DDonald Trump’s second administration is beginning to take shape amid extremist appointments and concerns about how far the country will move to the right, while Republicans will control the White House and likely both houses of Congress.
Candidates range from close associates of President Trump to Elon Musk, the world’s richest tech mogul. Alongside plutocrats and technocrats, there are hard-line ideologues on immigration and foreign policy, as well as controversial figures such as vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
On Thursday, President Trump made his first appointment, naming co-campaign chair Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff. Trump gleefully praised Wiles, 67, as “tough, smart, innovative…widely admired and respected” and named her “the first female chief of staff in U.S. history.” did.
Wiles, the daughter of NFL legend Pat Summerall, has been working on Republican campaigns since the days of Ronald Reagan. But she faces a thankless task. The Chief of Staff is a highly demanding role that is both gatekeeper and advisor. President Trump’s first four-year term included four people: Reince Priebus, John Kelly, Mick Mulvaney, and Mark Meadows. None of them prospered. Before this year’s election, Mr. Kelly went on record to say that Mr. Trump praised Adolf Hitler and even met the “general definition of a fascist.”
In public, Wiles is a woman of few words. On election night, Trump called her an “ice baby” in his victory speech.
The Trump transition team includes Howard Lutnick, CEO of financial giant Cantor Fitzgerald, and World Wrestling Entertainment promoter Linda McMahon, who led the Small Business Administration during the first term of the Trump administration. will serve as co-chair. As usual, there is speculation about the top job. The attorney general’s role is perhaps attracting the most attention, given campaign promises such as mass deportation of illegal immigrants and amnesty for the January 6 rioters.
Mike Davis, an attorney and former Senate aide, has always been linked to this role. This week, Davis made headlines by threatening New York Attorney General Letitia James, who filed a successful civil lawsuit against Trump and his company and said she would “fight back” if Trump returned to power. Decorated.
“Let me tell you this, Big Tish James,” Davis told podcaster Benny Johnson. “We want President Trump to continue his work in the courts in his second term. Because listen, sweetheart, we’re not going to play around this time. And we’re going to hold your court on charges of conspiracy against rights. I’ll put your fat ass in jail, I promise you.”
Davis also called for “pardons and a list of reductions” for Jan. 6 conspiracy theorists, saying of President Trump’s opponents: (Legal, political, and economic, of course.)
Davis, who was hailed by Donald Trump Jr. as “the tip of the spear to protect my father” and “exactly the type of warrior you want in a second Trump administration,” will ensure that both criminal charges against Trump are dismissed. That seems certain, and he was found guilty on 34 charges in a hush-money trial in New York.
But Davis himself acknowledged that he acted intentionally outrageous, telling Politico: I’m clearly trolling them. ” The Guardian understands that Davis has communicated publicly and privately to allies that he does not want to be attorney general, and that his feelings have been conveyed to Trump.
Many observers are looking to Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who was actively involved in President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, to be attorney general. Other candidates include John Ratcliffe, Trump’s former director of national intelligence, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who, like Trump, was impeached and indicted as a magnet for scandal.
Officials advised careful consideration of names discussed as candidates for deputy attorney general, given the DAG’s role in the day-to-day operations of the Department of Justice. Among them was Mark Paoletta, a hardline Catholic lawyer close to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, right-wing activist Ginny Thomas. Paoletta, who served as general counsel for the Office of Management and Budget during the first Trump administration, has also been linked to the top job.
Other numbers for the first-term government are related to the role of the second-term government. Many have links to Project 2025, a policy planning effort coordinated by the far-right group the Heritage Foundation, which produced a 900-page Mandate for Leadership outlining extreme proposals.
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The chapter’s authors include current candidates vying for Trump’s job, Christopher Miller, who served as acting defense secretary at the time of the Capitol attack. Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump administration. Trade adviser Peter Navarro was jailed for contempt of Congress. Roger Severino is a former senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services.
President Trump has said he intends to give Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a key role in health policy, as a sort of “emperor,” if not as secretary of health. Kennedy ran for president as an independent before endorsing Trump. He is also a vaccine conspiracy theorist and supporter of removing fluoride from public drinking water, positions that have alarmed public health advocates.
After President Trump indicated he was open to President Kennedy’s desire to ban vaccines, Eric Feigldin, a professor and epidemiologist at the New England Complex Systems Institute, said: To protect lives from preventable diseases. ”
Musk, the owner of X Corp., Tesla Inc. and SpaceX Inc., has supported the Trump campaign and said he expects to play a role in cutting the federal budget. Less wealthy figures who are likely to be influential as advisers, even if not appointed to the cabinet, include far-right immigration hawk Stephen Miller. Kash Patel, who completed President Trump’s first term at the Pentagon. And Johnny McEntee went from being a “body man” to being the architect of the first President Trump’s purge.
President Trump is believed to be considering Christopher Miller, a former special forces officer and author of Project 2025, for secretary of defense, and Miller’s actions (or lack thereof) on January 6th It was being scrutinized by a House of Commons inquiry committee. The Pentagon slots also include Mike Walz, a Florida congressman and former Green Beret, and Mike Pompeo, a military officer, congressman, and former CIA director and secretary of state.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who ran against President Trump for the Republican nomination in 2016, is widely considered a likely candidate for Secretary of State. “I’ve always been interested in serving this country,” Rubio told CNN this week.
Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee senator and former ambassador to Japan, is also reportedly being considered as President Trump’s top diplomat. Richard Grenell, former ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence, is also reportedly aspiring for the role. Fox News reported that Grenell could become national security adviser. Robert O’Brien, the sixth and final person to serve in the role during President Trump’s first term, is also a possible candidate to return. Elise Stefanik, a New Yorker and Republican House leader, is reportedly in the running to become ambassador to the United Nations.
A number of plutocrats are in the running for Treasury secretary, including hedge fund billionaire John Paulson. Robert Lighthizer, a retired military officer whose last role was as U.S. trade representative, is also likely to take on a key position given President Trump’s obsession with China and tariffs. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who was being considered as a running mate before President Trump selected Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, is reportedly a good choice for Interior secretary.
Amid continued speculation about President Trump’s plans, sources told the Guardian that Project 2025 is deeply worrying to progressives who want to purge federal workers and attack minority rights. , told us to keep in mind that this is probably a red herring, a new version of government. A policy plan developed by the Heritage Foundation starting during the Reagan administration, but never fully implemented.
The America First Policy Institute, founded by Stephen Miller and chaired by McMahon, is more closely involved in transition planning. AFPI also includes former acting Secretary of Homeland Security and current candidate Chad Wolf.
Mass deportations and encampment of immigrants were a key part of President Trump’s pitch. On the campaign trail, Trump spoke favorably of Tom Homan, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Homan, a Heritage Fellow and author of Project 2025, said at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer, “Joe Biden has a message for the millions of illegal aliens he has allowed into the country in violation of federal law.” “There is,” he said. house. “
Homan also attended a white supremacist conference hosted by Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and Hitler admirer who dined with Trump and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago in 2022. It is reported that he accepted the invitation.
On Thursday, Homan told Fox News that he had “not been politically active and had never sought a cabinet position” and had not received any offers. But “I know if President Trump needs help securing the border, which I’m standing by. If he needs help with a deportation operation, I’m standing by.”
