Trump appointees

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President-elect Donald Trump is starting to fill key posts in his second administration, putting an emphasis so far on aides and allies who were his strongest backers during the 2024 campaign.

Tom Homan, ‘border czar’
Homan, 62, has been tasked with Trump’s top priority of carrying out the largest deportation operation in the nation’s history.

Homan, who served under Trump in his first administration leading U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was widely expected to be offered a position related to the border, an issue Trump made central to his campaign.

Though Homan has insisted such a massive undertaking would be humane, he has long been a loyal supporter of Trump’s policy proposals, suggesting at a July conference in Washington that he would be willing to “run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”

Democrats have criticized Homan for his defending Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy on border crossings during his first administration, which led to the separation of thousands of parents and children seeking asylum at the border.

Elise Stefanik, United Nations ambassador
Stefanik is a representative from New York and one of Trump’s staunchest defenders going back to his first impeachment.

Elected to the House in 2014, Stefanik was selected by her GOP House colleagues as House Republican Conference chair in 2021, when former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney was removed from the post after publicly criticizing Trump for falsely claiming he won the 2020 election. Stefanik, 40, has served in that role ever since as the third-ranking member of House leadership.

Stefanik’s questioning of university presidents over antisemitism on their campuses helped lead to two of those presidents resigning, further raising her national profile.

If confirmed, she would represent American interests at the U.N. as Trump vows to end the war waged by Russia against Ukraine begun in 2022. He has also called for peace as Israel continues its offensive against Hamas in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon to target Hezbollah.

Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy
Miller, an immigration hardliner, was a vocal spokesperson during the presidential campaign for Trump’s priority of mass deportations. The 39-year-old was a senior adviser during Trump’s first administration.

Miller has been a central figure in some of Trump’s policy decisions, notably his move to separate thousands of immigrant families.

Trump argued throughout the campaign that the nation’s economic, national security and social priorities could be met by deporting people who are in the United States illegally. Since Trump left office in 2021, Miller has served as the president of America First Legal, an organization made up of former Trump advisers aimed at challenging the Biden administration, media companies, universities and others over issues such as free speech and national security.

President-elect Donald Trump said he intends to nominate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as the U.S. ambassador to Israel, a high-profile diplomatic posting in a tumultuous region.

Huckabee, if confirmed, will be the first non-Jewish person to hold this role since 2011. He will arrive in Jerusalem to face conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon that have raged for more than a year. On the campaign trail, Trump, a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed to put an end to the conflict.

Peace negotiations between Israel and Hamas have stalled in recent days after Qatar pulled out of its meditation efforts. Huckabee is likely to be at the center of international pressure on the U.S. to help broker a cease-fire deal.

Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post on Tuesday, elevating a longtime loyalist and former rival for the Republican nomination in 2016. Huckabee, the host of a namesake television talk show, campaigned for Trump this cycle, hitting the trail with the former president, including in battleground Pennsylvania in the final throes of the race.

“I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, has been nominated to be The United States Ambassador to Israel,” Trump said in a statement.

“Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years. He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!”

In a statement congratulating Huckabee, the Republican Jewish Coalition praised the former governor as "a long-time friend" of the group, praising the former governor's "abounding love of Israel" and promising his appointment would "strengthen the US-Israel relationship to even greater heights."

Huckabee's daughter, the current Arkansas governor and a former Trump administration official, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was also a top surrogate for Trump. The elder Huckabee, 69, was governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007.

During his 2016 presidential run, Huckabee staked out an arch-conservative position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rejecting the notion of an "occupied" West Bank. Instead, he referred to the area using the biblical terms of “Judea and Samaria.”

At the time, he earned the Adelson Defender of Israel award at a Zionist Organization of America dinner in New York. Miriam Adelson, the wife of the late Sheldon Adelson, remains a top Trump donor who gave lavishly to his 2024 campaign.

Top Israeli officials celebrated the news later Tuesday.

Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Sa’ar congratulated Huckabee in a post on X, saying, "As a longstanding friend of Israel and our eternal capital Jerusalem — I hope you will feel very much at home."

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named John Ratcliffe as his pick for CIA director in the next administration.

Ratcliffe, a former congressman from Texas, served as director of national intelligence in Trump's first term.

President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency” in his second administration.

“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said in a statement.

The announcement of Ramaswamy and particularly Musk, who leads companies with existing, lucrative government contracts, raises immediate questions about potential conflicts of interest. It is not immediately clear how the department – which Trump said would “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government” – would operate, and whether a Congress even fully controlled by Republicans would have the appetite to approve such a massive overhaul of government spending and operations.

Trump had proposed the creation of a government efficiency commission as part of a slate of new economic plans that he unveiled in early September. At the time, he said Musk had agreed to lead it if he were to secure a return to the White House.

Trump’s statement Tuesday night quoted Musk as saying that “this will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of

Ramaswamy separately responded on X with a slogan he often used during his presidential campaign to call for the elimination of federal agencies, writing: “SHUT IT DOWN.”

On the campaign trail, Trump pointed to his proposed government efficiency commission as a way to reduce government spending. “As the first order of business, this commission will develop an action plan to totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months,” he said in September. “This will save trillions of dollars.”

Ramaswamy, who previously challenged Trump in the Republican presidential primary before endorsing him in January, made reducing waste in government spending a key policy platform for his campaign.

Last year, Ramaswamy – who had promised on the campaign trail to eliminate the FBI, the Department of Education and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which would lay off thousands of federal workers in the process – released a white paper outlining a legal framework he said would allow the president to eliminate federal agencies of his choice.

Musk, for his part, said while supporting Trump on the campaign trail that he’d pitch a massive rollback of government regulations, of which he has long griped. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has also floated an assessment system that threatens layoffs to wasteful employees and proposed offering generous severance packages to laid-off government workers.

Musk first suggested Trump form a government efficiency commission and appoint him to it in an August conversation between the two hosted on X. Trump responded, “I’d love it.”

A few days later, Musk posted on X an image of himself at a podium labeled Department of Government Efficiency and D.O.G.E., the name of Musk’s favorite meme and cryptocurrency. “I am willing to serve,” he wrote.

Doubts about cutting $2 trillion
Musk, who slashed staff after buying Twitter – now X – in 2022, has embraced the idea of being the “Secretary of Cost-Cutting,” as Trump called him in a Fox News interview last month.

Asked by Trump-Vance transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick at a rally last month how much he could cut out of the nation’s $6.5 trillion budget, Musk responded: “Well, I think we could do at least $2 trillion.”

“Your money is being wasted, and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that,” Musk said at the Madison Square Garden rally in New York City. “We’re going to get the government off your back and out of your pocketbook.”

But experts have voiced doubts about Musk being able to slash anywhere near $2 trillion.

Speaking at The Economic Club of New York Tuesday, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said that Musk would be lucky to find $200 billion in federal budget cuts since the scope for curbing waste is limited.

Glenn Hubbard, an economist and former dean of Columbia University’s Business School, said it would be very challenging to slash that much spending if interest expenses, entitlement programs and defense were off limits.

“It’s just mathematically impossible to find $2 trillion,” Hubbard, a former chairman of the US Council of Economic Advisers in the George W. Bush administration, said at the Economic Club.

The commission would have to be given a broad mandate to review the largest federal spending programs – Social Security, Medicare and defense – to be most effective, Goldwein said.

A main union for federal workers, who are already bracing for the likelihood of a purge during the second Trump administration, also blasted the idea of a government efficiency commission.

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Rep. Matt Gaetz to be the 87th attorney general of the United States, filling the nation's top law enforcement position with a Florida lawmaker who has been under investigation by the department he would be overseeing.

The appointment comes at a critical juncture for the Justice Department, which has spent the entirety of the Trump era under attack by the president-elect, who has been charged with four federal felonies in connection with his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. That case is already winding down.

Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post, saying Gaetz would "end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department."

Gaetz has been a staunch supporter of Trump, and has regularly attacked the Justice Department and FBI, both of which he would oversee as attorney general.

The DOJ and FBI investigated Gaetz for possible sex trafficking, but the case ended in 2023 without any charges filed. After the resolution of the investigation, Gaetz called for the abolishment of the FBI.

“I don’t care if it takes every second of our time and every ounce of our energy, we either get this government back on our side or we defund, get rid of, abolish the FBI CDC, ATF,” Gaetz said in 2023 at the Conservative Political Action Conference, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

After the Jan. 6 riot, Gaetz spread the lie that it was antifa, not a pro-Trump mob that believed the former president's lies about the 2020 election, that attacked the Capitol. One Jan. 6 rioter — one of the first men to breach the Capitol — even posted about Gaetz's plan to challenge Electoral College votes, which Gaetz had laid out during a Turning Points USA summit in late 2020.

Another Jan. 6 defendant, Brandon Straka, has said he was "regularly" in contact with Gaetz during a Twitter Space in early 2023, as Gaetz was steering the outcome of the House Speaker's race.

Trump's announcement on Wednesday is likely to unnerve career prosecutors in the DOJ as well as FBI agents.

Trump allies have called for the DOJ to criminally investigate special counsel Jack Smith and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he will nominate Tulsi Gabbard, a former House Democrat who became a high-profile Trump supporter, to be director of national intelligence.

“For over two decades, Tulsi has fought for our Country and Freedoms of all Americans,” Trump said in a statement. “I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength. Tulsi will make us all proud!”

In her own statement Wednesday, Gabbard said she was grateful for the chance to "defend the safety, security and freedom of the American people" as a member of Trump's cabinet.

"I look forward to getting to work," she added.

Gabbard announced shortly before the midterm elections in 2022 that she was leaving the Democratic Party, which she accused in a video statement at the time of “actively working to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution.”

In August, she endorsed Trump, began working as a co-chair for his transition team and helped him prepare for his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris. Last month she formally announced last month that she would join the Republican Party.

Gabbard previously ran for the Democratic nomination during the 2020 presidential race, ending her presidential campaign in March 2020 to endorse Joe Biden.

If confirmed, Gabbard will be the first person of color to hold the position, which was created under then-President George W. Bush.

Gabbard has been widely criticized for her 2017 meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who had been accused of human rights violations and war crimes. She defended the meeting, telling MNSBC News at the time, “We’ve got to be able to be willing to meet with whoever we need to if there is a possibility, and a chance that that can help us take steps forward towards peace."

In 2019, Gabbard was one of the only House Democrats to not vote for Trump's first impeachment on charges that he abused power and obstructed Congress.

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday officially announced he will nominate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to be secretary of State, ending a nearly two-day delay between initial reports and the official announcement.

In a statement, Trump said that Rubio is a “Highly Respected Leader, and a very powerful Voice for Freedom.” Trump also called Rubio a “strong Advocate for our nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our allies.”

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, is a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the top Republican on the selective Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He ran against Trump for president in 2016, but once Trump entered office he became a key ally of the White House on Latin America policy. Rubio was a contender to be Trump’s running mate, though he ultimately lost out to Vice President-elect JD Vance.

The announcement comes as speculation swirled over the delay in announcing Rubio’s nomination to the role of America’s top diplomat. Some allies of former U.S. Ambassador to Germany and top Trump loyalist Richard Grenell insisted that no decision had been made, despite media reports that Trump planned to nominate Rubio. And Rubio faced criticism from some corners of the Republican Party for his more traditional and neoconservative views on foreign policy and national security.

However, Rubio is expected to face little resistance from his fellow Republicans in his confirmation process. Reports of Rubio’s nomination prompted expressions of praise from across the Republican Party, and even some Democrats. Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.), Rubio’s Democratic counterpart on the selective Senate panel, celebrated the announcement, saying in a statement Wednesday that “while we don’t always agree, he is smart, talented, and will be a strong voice for American interests around the globe.

President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem to be the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, four sources familiar with the decision confirmed Tuesday morning.

"Kristi has been very strong on Border Security," Trump said in a statement announcing he will make the nomination. "I have known Kristi for years, and have worked with her on a wide variety of projects — She will be a great part of our mission to Make America Safe Again."

As homeland security secretary, Noem would oversee a number of key federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard.

Trump has told Noem that she is his pick for DHS secretary, according to two sources familiar with the decision.

Noem, 52, has no significant experience with homeland security issues but has voiced support for Trump's hard-line immigration policies. She has defended her fellow Republican governors in their efforts to crack down on migrants in their states.

Noem has criticized President Joe Biden's handling of the border, echoing Trump's arguments that violent criminals are flooding into the country.

"He is ignoring federal law and allowing people into this country that are incredibly dangerous," she said in an interview in June on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And just this week I think we had four different people that were attacked or raped or murdered by illegal immigrants that have come in over our open border. And that cannot continue to happen."

Asked in the interview about Trump's possible plans to pardon convicted Jan. 6 rioters, she dodged the question and said t would be his prerogative.

"I believe that Donald Trump, when he comes back to the White House and is in charge of this country, we’re going to have incredible opportunities to show that people in this country will be safer, that we’ll have law and order back in our streets," she said. "If you look at one of the most violent areas of our country is often Democrat-run cities, sanctuary cities with an open border."

Noem had been viewed as a possible vice presidential running mate for Trump in this cycle, but she was dogged by her admission in her book published in the spring that she had once shot and killed her dog.

"I would say that that was a story from 20 years ago about me protecting my children from a vicious animal," she said on "Meet the Press." "So we’ve covered that, and any mom in those situations when you have an animal that’s viciously killing livestock and attacking people it’s a tough decision."

Noem, who has been governor of South Dakota since 2019, was a member of the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2019 and the state House from 2007 to 2011.

Similar to Trump's other allies, Noem had signaled support for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. In separate interviews on CNN in April and May, she wouldn't say whether she would have certified that election and refused to say whether Vice President Mike Pence acted appropriately when he did certify Biden's victory.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, has said that he believes women should not serve in combat and that he wants to see the military purged of “woke” officials who support diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Hegseth, 44, a Fox News host, has an extensive history of eyebrow-raising commentary, especially when it comes to military matters he’d oversee should he be confirmed to join Trump’s second Cabinet and become sixth in line to the presidency.

Hegseth has long maintained a close relationship with Trump. The pair have frequently appeared together in photographs on social media and on Fox’s airwaves. Hegseth started at Fox News in 2014 as an on-air pundit, working his way up to co-hosting the weekend edition of “Fox & Friends,” the network’s flagship morning show.

Hegseth has already given clues about how he’d like to remake the Defense Department, the largest and oldest U.S. government agency, with a budget of about $850 billion. Appearing last week on “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast, Hegseth said that in Trump’s second term, “any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI, woke s--t has got to go.”

The first order of business, he said, would be to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr., who he said has pushed a “woke” agenda.

He also declared that female soldiers should not be allowed to fight on the front lines.

“I’m straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles,” Hegseth said on the podcast. “It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.”

The Pentagon first opened all combat roles to women in 2015, a historic policy shift meant to reflect the changing attitudes of gender-based barriers within the military. Women are more than 17% of the military’s active duty force, according to the Defense Department, and they have proven themselves in training, excelled as fighter pilots in overseas combat and broken ground in top roles throughout the armed forces.

Hegseth has also suggested the rules of war ought to be reworked to benefit the U.S. In early 2020, after Iran fired missiles at U.S. forces housed at Iraqi air bases in retaliation for the Trump-authorized strike killing top Iranian Gen. Qassam Soleimani, he said on the air that the U.S. military should be allowed to bomb Iranian historic sites.

“I don’t care about Iranian cultural sites,” he said in one appearance. Two days later, he said, “If we’re going to fight to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, this regime, then we need to rewrite the rules that are advantageous to us,” adding, “I don’t want to hit cultural sites on purpose, but if you’re using one to harbor your most dangerous weapons, then that should be on the target list, too.”

More to the point, Hegseth said last week on Ryan’s podcast, “the rules of war are for winners.”

Hegseth has also been vocal about defending members of the military in controversial cases.

He publicly lobbied Trump in 2019 to pardon three U.S. servicemen who were either convicted or accused of war crimes. Among them was Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL platoon leader who was acquitted by a military jury in the killing of a militant in Iraq in 2017 but was convicted on a related minor charge.

“They’re not war criminals; they’re warriors,” Hegseth said on the air that year about the men he hoped Trump would pardon.

Trump reversed the sentence against Gallagher that demoted his military rank, prompting the firing of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, who opposed the decision. Trump also pardoned two others in separate cases involving the killings of Afghans during war.

More recently, Hegseth defended Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran who is on trial in the chokehold death of a homeless Black man in a New York City subway last year, posting to X that Penny is “an American hero” and that “the woke mob is trying to ruin” him.

Early in his career at Fox, Hegseth went viral in 2015 for an on-air incident in which he overshot a target and struck a West Point drummer in the arm with an ax. The man, Master Sgt. Jeffrey Prosperie, sued Hegseth. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the case was discontinued in 2019 and that Prosperie’s lawyer wrote in a statement, “The parties have resolved the matter and will make no further comment.” Prosperie could not be reached for comment.

At least one of Hegseth’s cable news colleagues met his selection with some skepticism.

“From silly diner interviews on Weekend Fox and Friends to Secretary of Defense? I never thought I’d say I’m stunned about any pick after the election but nominating Pete Hegseth for this incredibly important role? Yes he’s a veteran … and?” former “Fox & Friends” host Gretchen Carlson said Tuesday evening on X.

Hegseth’s Fox News colleagues, meanwhile, heaped praise upon him.

“You don’t realize how qualified he is until you really look at the résumé,” co-host Brian Kilmeade said Wednesday morning.

Hegseth, a decorated veteran, could face a challenging confirmation process. Republicans will hold a slim majority in the Senate, and his comments and status as a relative unknown may prove to be obstacles.

“Who?” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said on Capitol Hill when he was asked Tuesday evening about Trump’s picking Hegseth. “I don’t know Pete. I just don’t know anything about him.”

Nevertheless, even skeptical Republican senators seem open to confirming him.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill recoiled from Donald Trump’s announcement that he was nominating Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general, with two GOP senators openly voicing concerns and some of the president-elect’s loyal allies panning the pick.

Swing-vote GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she doesn’t “think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general.” Another, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), told reporters she was “shocked” by Gaetz’s selection. And Trump ally Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) called it “a reckless pick.”

“I think he has a zero percent shot of getting through the Senate,” Miller added.