‘The current US Energy Secretary won a Nobel Prize in Physics, Trump’s pick Rick Perry couldn’t win Dancing with the Stars.’
President Barack Obama’s first Secretary of Energy was Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Chu. His second and current Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz, is a nuclear physicist. Donald Trump just announced his nominee to become his Secretary of Energy: former Texas governor and failed GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry.
Moniz, before coming to the Obama administration, had served of the faculty of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) since 1973, with a few stints in the Clinton administration, including as Deputy Secretary of Energy. Chu’s parents came to the U.S. to study at MIT. “Education in my family was not merely emphasized, it was our raison d’être,” he wrote in his Nobel prize bio.
Donald Trump’s nominee, Rick Perry, holds a a Bachelor of Science from Texas A&M University and famously during a presidential debate couldn’t remember the name of the Dept. of Energy, but described it as a part of the federal government he would eliminate if elected president.
A few tried to defend the choice of Perry, but got immediate pushback:
The Dept. of Energy is not primarily focused on fossil fuels, but rather, the development of new energy technologies and the cleanup and and proper disposal of nuclear radioactive wastes with a focus on protecting the environment.
Meanwhile, Twitter, of course, has erupted, mocking Perry and Trump for the nomination.
This first tweet from The Daily Beast’s executive editor says it all, but take a look at the others too:
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