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When President-elect Donald Trump picked Dr. Mehmet Oz for a powerful executive branch job overseeing Medicare, incoming Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, quickly praised the TV-famous physician and said he looked forward to considering his coming nomination.

“Far too often, patients relying on federal government health care programs are forced to accept bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all coverage,” Crapo said. “Dr. Oz has been an advocate for providing consumers with the information necessary to make their own health care decisions.”

It turns out that Oz, Trump's pick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, endorsed something of a one-size-fits-all plan for health care just four years ago.

Oz co-wrote a Forbes piece in June 2020 with former Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson endorsing a “Medicare Advantage for All” system that called for eliminating employer-provided insurance and Affordable Care Act coverage and putting “every American who is not on Medicaid” into Medicare Advantage, which uses private plans to cover enrollees. They proposed to fund it with a 20% payroll tax split between employers and workers.

“It’s perhaps ironic that this proposal to provide universal coverage through private Medicare Advantage plans bears a striking resemblance to Kamala Harris’ 'Medicare for All' proposal during the 2020 campaign,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the nonpartisan research group KFF.

The Harris plan “came back to haunt her politically,” Levitt said. “It’s hard to imagine Republicans broadly embracing a Medicare Advantage-for-all plan that requires a big tax increase and more people covered through a government entitlement program.”

Four years after Oz outlined his Medicare Advantage for All plan, Trump announced his choice to run CMS, promising that Oz would “cut waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive Government Agency,” without describing how.

Spokespeople for Trump’s transition team didn’t reply to messages seeking comment.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said he hasn’t reviewed the 2020 Medicare Advantage proposal, but he praised Oz as someone who has “studied these issues a lot.”

“We need somebody to be transformative,” Lankford said. “We want to know: Where is he going? What’s the perspective? Obviously, he needs to answer questions for what he’s done in the past.”

Oz's evolution on Obamacare and Medicare
Oz’s evolution on health care leaves open the question of how a second Trump administration will overhaul health care after Trump said he had “concepts of a plan” for doing so.

As CMS administrator, Oz would hardly be a free agent; his mission would be to carry out Trump’s vision. But Trump’s lack of specificity about health care could empower Oz to fill in the blanks.

Going back to the Obama era, Oz offered qualified praise for Obamacare for providing a “safety net.” Trump softened his rhetoric attacking Obamacare in the final stretch of his 2024 campaign but still called for replacing it, without explaining how.

By 2022, when he ran for the Senate, Oz had taken a more modest position on health care that didn’t call for upending the system, while he also criticized the Affordable Care Act. Oz said on an AARP questionnaire: “We can expand Medicare Advantage plans. These plans are popular among seniors, consistently provide quality care and have a needed incentive to keep costs low.”

Some Democrats are deeply concerned about Oz’s running CMS.

“No one should doubt that Dr. Oz and the Trump administration pose a very real threat to Medicare, Medicaid and health coverage as we know it,” said Sen. Patty Murray D-Wash., a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “Trump notoriously undermined the Affordable Care Act every chance he got and drove health care costs through the roof.”

Medicare Advantage changes on the horizon?
If Oz is confirmed and chooses to push more people into Medicare Advantage, as he has pitched, he may not have too hard a time. Enrollment has been increasing steadily for several years, so in some ways Medicare is already on the path to privatization, said Tricia Neuman, executive director of the program on Medicare policy at KFF.

Still, Neuman said, Oz would be walking a tightrope to avoid upsetting Medicare enrollees: While Medicare Advantage has grown increasingly popular, surveys show that older adults like having options when they choose coverage.

“In our focus groups, people say they’re satisfied with both traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage, and they make their choices based on different preferences,” Neuman said.

The push to private plans also might not address the primary concern among patients — the high cost of care, said Arthur Caplan, head of the medical ethics division at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

A report in 2022 from the Commonwealth Fund, a health care think tank, found about 1 in 4 older adults with Medicare reported skipping services, like dental care, because of high costs. A similar share avoided visits with specialists or follow-ups with doctors for the same reason.

“There’s this dream that Republicans have had forever, and he had it when he ran for Senate in Pennsylvania, that the solution to Medicare is privatization, but all that does is get some of the money off the government books,” Caplan said. “It doesn’t really solve the wasteful expenditures that we have in Medicare. Prices are too high, and it doesn’t really give access.”

Wyden said Oz should “expect questions” about practices like “prior authorization” under Medicare Advantage, in which insurance companies determine whether services are medically necessary before they’re used. “There is growing concern among seniors and others who are vulnerable that these insurance companies are getting away with all kinds of razzmatazz to deny coverage that people have paid for,” Wyden said.

Lankford said Medicare Advantage “is not working like it was designed to” as hospitals are “frustrated” and insurers are “denying claims” or “not paying on time.”

How would Trump and Oz handle drug prices?
Another open question is how Trump will handle the popular policy in Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act to empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices, an idea that many Republicans blast as price fixing and which the GOP unanimously voted against.

“President-elect Trump has not said directly whether he would defend the negotiations provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act or try to pare them back during the campaign,” Neuman said. “It’s not really clear what happens with drug pricing generally or drug negotiations specifically.”

The CMS’ deadline to select the next 15 drugs up for negotiations is in February, although it’s unclear whether the agency will be able to meet the deadline so close to the inauguration, Neuman said.

Oz would most likely need to address Medicaid, too. Some Republicans see the government plan for low-income people as a potential source of funding to pay for Trump’s tax cut extension.

“There’s a lot of children and a lot of disabled in Medicaid, and when you push back what has to be covered, trim benefits eligibility or just leave it to the states, poor states — the Alabamas, the Mississippis and the Arkansases — you are going to have very, very limited eligibility," Caplan said. "So it really risks harming very vulnerable people.”

Oz lost the 2022 Senate race to Democrat John Fetterman, who at the time questioned his commitment to protecting safety net programs like Medicare, even claiming he’d “destroy” it.

Now, he says he’s “open to having a dialogue” with Oz.

“We’re going to have to hear what his answers are, and then we’re going to go from there,” Fetterman said in an interview. “His positions are going to be what Trump’s position is.”

“He’s going to pick people that are going to disagree with me, and they’re never going to be my first choice. So that’s kind of how democracy tends to work,” Fetterman said. “It’s not even Thanksgiving right now, and I’m not going to be part of the collective freakouts.”

So, based on another post , I wonder whom he really had in mind for Gaetz nominated position.. ..
Had this feeling that he would put up the worst people first, but most likely had a second person intended for that position . Whom may have not been caught for their criminal activity ?
He figured if he put up a aweful person, that the congress,would think anybody else would be a relief.?

President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday evening that his new pick for attorney general is Pam Bondi.

Bondi was Florida’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019.

"For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans — Not anymore," Trump said on Truth Social. "Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again."

Trump also praised her work against “the trafficking of deadly drugs.” Bondi previously worked on a Trump commission focusing on ending the opioid crisis and combating drug addiction.

Bondi is a partner at the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, where she chairs the company's corporate regulatory compliance practice, according to the firm's website.

Bondi has long ties to Trump. During the 2016 Republican National Convention, she joined in “lock her up” chants aimed at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and she was then part of Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment trial.

After Trump lost the 2020 election, Bondi was involved in efforts to overturn the results, falsely claiming that Trump had “won Pennsylvania” at a news conference in Philadelphia.

Trump and Bondi's ties have previously faced accusations of impropriety, which both have denied. In 2013, Trump's foundation made a $25,000 donation to Bondi when she was Florida attorney general. The donation reportedly came around the same time that Bondi's office was asked about looking into fraud allegations against Trump University.

Bondi did not open a case against Trump, and Trump paid a $2,500 fine to the IRS after the donation.

As attorney general, Bondi would lead the Justice Department, which houses the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Prisons and has more than 115,000 employees.

Gaetz praised Trump’s announcement on X, calling Bondi “a stellar selection.”

“She’s a proven litigator, an inspiring leader and a champion for all.

Initial reactions to Bondi's selection were more positive among Senate Republicans than when Trump tapped Gaetz.

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

It was a surprising pick among many surprising picks. This week, President-elect Donald Trump announced his choice to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is as famous for the “America’s Doctor” moniker as he is for the number of dubious health claims he’s made from that perch over the years.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising. After all, Trump endorsed Oz in his unsuccessful Senate bid in 2022, and in 2016 Trump appeared on Oz’s show to undergo a “surreal” on-air physical in lieu of sharing his medical records with the public. Plus, Melania Trump likes him.

Currently on his website, he calls himself global adviser and stakeholder for the online supplement and wellness retailer brand iHerb; his Instagram page also links out to the iHerb shop. That may not be the case for long.

“Under federal law, he would be prohibited from making decisions that could impact his financial interests,” said Kedric Payne, vice president, general counsel and senior director of ethics for the nonprofit, nonpartisan government watchdog group Campaign Legal Center. “So that means that, as head of CMS, he would have to divest of those interests if he’s making decisions that are related to it.”

In another important way, Oz’s selection is also a downright puzzling choice to Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This position traditionally has had someone with deep experience in health insurance and health policy to run very complex programs,” Besser said. CMS provides health care for more than 100 million Americans, including lower-income people and people with disabilities. “Dr. Oz has a career as a surgeon and a television doctor. His approach on television has been one that has really focused on the role of the individual in their health — and the person in this role is really required to make sure that our government is meeting the needs of our entire country.”

For that matter, many of those individual actions Oz recommended on his TV show over the years were based on questionable scientific evidence, Besser said. In a BMJ study from 2014, for instance, researchers evaluated health claims made on 40 randomly selected episodes of “The Dr. Oz Show,” a syndicated daytime TV show that ran from 2009 to 2022. They found that about half of the recommendations made on the show were unsupported by scientific evidence.

In his own defense, Oz argued in a 2015 exclusive interview with NBC News that his television program was “not a medical show.” He also denied any conflicts of interest and said he had not sold any products “off the show.” He also said that he would refrain from using words like “miracle,” and even added that “there are segments that I made that I wish I could take back.”

But it’s hard to take back an idea once it’s been widely publicized on television. Here are eight health claims — with little or no scientific evidence to back them up — that Oz made over the years.

Green coffee extract, the ‘magic weight loss cure’
In 2014, Oz went to Washington to seek help fighting internet marketers who were using his name and image to sell weight loss products. Instead, senators suggested that he was part of the problem, subsequently grilling him on the many diet supplements he’d promoted on his show.

“When you feature a product on your show, it creates what has become known as the ‘Dr. Oz Effect’ — dramatically boosting sales and driving scam artists to pop up overnight using false and deceptive ads to sell questionable products,” then-Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said to Oz at the Senate hearing.

Senators provided several examples from Oz’s own show, but much of the hearing focused on his claims about green coffee bean extract.

“You may think magic is make believe, but this little bean has scientists saying they found the magic weight loss cure for every body type. … This miracle pill can burn fat fast,” Oz said in a 2012 episode.

“I don’t get why you need to say this stuff because you know it’s not true,” McCaskill said. “So why when you have this amazing megaphone and this amazing ability to communicate, why would you cheapen your show?”

Oz replied: “I actually do personally believe in the items that I talk about on the show; I passionately study them. I recognize that oftentimes they don’t have the scientific muster to present as fact.”

that year, a company selling the green coffee extract touted by Oz paid the Federal Trade Commission $3.5 million in a settlement over a complaint that it had “used the results of a flawed study to make baseless weight-loss claims” to retailers, according to the FTC. Also that year, a pair of researchers retracted their study supposedly showing that the green coffee bean pills led to weight loss. “The sponsors of the study cannot assure the validity of the data so we, Joe Vinson and Bryan Burnham, are retracting the paper,” read a statement that appeared on the website for the open-access scientific journal that had published the paper. The retraction was first reported by Retraction Watch.

By October 2014, The Washington Post reported that Oz’s website had been “scrubbed of almost every mention” of green coffee bean extract; the episode had also been taken down from YouTube, citing a “copyright claim” by way of explanation.

Supplements and ‘the holy grail of cancer prevention’
Oz’s claims about green coffee extract got major headlines, but it’s not the only weight loss supplement he touted on his show. He once said that raspberry ketone was “the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat,” and in a 2013 episode, he called Garcinia cambogia “the simple solution you’ve been looking for to bust your body fat for good,” according to Vox.

Writing for Science-Based Medicine, Dr. Harriet Hall conceded that Garcinia cambogia “may have a role in helping patients lose weight by assisting motivation and enlisting placebo effects,” but the data at that point didn’t show a “clinically relevant advantage” over old-fashioned diet and exercise.

The BMJ study from 2014 found that the majority of Oz’s health recommendations touched on nutrition and dietary advice. In a 2011 episode, he said human chorionic gonadotropin, a hormone produced during pregnancy, could result in weight loss when combined with a diet restricted to 500 calories a day. (The research shows no evidence that HCG is an effective weight loss tool.)

According to The Washington Post, in a 2012 episode, Oz touted the cancer-preventing benefits of selenium, a mineral found in soil that is responsible for, among other things, protecting the body against the damage caused by severe viral infection, according to the National Institutes of Health.

There is research to suggest that people who have a selenium deficiency — which is very rare in the U.S. — may have an increased risk of developing certain cancers, including colon, rectum, prostate, lung, bladder, skin, esophagus and stomach, according to the NIH; however, it is “not clear” whether selenium supplements reduce cancer risk. Furthermore, selenium supplements can interfere with other medications, and too much of the mineral is linked to health risks. “Extremely high intakes of selenium can cause severe problems, including difficulty breathing, tremors, kidney failure, heart attacks, and heart failure,” the NIH states.

In a 2011 episode, Oz suggested to his audience that endive, red onion and sea bass are anti-cancer foods that could reduce the risk of ovarian cancer by up to 75%.

Three years later, the journal Nutrition and Cancer revisited those claims in a 2014 paper titled “Reality check: no such thing as a miracle food.” The authors noted, for example, that while kaempferol — a flavonoid found in endive — had demonstrated cancer inhibition in lab studies, it was unclear whether those findings would translate to people consuming endive in “usual dietary quantities.” They warned their peers to “be cognizant of the public health messages that are taken from their individual studies.”

Apple juice and arsenic
Oz suggested in a 2011 episode that apple juice contained unsafe levels of arsenic, citing tests from a New Jersey lab. The Food and Drug Administration performed its own tests and found “no evidence of any public health risk from drinking these juices.”

The FDA further said that Oz failed to note whether he was referring to organic or inorganic arsenic — a crucial point, as organic arsenic is not likely to cause harm, while the inorganic can potentially be dangerous. In response, a spokesman for “The Dr. Oz Show” at the time, Tim Sullivan, told CBS News, “We don’t think the show is irresponsible.”

Sullivan said, “We think the public has a right to know what’s in their foods. The position of the show is that the total arsenic needs to be lower.”

A Consumer Reports study published several months later did find that some juice samples had high levels of arsenic, most of which, the study said, was inorganic.

Lavender soap for restless leg syndrome
“I know this sounds crazy, but people put it under their sheets,” Oz said in a 2010 episode of his show, according to Business Insider. “We think the lavender is relaxing and may be itself beneficial.”

A comparatively innocuous claim, to be sure, but nonetheless, the suggestion that placing a bar of lavender soap under the bedsheets can help ease restless leg syndrome is a dubious one, and it was debunked by “Life’s Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience.

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday named Russell Vought, a co-author of Project 2025 who served as a platform policy director for the Republican National Committee, as his pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

In a statement announcing his pick, Trump referred to Vought, who previously held the role in his first term, as "an aggressive cost cutter and deregulator who will help us implement our America First Agenda across all Agencies."

"Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government, and he will help us return Self Governance to the People," Trump said. "We will restore fiscal sanity to our Nation, and unleash the American People to new levels of Prosperity and Ingenuity."

Vought responded to Trump’s nomination in a post to X on Friday night, saying, “Thank you @realDonaldTrump! There is unfinished business on behalf of the American people, and it’s an honor of a lifetime to get the call again.”

In the chapter Vought authored for conservative blueprint Project 2025, he argued the OMB director "should present a fiscal goal to the President early in the budget development process to address the federal government’s fiscal irresponsibility."

"Though some mistakenly regard it as a mere paper-pushing exercise, the President’s budget is in fact a powerful mechanism for setting and enforcing public policy at federal agencies," he wrote.

During an interview with Tucker Carlson posted on X this week, Vought advocated for the president taking greater control over government agencies, saying Trump "has to move executively as fast and as aggressively as possible."

"We have to solve the woke and the weaponized bureaucracy and have the president take control of the executive branch," Vought said. "There may be different strategies with each one of them, about how you dismantle them, but as an administration, the whole notion of an independent agency should be thrown out."

If he is confirmed by the Senate, Vought will oversee budget and the execution of Trump's policies across executive departments and agencies.

Stephen Miller, Trump's expected incoming deputy chief of staff, called Vought a "transformative pick" for the budget office.

"Russ Vought has been the guy for the last four years who’s been developing the plan to take down the deep state," Miller said during a Fox News interview that aired Friday night. "That’s Russ, and he’s going to be right there at OMB to execute that plan. This is, this is really incredible stuff."

Vought previously served as director of the Office of Management during Trump's first term. He assumed the role after working as deputy director and acting director of that office before his Senate confirmation in July 2020.

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday announced he had asked Scott Bessent, a hedge fund executive and top fundraiser to his campaign, to serve as secretary of the Treasury Department.

In a statement regarding his pick, Trump said that Bessent “will help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States.”

“Unlike in past Administrations, we will ensure than no Americans will be left behind in the next and Greatest Economic Boom, and Scott will lead that effort for me,” Trump said.

“Scott will support my Policies that will drive U.S. Competitiveness, and stop unfair Trade imbalances, work to create an Economy that places Growth at the forefront, especially through our coming World Energy Dominance,” he added. “Together, we will Make America Rich Again, Prosperous Again, Affordable Again, and most importantly, Great Again!”

If confirmed by the Senate, Bessent will helm the fiscal policies for an economy that weathered high inflation in recent years, an issue that remained top of mind for many voters who helped send Trump back to the White House in the election earlier this month.

Trump’s pick will be tasked with implementing any tax cuts that a Republican-controlled Congress may pursue. And with Trump proposing aggressive tariffs on imports from countries spanning the globe, the new Treasury Department chief will have to manage relationships with global finance ministers who may choose to retaliate with tariffs of their own.

Bessent currently serves as chief executive and chief investment officer at the New York-based hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, which he founded in 2015.

Before establishing the hedge fund, Bessent was the top investment officer for Soros Fund Management, an investment firm that manages assets for billionaire and liberal megadonor George Soros’ family and their foundations, from 2011 to 2015. Bessent also worked as managing partner of Soros Fund Management’s London office from 1991 to 2000 and taught economic history as an adjunct professor at his alma mater, Yale University, from 2006 to 2010.

During a Fox Business interview after Trump spoke at at the Economic Club of New York in September, Bessent was asked what he liked most about Trump's economic plan.

“I think it’s the melding of economic policy with national security. Economic policy and national security are now inseparable, and Donald Trump understands that,” Bessent said at the time, adding that Trump’s vision was “a formula for independence and energy and manufacturing, for getting our finances in order.”

Some Trump allies had worried that Bessent was insufficiently supportive of the tariff agenda. He suggested the tariff threats are a “maximalist” negotiating strategy to secure better free trade deals, and he has expressed concern about flouting World Trade Organization rules.

He tried to address concerns about his beliefs on tariffs with an op-ed in Fox News late last week. He celebrated tariffs as a policy tool and as a revenue raiser, but he did emphasize using them “strategically” — the same language that President Joe Biden and the Democrats have used on tariffs, and seen by the protectionist wing as not sufficiently supportive of Trump’s goal of universal baseline tariffs.

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday nominated Dr. Marty Makary, a pancreatic surgeon at Johns Hopkins University who's made controversial claims about Covid, as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

Makary is the chief of Islet Transplant Surgery at Johns Hopkins, according to the university’s website. He also served in leadership at the World Health Organization Patient Safety Program and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, which is part of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. He's also served as a public adviser to Paragon Health Institute, a conservative health care think tank, and regularly appears on Fox News.

"FDA has lost the trust of Americans, and has lost sight of its primary goal as a regulator. The Agency needs Dr. Marty Makary, a Highly Respected Johns Hopkins Surgical Oncologist and Health Policy Expert, to course-correct and refocus the Agency," Trump said on Truth Social.

"He will work under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to, among other things, properly evaluate harmful chemicals poisoning our Nation's food supply and drugs and biologics being given to our Nation's youth, so that we can finally address the Childhood Chronic Disease Epidemic," Trump said.

The position requires Senate confirmation. As FDA commissioner, Makary would be responsible for regulating and overseeing drugs, food, medical devices and other products, such as tobacco and cosmetics.

Makary has made some controversial statements in the past, particularly about the pandemic. He said that the federal government was the “greatest perpetrator” of misinformation during the pandemic.

He was a proponent of natural immunity, saying it was "at least" as effective or even better than immunity provided by vaccines, ignoring the risk of infections. He also argued the nation would reach herd immunity by April 2021.

He’s claimed that myocarditis, a rare heart condition, is more common after Covid vaccination than after a Covid infection, a claim which has been debunked by several studies.

In 2023, he also wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal criticizing the Biden administration's decision to recommend the Covid boosters for younger patients who are at lower risk. The idea that young, healthy people don't need additional Covid vaccines is now more widely accepted among the medical community.

If nominated and confirmed, Makary would potentially work under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom Trump has picked for Secretary of Health and Human Services. The FDA is one of 13 agencies that falls under HHS’s purview.

Appearing Sunday on Fox News, Makary defended Kennedy, saying he’s the least “scary” thing happening in the U.S. health care system and people shouldn’t “dissect” things Kennedy’s said “30 years ago.”

“He wants to address corruption in health care and corruption in our government health agencies,” Makary said. “A lot of people don’t like that message and a lot of people are threatened by it.”

Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said Makary isn’t fit for the role of FDA commissioner, given his past comments on Covid and defense of Kennedy.

"He's willing to lie to the American public," Offit said. "Why do we think this someone who should head the FDA?"

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Republican Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon for the job of labor secretary.

Throughout his campaign, Trump made many promises to America's workers — that he would protect their jobs, bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and restore their ability to achieve the American dream. He also proposed ending taxes on tips and overtime. Pieces of this agenda could end up on Chavez-DeRemer's plate.

Lori's strong support from both the Business and Labor communities will ensure that the Labor Department can unite Americans of all backgrounds," Trump wrote in a statement released by his campaign.

In 2022, Chavez-DeRemer was elected to her first term in Congress to represent Oregon's 5th Congressional District, flipping a blue seat to red. Earlier this week, as word spread Chavez-DeRemer could become Trump's pick for labor secretary, the freshman Republican issued a statement on her plans for the role.

In her re-election bid this year, House Speaker Mike Johnson repeatedly campaigned on Chavez-DeRemer's behalf to try to fend off a popular Democratic challenger.

However, she faced headwinds as a blue wave took hold of several down-ballot races in the Pacific Northwest. The freshman Republican member ultimately lost to state lawmaker Janelle Bynum.

Ahead of plans for a new role in the next administration, Chavez-DeRemer wrote on X earlier this week of Trump's success in expanding his working-class coalition.

"This is a true political realignment," she wrote. "We must continue to be the party of the American Worker, with President Trump leading the way!"

In recent days, Teamsters President Sean O'Brien had pushed for Chavez-DeRemer's selection, noting that she is one of only a few Republicans in Congress to have supported the PRO Act, a bill aimed at making it easier for workers to organize unions including by overturning state Right to Work laws, which weaken unions.

On Friday evening, O'Brien thanked Trump for the nomination, posting a photo of himself alongside Trump and Chavez-DeRemer on X.

In her re-election bid this fall, Chavez-DeRemer received the endorsements of a number of unions, including her local Teamsters branch, but ended up losing her seat.

How will unions fare under Trump?
Trump won a sizable amount of support from union workers in the 2024 election. While O'Brien declined to endorse Trump after speaking at the Republican National Convention, he nonetheless signaled a willingness to work with whichever administration addressed issues important to his 1.3 million members.

What remains unclear is how Trump might treat unions. On the campaign trail, he joked with billionaire Elon Musk about firing striking workers and said UAW President Shawn Fain should be fired. Still, some close to Trump, including Vice President-elect JD Vance and Sen. Marco Rubio — his nominee to lead the State Department — have supported organized labor in the past.

While Chavez-DeRemer was seen as the only pro-union candidate among those who were rumored to be under consideration by Trump, it's hard to imagine the Trump administration taking as active a role in high-profile labor disputes as President Biden's picks for the job have done. Most recently, Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su helped broker a deal on wages between ocean carriers and East Coast dockworkers. Those negotiations are ongoing, however. A deadline to reach a final deal comes just five days before the inauguration in January.

Future of Biden-era rules in question
If confirmed, Chavez-DeRemer would be coming into a Labor Department facing numerous legal challenges over rules and regulations issued under Biden.

Already, a federal court in Texas has struck down a rule that expanded overtime to some 4 million additional workers. Others, including one limiting who can be classified as an independent contractor and another aimed at raising the wages of workers on federal construction projects, are also being challenged in federal court.

There's been some expectation in the business community and beyond that the Trump administration would either roll back these rules or decline to defend them in court. It's unclear whether Chavez-DeRemer would support those moves.

President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that he will nominate former White House aide Brooke Rollins to be his agriculture secretary, the last of his picks to lead executive agencies and another choice from within his established circle of advisers and allies.

Rollins, who graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in agricultural development, is a longtime Trump associate who served as his former domestic policy chief. She is president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a group helping to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration.

Rollins, 52, previously served as an aide to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and ran a think tank, the Texas Public Policy.
Foundation.

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen John Phelan, a businessman and investor with no military experience, to become the next secretary of the Navy.

Phelan, if confirmed, would be the first person in 15 years to lead the Navy without having served in any branch of the armed forces.

He told NBC News on Wednesday that he was “greatly honored” to be selected by Trump, and confirmed he has not served, but declined to comment further.

In a statement Tuesday night, Trump touted Phelan’s “record of success” and said Phelan has “excelled in every endeavor,” including founding and leading Rugger Management LLC, a private investment firm based in Palm Beach, Florida.

He also said the Harvard Business School graduate’s “intelligence and leadership are unmatched.”

President-elect Donald Trump said he intends to nominate Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University professor known for his criticism of Covid lockdowns, to serve as the next director of the National Institutes of Health.

In a statement Tuesday, Trump said, "Dr. Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the Nation's Medical Research, and to make important discoveries that will improve Health and save lives."

"We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again and will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again!" he added.

Separately, Trump also said Tuesday that he planned to nominate Jim O’Neill to serve as the deputy secretary of Health and Human Services under Kennedy. O'Neill, a critic of the Food and Drug Administration, held several HHS roles during the Bush administration.

Bhattacharya gained national attention in October 2020, when he co-wrote the "Great Barrington Declaration," an open letter calling on public health officials to roll back Covid lockdowns.

He and his co-authors, Martin Kulldorff of Harvard and Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, argued that the lockdowns were "producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health" and called for an approach that would "allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk."

The proposal, released before vaccines became available, advocated for a concept called "herd immunity," which refers to a level at which a large enough share of a population has been exposed to an infectious disease that it is unlikely to keep spreading.

Many experts spoke up against the concept at the time. Several days after the Great Barrington Declaration came out, 80 researchers from the fields of public health, epidemiology and more published a joint letter in the medical journal The Lancet, calling the idea "a dangerous fallacy."

President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday he will nominate retired Gen. Keith Kellogg to serve as assistant to the president and special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

"Keith has led a distinguished Military and Business career, including serving in highly sensitive National Security roles in my first Administration. He was with me right from the beginning! Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!," Trump said in a statement announcing his decision.

During Trump’s first administration, Kellogg served as Chief of Staff and executive secretary to the National Security Council. He previously served in the military for over 35 years.

Kellogg in April co-authored a policy paper, obtained by NBC News, outlining how he'd seek to end the war in Ukraine, including potentially conditioning U.S. military aid to Kyiv on their participation in peace talks with Russia.

The paper proposed a ceasefire, with Kellogg and co-author Fred Fleitz writing, "Specifically, it would mean a formal U.S. policy to seek a cease-fire and negotiated settlement of the Ukraine conflict. The United States would continue to arm Ukraine and strengthen its defenses to ensure Russia will make no further advances and will not attack again after a cease-fire or peace agreement. Future American military aid, however, will require Ukraine to participate in peace talks with Russia."

In the paper, the two authors seemed to acknowledge that an end to the war was unlikely while Russian President Vladimir Putin was still leading his country.

"Ukraine would not be asked to relinquish the goal of regaining all its territory, but it would agree to use diplomacy, not force, with the understanding that this would require a future diplomatic breakthrough which probably will not occur before Putin leaves office," Kellogg and Fleitz wrote.

The two also explained that it would be hard for Ukraine to accept a peace agreement "that does not give them back all of their territory or, at least for now, hold Russia responsible for the carnage it inflicted on Ukraine."

Asking whether he endorses Kellogg's position paper, the president-elect told NBC News, “I’m the only one who can get the war stopped. It should have never started in the first place." He added that European nations should contribute more aid.