WASHINGTON — (CNN) Republican strategist Ana Navarro said Thursday she’s disappointed that President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet will be the first in decades without a Latino member.
“I do not accept that there’s not one qualified Hispanic that can be in his Cabinet,” Navarro told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on “AC360.”
Trump’s final Cabinet pick of former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue to serve as agriculture secretary sealed in an inaugural Cabinet devoid of any Latino representation.
Navarro, who during the campaign spoke against Trump highlighted the importance of having a Cabinet that represents the diversity of America.
“I think it is so important for little boys and girls who are Latinos, who are African- Americans to look up to people who are in these positions and who have this platform and this pulpit,” Navarro said. “I think it’s so important for communities to feel represented and they have a seat at the table.”
Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer defended the President-elect’s Cabinet and his commitment to diversity.
“What you’re seeing and you’re going to continue to see not just through the Cabinet but through the entire thing is a diversity in gender, diversity in thinking diversity of ideology,” Spicer said at a news conference Thursday. “It’s not just about skin color or ethnic heritage, but you look at the totality of this Cabinet — an Indian-American, an African-American, an Asian-American, it’s about a lot of things.”
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Spicer argued that the No. 1 concern for Americans is Trump hiring the best and brightest, which Navarro took offense to.
“Do not tell me that Latinos are 17 percent of the United States and they are not among us best and brightest,” Navarro said.
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