruz, or if the Supreme Court ruled that he was required to name a Secretary of Racism.

Or maybe this is just the answer that President-elect Biden thinks he has to give in order to remain on-brand about healing the nation, and to ward off the bombardment of clutched pearls that would result from responding with the hearty “Hell F*CK no!” this question deserved, and he really doesn’t mean it at all.

Or maybe he means it in the sense that if he were able to find a pick who satisfied his — and former President Barack Obama’s — infatuation with the team-of-rivals bipartisan impulse that both have expressed in the past, he would consider it. If he could somehow find the Trumpist Chuck Hagel, a breed that was born and killed off in the harrowing hours of the Bowling Green Massacre.

Having covered Biden for over a decade, and very closely during the campaign, my educated guess is that his answer was a heavy dose of “B” and a smaller dose of “C.”

Much of President-elect Biden’s narrative prep work for his inauguration has involved keeping himself above reproach — by the opposition, to a lesser degree, but mainly by the mainstream political press — as most glaringly expressed in his steadfast and unpopular refusal to say he’d hunt down and prosecute Trump and his henchpeople. Republicans are going to attack Biden and his entire administration no matter what, but this positioning ensures that like the “socialist” charge, none of them will stick with the non-brainwashed public.

Some of it is grounded in a genuine belief in the value of a bipartisanship that lives on in Biden’s memory, but which also died a horrible death in a Washington, DC steakhouse the night the first Black president was inaugurated. And if Democrats don’t run the table in the Georgia runoff, Biden’s ability to peel off two or more Republicans could become his only chance at legislative success.

But Biden is also a realist who at least recognizes the strong possibility that he will be met with obstruction that can only be dealt with in the most forceful terms.

Here’s what I’m hoping President-elect Biden also realizes: even suggesting such a possibility agitates a deep well of pain among the millions of people whom Trump and his administration have harmed, and who will continue to be harmed by their legacy.

The people against whom they have incited violence and hatred; the people who must live with the racism they have normalized; the people who have been left destitute by their refusal to provide the economic rescue that’s still so desperately needed; and the people whose loved ones have died, who will continue to die for many months, as Trump cultists continue to run around infecting people like a pack of biological ED-209s.

Anyone who voted for Trump voted for all of that, and while there may be some folks out there with the grace to forgive — an impulse that is deeply embedded in Biden’s DNA — there are none among Biden’s supporters who have the stomach to entertain the idea that such people could be trusted with the tiniest lever of power, let alone that they deserve it.

I’m sure President-elect Biden knows all of that, even if it recedes slightly when he’s asked a question that stirs his hard-wired desire for redemption and forgiveness. I’m sure that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is more than capable of reminding him if that’s needed. And I’m confident that most of the people who voted for Joe recognize the political necessity of making noises about bipartisanship and healing.

But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.