WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — President-elect Donald Trump is filling key posts in his second administration, and it's shaping up much differently than his first. He's prioritizing loyalists for top jobs.
Trump was bruised and hampered by internal squabbles during his initial term in office. Now he appears focused on remaking the federal government in his own image. Reportedly, the president-elect is aiming to announce all of his Cabinet-level picks by Thanksgiving.
Some of his choices could face difficult confirmation battles even with Republicans in control of the U.S. Senate. One candidate, former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump's choice for attorney general, has withdrawn.
Here's a look at whom he has selected so far.
Cabinet nominees:
Housing and Urban Development: Scott Turner
Turner is a former NFL player and White House aide. He ran the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump’s first term in office. Trump, in a statement, credited Turner, the highest-ranking Black person he’s yet selected for his administration, with “helping to lead an Unprecedented Effort that Transformed our Country’s most distressed communities.”
Turner said in a statement shared on X, "Thank you, Mr. President. I am thrilled to continue the outstanding work we began in your last administration at HUD with an incredible team."
Treasury Secretary: Scott Bessent
Bessent, 62, is a former George Soros money manager and an advocate for deficit reduction.
He's the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, after having worked on and off for Soros Fund Management since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary.
He told Bloomberg in August that he decided to join Trump’s campaign in part to attack the mounting U.S. national debt. That would include slashing government programs and other spending.
“This election cycle is the last chance for the U.S. to grow our way out of this mountain of debt without becoming a sort of European-style socialist democracy,” he said then.
Secretary of State: Marco Rubio
Trump named Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to be secretary of state, making the critic-turned-ally his choice for top diplomat.
Rubio, 53, is a noted hawk on China, Cuba and Iran, and was a finalist to be Trump's running mate on the Republican ticket last summer. Rubio is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The announcement punctuates the hard pivot Rubio has made with Trump, whom the senator once called a “con man" during his unsuccessful campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
Their relationship improved dramatically while Trump was in the White House. And as Trump campaigned for the presidency a third time, Rubio cheered his proposals. For instance, Rubio, who more than a decade ago helped craft immigration legislation that included a path to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally, now supports Trump's plan to use the U.S. military for mass deportations.
Director of National Intelligence: Tulsi Gabbard
Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by Trump to be director of national intelligence, another example of Trump prizing loyalty over experience.
Gabbard, 43, was a Democratic House member who unsuccessfully sought the party's 2020 presidential nomination before leaving the party in 2022. She endorsed Trump in August and campaigned often with him this fall, and she's been accused of echoing Russian propaganda.
Gabbard, who has served in the Army National Guard for more than two decades, deploying to Iraq and Kuwait, would come to the role as an outsider compared to her predecessor. The current director, Avril Haines, was confirmed by the Senate in 2021 following several years in a number of top national security and intelligence positions.
Defense Secretary: Pete Hegseth
Hegseth, 44, was a co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends Weekend” and has been a contributor with the network since 2014. He developed a friendship with Trump, who made regular appearances on the show.
Hegseth served in the Army National Guard from 2002 to 2021, deploying to Iraq in 2005 and Afghanistan in 2011. He has two Bronze Stars. However, Hegseth lacks senior military and national security experience. If confirmed by the Senate, he would inherit the top job during a series of global crises — ranging from Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ongoing attacks in the Middle East by Iranian proxies to the push for a cease-fire between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and escalating worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea.
Hegseth is also the author of “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” published earlier this year.
Attorney General: Pam Bondi
Bondi, 59, has been tapped by Trump to be Attorney General after U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration.
She was Florida's first female attorney general serving between 2011 and 2019. She was on Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment trial in 2020.
Considered a loyalist, she has served as part of a Trump-allied outside group that has helped lay the groundwork for his future administration called the America First Policy Institute.
Bondi was among a group of Republicans who showed up to support Trump at his hush money criminal trial in New York that ended in May with a conviction on 34 felony counts. A fierce defender of Trump, she also frequently appears on Fox News and has been a critic of the criminal cases against him.
Labor Secretary: Lori Chavez-DeRemer
Oregon Republican U.S. Rep. Chavez-DeRemer narrowly lost her reelection bid earlier this month, but received strong backing from union members in her district.
As a potential labor secretary, Chavez-DeRemer would oversee the Labor Department’s workforce, its budget and put forth priorities that impact workers’ wages, health and safety, ability to unionize, and employer’s rights to fire employers, among other responsibilities.
Chavez-DeRemer is one of few House Republicans to endorse the “Protecting the Right to Organize” or PRO Act would allow more workers to conduct organizing campaigns and would add penalties for companies that violate workers’ rights. The act would also weaken “right-to-work” laws that allow employees in more than half the states to avoid participating in or paying dues to unions that represent workers at their places of employment.
Commerce Secretary: Howard Lutnick
Lutnick heads up the brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and is a cryptocurrency enthusiast. He is co-chair of Trump's transition operation, charged along with Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive who previously led Trump’s Small Business Administration, with helping the president-elect build a Cabinet for his second administration.
As commerce secretary, Lutnick would play a key role in carrying out Trump's plans to raise and enforce tariffs. He would oversee a sprawling Cabinet department whose oversight ranges from funding new computer chip factories and imposing trade restrictions to releasing economic data and monitoring the weather.
Homeland Security Secretary: Kristi Noem
Noem is a well-known conservative who used her two terms as South Dakota's governor to vault to a prominent position in Republican politics.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Noem did not order restrictions that other states had issued and instead declared her state “open for business.” Trump held a fireworks rally at Mount Rushmore in July 2020 in one of the first large gatherings of the pandemic.
More recently, Noem faced sharp criticism for telling a story in her memoir about shooting and killing her dog.
She is set to lead a department crucial to the president-elect’s hardline immigration agenda as well as other missions. Homeland Security oversees natural disaster response, the U.S. Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration agents who work at airports.
CIA Director: John Ratcliffe
Ratcliffe, a former U.S. House member from Texas, was director of national intelligence during the final year and a half of Trump’s first term, leading the U.S. government’s spy agencies during the coronavirus pandemic.
If confirmed, Ratcliffe will have held the highest intelligence positions in the U.S.
Health and Human Services Secretary: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy ran for president as a Democrat, then as an independent, and then endorsed Trump. He's the son of Democratic icon Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated during his own presidential campaign.
The nomination alarmed people who are concerned about his record of spreading unfounded fears about vaccines. For example, he has long advanced the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism.
Transportation Secretary: Sean Duffy
Duffy is a former House member from Wisconsin who was one of Trump's most visible defenders on cable news. Duffy served in the House for nearly nine years, sitting on the Financial Services Committee and chairing the subcommittee on insurance and housing. He left Congress in 2019 for a TV career and has been the host of “The Bottom Line” on Fox Business.
Before entering politics, Duffy was a reality TV star on MTV, where he met his wife, “Fox and Friends Weekend” co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy. They have nine children.
Veterans Affairs Secretary: Doug Collins
Collins is a former Republican congressman from Georgia who gained recognition for defending Trump during his first impeachment trial, which centered on U.S. assistance for Ukraine. Trump was impeached for urging Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden in 2019 during the Democratic presidential nomination, but he was acquitted by the Senate.
Collins has also served in the armed forces himself and is currently a chaplain in the United States Air Force Reserve Command.
Energy Secretary: Chris Wright
A campaign donor and CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, Write is a vocal advocate of oil and gas development, including fracking — a key pillar of Trump’s quest to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market.
Wright also has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change. He said the climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight.” The Energy Department is responsible for advancing energy, environmental and nuclear security of the United States.
Wright also won support from influential conservatives, including oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm. Hamm, executive chairman of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources, a major shale oil company, is a longtime Trump supporter and adviser who played a key role on energy issues in Trump’s first term.
Education Secretary: Linda McMahon
McMahon, a billionaire professional wrestling mogul, would be making a return appearance in a second Trump administration. She led the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019 during Trump’s first term and twice ran unsuccessfully in Connecticut as a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. She served on the Connecticut Board of Education for a year starting in 2009 and has spent years on the board of trustees for Sacred Heart University. She has expressed support for charter schools and school choice.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator: Lee Zeldin
Zeldin does not appear to have any experience in environmental issues, but is a longtime supporter of the former president. The 44-year-old former U.S. House member from New York wrote on X, “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI.”
“We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water,” he added.
During his campaign, Trump often attacked the Biden administration’s promotion of electric vehicles, and incorrectly referred to a tax credit for EV purchases as a government mandate. Trump also often told his audiences during the campaign that his administration would “drill, baby, drill,” referring to his support for expanded petroleum exploration.
White House staff:
Chief of Staff: Susie Wiles
Wiles, 67, was a senior adviser to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and its de facto manager.
She has a background in Florida politics, helping Ron DeSantis win his first race for Florida governor. Six years later, she was key to Trump’s defeat of him in the 2024 Republican primary.
Wiles’ hire was Trump’s first major decision as president-elect and one that could be a defining test of his incoming administration considering her close relationship with him. Wiles is said to have earned Trump’s trust in part by guiding what was the most disciplined of Trump’s three presidential campaigns.
Wiles was able to help keep Trump on track as few others have, not by criticizing his impulses, but by winning his respect by demonstrating his success after taking her advice.
National Security Adviser: Mike Waltz
Waltz is a three-term Republican congressman from east-central Florida. A former Army Green Beret, he served multiple tours in Afghanistan and also worked in the Pentagon as a policy adviser when Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates were defense chiefs.
He is considered hawkish on China, and called for a U.S. boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing due to its involvement in the origin of COVID-19 and its mistreatment of the minority Muslim Uighur population.
Border Czar: Tom Homan
Homan, 62, has been tasked with Trump’s top priority of carrying out the largest deportation operation in the nation’s history.
He led the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Trump's first administration and said at a conference over the summer that he would be willing to “run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”
Democrats have criticized Homan for 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.
White House Press Secretary: Karoline Leavitt
Leavitt, 27, was Trump's campaign press secretary and currently a spokesperson for his transition. She would be the youngest White House press secretary in history.
Leavitt worked in the White House press office during Trump's first term.
In 2022, she ran for Congress in New Hampshire, winning a 10-way Republican primary before losing to Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas.
White House Counsel: William McGinley
McGinley was White House Cabinet secretary during Trump's first administration, and was outside legal counsel for the Republican National Committee's election integrity effort during the 2024 campaign.
Food and Drug Administration: Dr. Marty Makary
Makary is a Johns Hopkins surgeon and author who argued against pandemic lockdowns. During the pandemic, he routinely appeared on Fox News and wrote opinion articles questioning masks for children. He cast doubt on vaccine mandates but supported vaccines generally. He also cast doubt on whether booster shots worked, which was against federal recommendations on the vaccine.
He authored “Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health.”
Surgeon General: Dr. Janette Nesheiwat
Nesheiwat is a general practitioner who serves as medical director for CityMD, a network of urgent care centers in New York and New Jersey. And she's a contributor on Fox News.
Director of U.S. Centers for Disease Control: Dr. Dave Weldon
Weldon recently ran for a Florida state legislative seat and lost; Trump backed the other candidate to win.
He also spent many years as a Florida Congressman and weighed in on one of the nation’s most heated debates of the 1990s over quality of life and a right to die and whether Terri Schiavo, who was in a persistent vegetative after cardiac arrest, state should have been allowed to have her feeding tube removed. He sided with the parents who did not want it removed.
WITHDRAWN:
Matt Gaetz for Attorney General
Gaetz, 42, withdrew from consideration to become the top law enforcement officer of the United States amid fallout over a federal sex trafficking investigation that cast doubt on his ability to be confirmed by the Senate.
Trump had announced Gaetz as his choice for attorney general on Nov. 13, passing over more established lawyers whose names had been floated as possible contenders for the job.
Gaetz resigned from Congress after Trump announced him. The House Ethics Committee has been investigating an allegation that he paid for sex with a 17-year-old.
Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.