Trump appointees

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President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named Linda McMahon, a former World Wrestling Entertainment executive who served in the first Trump administration, as his pick to lead the Education Department.

If she is confirmed by the Senate, McMahon would oversee a department that Trump said he planned to “get rid” of as it currently exists and allow each state to individually “handle education.”

“As Secretary of Education, Linda will fight tirelessly to expand 'Choice' to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families,” Trump said in a statement that described McMahon as a “fierce advocate for Parents’ Rights.”

McMahon reposted Trump's announcement, which had been shared by his campaign, on X. Earlier in the day she joined Trump and Elon Musk, who was named as a co-chair of a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” at the SpaceX Starship launch in Texas.

McMahon, 76, is a co-chair of Trump's presidential transition team. She was head of the Small Business Administration during his first presidency before she stepped down from the Cabinet-level post in 2019 to lead the pro-Trump America First Action super PAC.

Before she joined the first Trump administration, McMahon served on the Connecticut State Board of Education in 2009, before she resigned to make unsuccessful bids in 2010 and 2012 for U.S. Senate seats in the state.

McMahon was one of Trump's top donors during the 2024 campaign — contributing more than $20 million to the Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC, as well as $937,800 to his campaign and affiliated joint fundraising committees. She is married to former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Vince McMahon.

The Education Department has a budget of $241.6 billion and employs about 13,000 workers, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management.

Trump said on the campaign trail that he would undo Title IX protections for transgender students. He also said that he plans to sign an executive order that would strip federal funding “from any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto the shoulders of our children.”

McMahon has criticized diversity, equity and inclusion programs, writing in an op-ed published by Fox News this year that DEI provisions were “irrelevant to training skilled workers” and that such policies “add costs and administrative burdens to all apprenticeship programs.”

McMahon is chair of the board at the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank she launched with other former Trump administration officials in 2021. Trump has said he plans to nominate others affiliated with the organization, including former Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia for veteran affairs secretary and former Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will nominate key transition adviser and billionaire financial services executive Howard Lutnick to lead the Commerce Department.

"He will lead our Tariff and Trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative," Trump said in a statement announcing the pick.

The Cantor Fitzgerald CEO has led and been the public face of Trump’s transition.

It’s not clear yet what his selection for a Cabinet post would mean for his role in the transition going forward.

As co-chair of Trump's transition, Lutnick has been an outspoken advocate for his agenda, including explaining how the president-elect plans to use tariffs once in office. Lutnick is the CEO and chairman of the financial services titan Cantor Fitzgerald. The Commerce Department will play a key role in executing some of Trump's proposed tariffs on goods imported into the United States.

Lutnick has been at Cantor Fitzgerald since the early 1980s, when he graduated from Haverford College in Pennsylvania with an economics degree. He suffered immense personal tragedy at a young age, losing his mother while still a student in high school and then his father during his first week at college. Lutnick was working at Cantor Fitzgerald when terrorists targeted New York City’s World Trade Center towers Sept. 11, 2001, the firm's headquarters. Hundreds of Cantor Fitzgerald employees, including Lutnick's brother, were killed.

Following the attacks, Lutnick became an outspoken advocate for the business community as New York worked to rebuild itself.

President-elect Trump is tapping Brendan Carr of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to chair the agency.

Trump said he first nominated Carr to the FCC in 2017 and he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

“His current term runs through 2029 and, because of his great work, I will now be designating him as permanent Chairman,” Trump said Sunday.
Carr was the FCC’s general counsel and the adviser to former FCC Chair Ajit Pai.

He is currently the top Republican in the FCC, which is an independent agency that regulates communications in the U.S. and internationally.

According to Reuters, he’s been a supporter of tech billionaire Elon Musk and his efforts to earn subsidiaries for broadband internet service. He also criticized Vice President Harris’s appearance on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”

In one of his first posts since the announcement, Carr said the FCC would get rid of its diversity, equity and inclusion promotion.

It won't satisfy you hardened Kakangelists, but FWIW Trump seems to favor people with good media skills whom have succeeded in running something. The Democrats tend to appoint lawyers with little experience outside of well lawyering.

Well, Mehmet Oz, for one, was professor emeritus of cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia University

Yeah, they aren't accomplished appointees like the wildly successful Pete Buttigieg and Alexander Mayorkas

I do not recall you complaining when those ridiculous choices were being made by Biden

And look at what Oz did with all that.
Buttigieg proved to be very good at his job, plus besides having experience as mayor of his city he has an impressive resume' from his military service.
I concede I know little about Mayorkas.

There would be a huge ironic twist with Dr. Oz. He would be the first Muslim cabinet member, serving under a guy who proposed a Muslim travel ban in his 2016 campaign.

I suspect one of the reasons why he picked Oz was so he could claim he wasn't really prejudiced against Muslims.

A woman told police she was sexually assaulted by a man she identified as Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's choice for defense secretary, according to official records of a police investigation released in California on Wednesday night.

The documents released by the Monterey Police Department say that the woman, identified only as "Jane Doe," met Hegseth at an event at a hotel in Monterey, where he was speaking, in 2017. Hegseth was not charged and he denies any wrongdoing.

The allegations emerged last weekend, when Hegseth confirmed he had paid an undisclosed amount as part of a settlement with his accuser.

In a statement Thursday, Hegseth’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, told NBC News that the police report "confirms what I’ve said all along, that the incident was fully investigated and police found the allegation to be false, which is why no charges were filed.”

In a statement Sunday, Parlatore said "eyewitness and video evidence confirms that she was the aggressor, and years later, she extorted Mr. Hegseth for money."

The report said the unidentified woman, who later went to a hospital for a sexual assault exam, confronted Hegseth at the event because "she did not appreciate how he treated women," the report said.

The woman said she was drinking a "small amount of Champagne" at an after-party but didn't remember having any "hard alcohol." She and a group of other women went to a bar attached to the hotel, where she had more drinks, while Hegseth was allegedly also present.

"That's where things got fuzzy," she told police. She texted a friend that she had consumed more alcohol than normal during the day, the report said. The woman believed some form of drug was slipped into her drink.

When she left the bar, Hegseth followed her, the report said — she assumed because of their earlier argument — and she told police she remembered Hegseth saying he was a "nice guy."

The woman then found herself in an unknown room. She told police that Hegseth asked whom she was texting and took her phone from her, before physically blocking her attempt to leave the room. "JANE DOE remembered saying 'no' a lot," the report said.

“JANE DOE’s next memory was when she was on a bed or a couch and HEGSETH was over her,” the report said. She said that his dog tags were hovering over her face and that he was bare-chested.

She told police he ejaculated onto her stomach, before throwing her a towel and asking "Are you OK?" The woman said she does not remember how she got back to her room and that the alleged encounter with Hegseth didn't dawn on her until she had returned home. Four days later, she went to the hospital for an exam, the report said.

Hegseth told police after the event that he had sex with the woman but it was consensual and that he made sure she was comfortable with what was going on. He said he had not planned to initiate sex with her and that afterwards she showed "early signs of regret," although he did not elaborate on what those signs were.

Is having engaged in sexual assault seen as a positive by the Trump team or something?