Trump Nominees Make Clear Plans to Sweep Away Obama Policies

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
Scott Pruitt arriving for his confirmation hearing to be administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday. Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times 
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet nominees, while moderating some of their stances, have made it clear during two weeks of hearings that they intend to work hard to sweep away President Obama’s domestic policy by embracing a deeply conservative approach to governing.
In dozens of hours of testimony, Mr. Trump’s nominees told senators that they favored less regulation, a smaller federal government, more state control over policy decisions and taxpayer money, and greater personal responsibility by Americans across the country.
The sometimes contentious hearings continued up until the day before the inauguration, as Mr. Trump triumphantly arrived in Washington on Thursday to kick off three highly choreographed days that will usher Republicans back into full political power in Washington for the first time in more than a decade.
After arriving at Joint Base Andrews on a military plane that will become Air Force One the next time he steps onboard, Mr. Trump visited the Trump International Hotel before making an appearance at the Lincoln Memorial, where thousands watched an inaugural concert.
“All over the world they are talking about it. All over the world,” Mr. Trump told the crowd before a fireworks display over the National Mall. “And I love you folks, and we’re going to work together. And we are going to make America great again.”
That work will be shaped by the new president’s cabinet, which is coming under scrutiny as lawmakers from both parties press the nominees about their fealty to Mr. Trump’s campaign promises and their adherence to their own long records.
Many of the nominees sought to shave the sharp edges off Mr. Trump’s more provocative campaign promises and their own past decisions and statements. Some backed away completely from past assertions, making clean breaks with Mr. Trump on climate change or the need to build a wall at the Mexican border.
Others remained vague about their commitment to the most divisive proposals in their policy areas, leaving a veil of uncertainty over what they would do to lead their departments if confirmed.
Ben Carson, the housing secretary nominee, told lawmakers that “safety net programs are important.” But he did not disown past statements about the failure of government interventions and his belief that poverty was “really more of a choice than anything else.”
Ben Carson during his confirmation hearing to lead the department of housing and urban development last week. Al Drago/The New York Times 
Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency nominee, told senators that he now believed that “climate change is not a hoax.” But he also forcefully advocated a far smaller and more restrained agency, while criticizing federal rules established by Mr. Obama’s administration to protect air and water and tackle climate change.
Betsy DeVos, a longtime supporter of charter schools, pledged to work for “common ground,” but did not back down on the use of federal money for private and religious schools. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the attorney general nominee, vowed to be “impartial and enforce laws that I didn’t vote for,” while holding firm to a decades-long conservative approach to immigration and civil rights.
Several Democratic lawmakers appeared exasperated as they sought to pin the nominees down on the actions they intended to take in office.
“Will you insist upon that equal accountability in any K-12 school or educational program that receives federal funding whether public, public charter or private?” Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, asked Ms. DeVos.
“I support accountability,” she said, repeating that phrase three times in response to Mr. Kaine’s efforts to extract a more detailed answer.
But there is no doubt that Mr. Trump’s nominees collectively will lead an effort to undermine the legacy of Mr. Obama on the environment, health care, immigration, civil rights and education.
In his remarks to lawmakers, Representative Tom Price of Georgia, the nominee for secretary of health and human services, promised to lead an effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Representative Ryan Zinke of Montana, the nominee to lead the Interior Department, said he supported drilling, mining and logging on federal lands. Mr. Sessions came to the defense of police departments, saying officers had been “unfairly maligned and blamed” for the actions of a few in cases involving the deaths of young black men.
“There’s a great deal of reform coming to Washington,” Sean Spicer, the president’s incoming press secretary, said during his first on-camera briefing on Thursday. “These are amazing individuals that have a commitment to enacting an agenda of change.”
Taken together, the congressional testimony reflects a domestic policy agenda that is still evolving. The president-elect recently said he wanted his nominees to “be themselves and express their own thoughts, not mine!” On Friday, he will have an opportunity to sketch out a broad vision during his inaugural address from the steps of the Capitol.
During his campaign, Mr. Trump was often contradictory in laying out a domestic policy blueprint.
On immigration, he talked about the mass deportation of 11 million undocumented workers, then later said he was focused on getting “bad dudes” out of the country. He also proposed, then backed away from, a total ban on Muslim immigration to the United States.
Betsy DeVos arriving for her confirmation hearing to be secretary of education on Tuesday.Al Drago/The New York Times 
Mr. Trump at times called for having guns in classrooms, but other times said he opposed that policy. He said he was against a “first-strike” policy on the use of nuclear weapons, but also said he could not “take anything off the table.” He said in one interview that he would criminalize a woman’s decision to have an abortion; in another, he said the opposite.
As his nominees faced lawmakers during the past two weeks, many of them took a similar approach, responding to questions about their records with less hard-edge language even as they declined to accept Democrats’ approaches.
The hearing for Mr. Price was one example. Mr. Price, an orthopedic surgeon from an Atlanta suburb, sought to reassure senators that he and Mr. Trump did not want to let people “fall through the cracks” as they overhauled the nation’s health care system.
“Nobody’s interested in pulling the rug out from under anybody,” Mr. Price said. “We believe that it’s absolutely imperative that individuals that have health coverage be able to keep health coverage and move, hopefully, to greater choices and opportunities.”
But any Democrats who heard those comments as a kind of concession in the fight to unravel Mr. Obama’s health care law are likely to be disappointed.
Mr. Price insisted that “states know best” in caring for Medicaidbeneficiaries. He said the government should not dictate care to patients. And he vowed that Mr. Trump and his administration would put in place “a different construct” for providing health care to every American.
Wilbur Ross, the billionaire investor who will serve as commerce secretary if he is confirmed, also tried to reassure senators on issues like trade, even as he echoed some of Mr. Trump’s more incendiary promises of economic warfare with other nations.
Like the president-elect, Mr. Ross lashed out at China, accusing it of being “the most protectionist country of the very large countries — they talk more about free trade than they actually practice.”
But he also declared that he was “not anti-trade” and declared as unworkable Mr. Trump’s proposal of a 35 percent tax on American companies that manufacture goods overseas and try to sell them in the United States.
Shortly after arriving in Washington on Thursday, Mr. Trump toasted his cabinet nominees, telling a luncheon audience at his Pennsylvania Avenue hotel that there had never been better ones.
“We have by far the highest I.Q.,” he said, “of any cabinet ever assembled.”
A version of this article appears in print on January 20, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Arrives, Set to Assume Power. Order Reprints|  Today's Paper|Subscribe