presidential election donald trump As he fills out the remaining members of his Cabinet, he is also reaching out to the ranks of loyalists, aides and television personalities.
On Tuesday, Trump chose celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an agency that manages $1.7 trillion in annual spending for federal programs that insure more than a third of Americans.
Oz, who first came to prominence when he was dubbed “America’s Doctor” on Oprah Winfrey’s daytime television show, is a surgeon with no government experience, although he has considered running for a Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2022 with Trump’s endorsement. Contested elections for.
Trump also chose Linda McMahon, the onetime CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment who was also in charge of the transition and ran the Small Business Administration in his first term, as his nominee for Secretary of Education.
While the announcements were being made, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance was arranging meetings between Republican senators and Matt Gaetz, Trump’s choice to be attorney general, as well as Pete Hegseth, whom he chose to run the Defense Department. According to people familiar with the case.
Vance will square off with two of Trump’s most controversial candidates. hegseth has been accused of sexual harassment, while Gaetz has been investigated for sexual misconduct. Both of them have denied any wrongdoing.
“President Trump’s incoming administration is moving quickly to confirm key nominees to get the job done for the American people,” Brian Hughes, a Trump-Vance transition spokesman, said in a statement.
He said Gaetz, Hegseth, U.N. Ambassador-elect Elise Stefanik and Veterans Affairs Secretary-nominee Doug Collins will all begin meetings on Capitol Hill this week.
Hegseth, a Fox News Channel weekend morning show host and Army National Guard officer, is an unconventional choice for defense secretary, a role that often goes to former military leaders, lawmakers or government officials with decades of experience. If confirmed, he would take charge of the Pentagon at a time of rising tensions in the Middle East and the advance of Russian forces into Ukraine.
Gaetz’s selection as the nation’s top law enforcement official is another polarizing choice. If confirmed, he would be responsible for fulfilling Trump’s pledge to redesign the Justice Department and be on the front lines of a crackdown on urban crime and the mass deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants.
Trump attended the launch of billionaire backer Elon Musk’s Starship rocket in Texas on Tuesday. When the President-elect was asked if he was reconsidering Gaetz’s nomination, he replied “no”.
Here’s how Trump’s transition on Tuesday is playing out:
McMahon was chosen for education
McMahon’s pick for the Education Department would put a Trump loyalist in charge of the massive government agency he has promised to dismantle.
“Linda will use her decades of leadership experience and deep understanding of both education and business to empower the next generation of American students and workers and make America number one in education in the world,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday night. Will do.” ,
The Department of Education has broad responsibilities, including allocating approximately $114 billion in federal student aid annually, investigating allegations of discrimination in schools and colleges, and distributing congressional funding for education.
Trump has promised to end it, a decision that would require congressional approval. He has called for leaving many of its duties to the states, although much of the oversight of K-12 education already rests with local jurisdictions.
Trump has also called for promoting parental rights and expanding access to school choice. He has also proposed giving parents and school boards tools to reward teachers who perform well and punish others, including the ability to fire principals.
The Education Department has long been a target of conservatives, and Trump’s new effort to close or drastically reduce its role comes after it became a flash point for a number of issues impacting the agency in the 2024 election cycle .
Over three decades, McMahon and her husband, Vince McMahon, transformed the family’s professional wrestling organization into the massive World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., which changed the show business landscape and turned them into billionaires.
Along the way, he developed a close relationship with one of the company’s frequent guest stars: Trump, who was a New York real estate mogul at the time.
Linda McMahon was before Trump in the journey from outspoken entertainer to electoral politics. Stepping down as WWE CEO in 2009, he made two unsuccessful bids for the U.S. Senate from Connecticut. She spent $50 million on her 2010 and 2012 campaigns, but lost badly in each race.
Since Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, McMahon has served as president of the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting his political positions.
Vance says Trump is interviewing FBI candidates
Vance suggested in a social media post on Tuesday that Trump might want to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was later fired by the vice president-elect.
In a post on X defending his absence from the Senate vote on judicial nominees, Vance wrote that while “the vote was taking place, I was meeting with President Trump to interview for several positions for our government, including FBI Director. “
He said, “I think it’s more important for Republicans to lose by a 49-46 vote rather than 49-45 to appoint an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state.”
Trump has long clashed with the FBI, including former director James Comey, who launched an investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election Was. Trump fired Comey in 2017 and replaced him with Wray.
Speculation has intensified that the President-elect may look for another FBI chief. Ray’s 10-year term will end in 2027.
Following Trump’s first term, FBI agents raided his Florida Mar-a-Lago club to seize classified documents and documents detailing his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and his involvement in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Examine the role.
Musk defends Gaetz
Earlier on Tuesday, Musk defended Gaetz, who is facing intense scrutiny from Republicans over the House sexual misconduct investigation.
Musk, the world’s richest man and a prominent Trump supporter, wrote in a post on his social media, “Matt Gaetz has 3 key assets needed for the AG role: a big brain, a spine of steel, and a penchant for grinding.” Axe.” Media Platform X.
“He’s the Judge Dredd that America needs to clean up the corrupt system and put powerful bad actors in jail,” he said, referring to a comic book character. “Gaetz will be our hammer of justice.”
Senators from both parties are requesting more information on the House inquiry.
The Justice Department investigated allegations that Gaetz had sex with a minor in exchange for money but decided not to file any charges against him in February 2023. Gaetz has denied the allegations.
Gaetz resigned from Congress days before the Ethics Committee was to deliberate on how to handle the results of its investigation.
Republican Senator John Cornyn, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday that he expects the women who spoke privately with the House Ethics Committee to testify before senators — and that details of the House report will likely come to light one way or another. Will come forward.
The ethics committee, which is under pressure to release its findings, plans to meet on Wednesday. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has urged the panel to keep its findings confidential.
Musk said in another post on X that he considered the allegations against Gaetz to be “worth less than nothing” and that “a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
He also said that current Attorney General Merrick Garland did not seek charges against Gaetz, saying that if he “could have secured a conviction against Gaetz, he would have done so, but he knew he could not do that.” Can.”
border jar warning
Trump’s incoming border czar, Tom Homan, has warned US cities not to back down from efforts to carry out mass deportations of migrants, which the president-elect has promised, vowing to stop those urban Will deploy “double the amount of resources” to areas that oppose those plans.
“If they don’t help us, get out of the way; We’re going to do it,” Homan said on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.” “If they give us access to the jail, that will mean less agents in the community. Not letting go, it just means there will be more agents in the community so they can hurt themselves.
Homan’s comments come a day after Trump confirmed he would use the US military to deport migrants. Homan also reiterated his desire to deputize local law enforcement to help deport immigrants and said he has heard from former military and police officers asking to assist.
–With assistance from Billy House, Steven T. Dennis, Megan Crane, Meghshyam Mali, Daniel Flatley and Stephanie Lai.
