Politics
A running list of all the people Trump has picked to serve in his administration
President-elect Donald Trump has been rolling out staffing decisions for his incoming administration, naming some of his top allies to prominent positions in his Cabinet and beyond.
With a slew of dramatic changes expected in his second termTrump will rely on his band of loyalists to carry out his agenda. Here are all the staffing announcements Trump has made for his second term so far.
Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff
Wiles, who worked on all three of Trump’s presidential campaigns, will be the first woman to hold the position in the Oval Office. But it is a notoriously challenging role under Trump, who cycled through four chiefs of staff in his first term.
Wiles, the 67-year-old daughter of the late NFL legend Pat Summerall, is the only campaign manager to have lasted an entire Trump campaign, according to The New York Times.
Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff for policy
Trump is expected to announce Miller as his deputy chief of staff for policywhich would likely task an immigration hardliner to the job of implementing Trump’s mass deportation plan.
Trump’s team did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for confirmation, but JD Vance, the vice president-elect, appeared to confirm BLN’s reporting of the news in a post on X on Monday.
Miller served as a senior White House adviser in the first Trump administration. He’s widely considered to be one of the chief architects of the first Trump administration’s Muslim travel banwhich sought to restrict U.S. travel and immigration from several countries with large Muslim populations.
Rep. Mike Waltz, national security adviser
Waltz, a Florida Republican, is a Trump loyalist who has echoed Trump’s complaint about a “woke” military. He is a member of the House Armed Services, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees. He also served in the Defense Department during the George W. Bush administration and was a counter-terrorism adviser to then-Vice President Dick Cheney.
Waltz is widely seen as hawkish on China. A member of the House’s China Task Force, he has argued that the U.S. is not sufficiently prepared for a conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
The highly influential role does not require Senate confirmation.
Tom Homan, border czar
Homan, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump, will play a major role in carrying out the president-elect’s hardline immigration agenda.
Trump has repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he would enact “the largest deportation program in American history,” a plan that would pose monumental logistical, financial and personnel challenges. Trump told NBC News last week that there would be no “price tag” on his mass deportation plan.
Earlier this year, Homan said if Trump wins the election, he’d be on Trump’s “heels” and “run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.” Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, Homan — who was significantly involved in the first Trump administration’s family separation policy — said ICE would implement Trump’s deportation program in a “humane manner.”
Rep. Lee Zeldin, Environmental Protection Agency administrator
In a statement released on Nov. 11, Trump said he will appoint Zeldin, a New York Republican, to lead the EPA.
“He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet,” Trump said in his statement.
The president-elect has vowed to roll back President Joe Biden’s climate regulation policies, and he has said he will withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. Zeldin has little experience with environmental regulationbut he has similarly criticized Biden’s climate policies and voted against the Paris accords in the House.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
Stefanik, one of Trump’s staunchest allies in the House, will be nominated as United Nations ambassador.
As my colleague Hayes Brown has pointed out, the New York Republican has little diplomatic experience other than her vocal support for Israel in Congress. She has also criticized the U.N. over the organization’s opposition to Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza.
Mike Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel
Trump announced on Tuesday that he will appoint Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, as ambassador to Israel. “He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him,” Trump said in a statement. “Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!”
Huckabee has been a vocal defender of Israel’s war on Hamas. He has also advocated against a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, saying that Israel should “eradicate them.”
Steven Witkoff, special envoy to the Middle East
Trump picked Witkoff, a New York real estate investor and golf buddy of the president-electto serve as his special envoy to the Middle East.
“Steve is a Highly Respected Leader in Business and Philanthropy, who has made every project and community he has been involved with stronger and more prosperous,” Trump said in a statement announcing his selection.
Witkoff, who is Jewish, helped recruit pro-Israel donors to Trump’s campaign. “I personally received and helped secure large Jewish donors,” he told The Bulwark in May, adding: “[A]nd I’m not talking four-figure donations. I’m talking six-figure and seven-figure donations.”
He is also co-chairing Trump’s inaugural committee alongside former Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, the Trump campaign has said.
John Ratcliffe, CIA director
Trump tapped Ratcliffewho served as the director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, to serve as the head of the CIA in his second administration.
Critics accused Ratcliffe, a former congressman from Texas, of politicizing national intelligence during his time as the DNI.
He is currently a co-chair of the Center for American Security at the Trump-aligned group America First Policy Institute.
Pete Hegseth, Defense secretary
Trump nominated Hegseth, a Fox News host and Army veteran, to lead the Defense Department.
“With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice — Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,” Trump said in a statement. He continued: “Nobody fights harder for the Troops, and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our ‘Peace through Strength’ policy.
The 44-year-old Minnesota native has falsely claimed Democrats created variants of the Covid-19 virus for political purposes.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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Politics
Trump wants the Postal Service to radically overhaul mail voting. But ballots are already going out.
President Donald Trump’s controversial demands for the Postal Service to overhaul and monitor millions of mail ballots hit another snag on Friday, when North Carolina became the first state in the nation to start sending out ballots for the November election.
In March, Trump signed the initial executive order, which aimed to crack down on mail-in voting — which he regularly alleges without evidence is a vector for widespread voter fraud — and assert an unprecedented amount of federal control over the upcoming elections.
Under this order and the subsequent rule drafted by the U.S. Postal Service, the USPS would refuse to deliver ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible mail voters or did not adhere to an approved envelope design style.
Since then, the order has faced legal challenges, and it remains paused by a federal judge’s orders. But the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the new rule to proceed — something current and former election officials from both parties say would be both a legal nightmare that oversteps the federal government’s traditional role in elections and a logistical one that is happening far too close to the November election to implement even if they agreed with it.
“Why the hell are you rocking the boat this late in the game?” said Stephen Richer, a former Republican recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona, who has clashed with Trump allies for defending the security of the 2020 election.
Still, election officials are trying to project a sense of normalcy for voters, particularly in North Carolina, which serves as a test of whether established local election systems can operate normally amid intensifying federal scrutiny.
“I want to emphasize this point because there has been a lot of outside noise: Our county workers are ready,” Sam Hayes, a longtime Republican lawyer in the state and now executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a Thursday afternoon press conference.
He added, “All we can do is what we’re doing. … It is business as usual as far as I’m concerned.”
Despite the legal challenges, the Trump administration has continued to press the courts to let it proceed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift an order from a Massachusetts judge which temporarily prevents the USPS from enforcing their rule. It is the second time the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to step in, after winning an earlier victory in which the high court dismissed an earlier hold on the rule as premature.
“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”
The USPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Election officials said that if the rule goes into effect this close to November, it would cause chaos and place added strain on the USPS and election officials. And an anonymous federal whistleblower said in a report circulated earlier this week by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that the USPS was moving forward in a “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process” to try to implement the new system ahead of the midterms.
In the coming weeks, states across the country will follow North Carolina’s lead. Nine other states will begin mailing ballots in the next two weeks, according to a tracker from the National Conference of State Legislatures — with the biggest day for mailing coming 45 days before the election in mid-September.
“It would be so outrageous to try to let this go into effect. It’s hard to even imagine,” said Ben Hovland, a senior fellow for democracy at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress and former Democratic commissioner with the Election Assistance Commission who was fired by Trump in July.
He added, “It would be a break-glass moment for our democracy.”
The rule would require meticulous changes to ballot handling and tracking practices that Hovland said are impossible to implement before Election Day in about two months, effectively disenfranchising millions of voters.
“Ballots are printed. Envelopes are printed. You can go on and on with all the practical reasons that show that implementing something like this at this time is not feasible,” he said.
Richer said he doubted the new rules would bring about more security. Even if the USPS received lists from the states, according to the postal service’s final rule, it would not do any additional vetting of the list, Richer said.
“It’s just that the mail ballots have to be on that list, and I don’t see what added value for election integrity that does,” he said.
He added, “It creates a lot of administrative burden, and I think it creates a lot more opportunity for error.”
While a decision looms in the courts, election officials and experts cast doubt on the likelihood of the rules going into effect before November. A more pressing issue, they said, is the confusion and uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots, which could subvert and change the behaviors of voters.
“It makes things seem messy or difficult, and it can dissuade people from participating or coming out to vote,” Hovland said. “It certainly also helps establish a pretext to make bad faith claims about election results.”
Hovland said that while none of these claims of voter fraud are backed up with facts, they could cause Americans to lose faith in the voting process.
Still, some current officials contended they were well-prepared for whatever happens — and that they’d be able to communicate effectively with voters who have become increasingly buffeted by dramatic rhetoric about the once-unmentioned nuts and bolts of actually running an election.
“There’s always a lot of noise around elections, that’s not going to change, and it can be hard to differentiate that from what’s actually going on on the ground,” said Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
As Election Day approaches, Tyson and election officials said they urge voters to check their registration status and make a plan to vote.
He added, “I think we’ve got a really well-trained, solid staff who are ready, and who have gone through all of the checks and balances and points of contact that we need to do to get to where we are.”
Missouri’s Supreme Court suspended a congressional map that state Republicans drew last year that would have netted the GOP an additional House seat, likely keeping the seat in Democratic hands this November.
The court ruled unanimously on Thursday that a referendum petition organized by Democrats to put the new congressional maps to a vote was incorrectly deemed insufficient by Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and ordered that the gerrymandered map be put to a vote in the fall.
Voters will ultimately decide the fate of the new lines in November. But in the meantime, it cannot be in place for the midterms, meaning Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s original Kansas City-based district will likely stay in Democrats’ hands this fall.
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