Anyone know why the odds have crashed the past 24h?

@TheAllMemeingEye Best guess is that Trump is being reasonably conventional in his picks, which would make an outsider like RFK less likely.

Or just random fluctuations

Musk has way too much influence over how this cabinet will be formed to allow Trump to invite pseudoscience into it.

@RichardHanania I assume "Cabinet position" does not include Cabinet-level/Cabinet-rank (e.g. EPA admin or whatever Cabinet-rank position Trump might invent that does not lead an executive department)?

Yes, Trump will definitely win

I think folks are underestimating the chance that RFK gets a position that's not "cabinet" - there's only a few dozen of those!

Also underestimating the chance that RFK ultimately gets a cabinet position but is not formally nominated during the first 11 days of the Trump presidency.

@MattLashofSullivan Exactly. My money is on a non-cabinet position, where Trump won't have to risk the embarrassment of a senate confirmation hearing failing this early on

Many positions do not require the candidate to be nominated for Senate confirmation. Nor, relevantly, do recess appointments.

From CNN:
Speaking to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source,” Howard Lutnick, who said he recently spent two and a half hours with Kennedy, also said Kennedy is “not getting a job for (the Department of Health and Human Services),” which is contrary to a claim the activist made earlier this week in which he said Trump promised to give him “control” of several public health agencies, HHS among them. Lutnick also said tech entrepreneur Elon Musk would “help” rather than serve in the government if Trump wins.

"He says, ‘If you give me the data, all I want is the data, and I’ll take on the data and show that it’s not safe.’ And then if you pull the product liability (protections), the companies will yank these vaccines right off, off of the market,” Lutnick said.

RFK contradicted it
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4968959-rfk-jr-trump-white-house/

@Bayesian not necessarily: he seems rather non-committal about what specifically he wants to do, and by the sound of it he doesn't seem to care if it isn't actually a cabinet position so long as he gets to do the specific little things he wants done

@Marnix Trump team has said he fully itnends to honor the alliance and that rfk can have any role he wants

@GregMister Him being allowed to get any role he wants doesn't necessarily mean he wants a cabinet position, though. They could just as easily be negotiating a much easier to get non-cabinet position - something like Assistant HHS Secretary, FDA commissioner, Special Envoy - something where he could get the vaccine data he wants so he can "show that it's not safe," but without him having to sit through an embarrassing senate confirmation. What Lutnick was saying is that RFK wants a role where he can get that data, and that it won't be HHS secretary, but RFK is responding that he can get any position he wants. This isn't necessarily a contradiction.

all good points imo. this does make him getting a non-cabinet position pretty likely in my view

Surgeon General is not a cabinet position, and is an ideal place to dump a ~Koop~ kook.

@nonnihil I think you have to be a doctor for that

Entirely possible he puts him in as head of the CDC specifically instead of the head of HHS as a whole, but only time will tell

Severely underpriced

amazing

It's been the logical thing to do

So if Trump wins and announces RFK for a cabinet position before taking office, this resolves as YES?

@mods this market was a bad candidate for sweepstakes as the title doesn't match the description. The deadline of January 31st was probably chosen ignorantly, and so the market will probably resolve No. You should make a new market that has a better deadline, and make that a sweepstakes one

@PeterNjeim here are the dates when Biden nominated individuals to his cabinet after winning the election

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/Biden_cabinet.htm

@RichardHanania I was thinking of confirmation sorry. We're following the "Received" column?

@PeterNjeim We'll go by announced.

@RichardHanania Thanks for editing, as there is no column titled "nominated". "Announced" is an unofficial public statement, and "received" is the official nomination, so thankfully you chose the more lenient option for this market. You should add this to the description

@PeterNjeim done