Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography Team of Rivals was largely about how Abraham Lincoln stacked his Cabinet with several people who had run against him for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination. Lincoln named:

• New York Senator William H. Seward as Secretary of State
• Pennsylvania Senator Simon Cameron as Secretary of War
• Former Missouri Congressman Edward Bates as Attorney General
• Ohio Governor Salmon P. Chase as Secretary of the Treasury, and later nominated by Lincoln as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court)

Donald Trump appointed two people who ran against him for the Republican nomination to his Cabinet:

• Former Texas Governor Rick Perry as Energy Secretary
• Physician Ben Carson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

Barack Obama nominated several intra-party rivals as well:

• Delaware Senator Joe Biden as Vice President
• New York Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State

Obama was a vocal fan of Team of Rivals, which he repeatedly cited as one of his favorite books of all time — and specifically mentioned that Lincoln was his favorite president. Obama did keep Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, a Republican holdover from George W. Bush’s administration.

Perhaps not quite a “team” of rivals, although Obama did retain or reappoint several other notable non-Cabinet appointees of Bush such as Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve Chair and Robert Mueller as FBI Director. In contrast, Trump did not keep any of Obama’s Cabinet appointees, and axed several of Obama’s other appointees such as James Comey and Janet Yellen.

(Not going to lie, though — I tried reading Team of Rivals but couldn’t finish it. It’s 916 pages long.)

When Lincoln Had a Coalition Cabinet: Discussion About Such a Body Today Recalls How His Great Tact and Firmness Enabled Him to Allay Discord Among His Advisers

From Sunday, February 10, 1918