President-elect has become particularly reliant on his Donald Jr for advice, sources tell Reuters
Donald Trump Jr has emerged as the family’s most influential adviser of the moment as his father builds the most controversial cabinet in modern US history, sources close to Donald Trump’s eldest son say.
Trump Jr has in some cases promoted inexperienced loyalists over more qualified candidates for top positions in president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration.
Continue reading...Choice of president of America First Policy Institute completes top cabinet picks for president-elect
Donald Trump has chosen Brooke Rollins, president of the America First Policy Institute, to be agriculture secretary.
“As our next Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke will spearhead the effort to protect American Farmers, who are truly the backbone of our Country,” the US president-elect said in a statement.
Continue reading...Trump’s former national security adviser says Gorka is the ‘worst cabinet appointment in recent American history’
Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton has laid into Sebastian Gorka, the president-elect’s pick for counter-terrorism chief, as a “conman” whose selection is not “going to bode well for counter-terrorism efforts when the [national security council’s] senior director is somebody like that”.
Trump praised Gorka, an immigrant from Hungary, as a “tireless advocate for the America First Agenda and the MAGA Movement”.
Continue reading...Russell Vought led the Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term and is pushing for a workaround to install president-elect’s picks
Even before Donald Trump tapped Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for a second time, Vought’s thinktank had gotten to work in recent weeks lobbying for recess appointments – a means by which Trump could attempt to circumvent the US Senate’s confirmation process.
Vought, who served as director of the OMB during Trump’s first term and of the thinktank he launched in 2021, is advocating for the archaic method to install Trump’s nominees, including Vought himself and some of Trump’s most heavily criticized picks.
Continue reading...President-elect picks Fox News personalities and key loyalists as he looks to fill crucial agency and advisory roles
In a flurry of announcements late Friday evening, Donald Trump released his picks for some of the most important agency and advisory roles in the country, further revealing his preference for Fox News personalities and those that are loyal to him.
Continue reading...Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessent, commerce and Treasury nominees respectively, are sure to ignore economist’s warnings and follow Trump’s lead
Certain events happen during every presidential campaign. The parties crown their candidates. The candidates debate on live TV, with millions watching. Tens of millions heads to the polls. And at some point in this process, Jamie Dimon will be tipped as the next Treasury secretary.
Sure enough, the veteran boss of JPMorgan Chase – Wall Street’s de facto ambassador to the world – was, indeed, linked with the role this time around as the Kamala Harris and Donald Trump campaigns mulled their options in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential election.
Continue reading...Job is one of most powerful in Washington with huge influence over US economy and financial markets
Donald Trump nominated Scott Bessent, a longtime hedge-fund investor who taught at Yale University for several years, to be his treasury secretary, a statement from Trump confirmed on Friday. The job is one of the most powerful in Washington, with huge influence over America’s gigantic economy and financial markets.
The move to select Bessent is the latest as the president-elect starts to pull together the administration for his second term in the White House. The process so far has been marked largely by a focus more on personal and political loyalty to Trump than expertise and experience.
Continue reading...Vought, who led Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term, deeply involved in rightwing manifesto
Donald Trump has chosen Russ Vought, a key architect of Project 2025, the controversial conservative plan to overhaul the government, to be director of the US Office of Management and Budget, a powerful agency that helps decide the president’s policy priorities and how to pay for them.
Vought, who was OMB chief during Trump’s first term, would play a major role in setting budget priorities and implementing Trump’s campaign promise to roll back government regulations.
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In a new interview on Friday, Matt Gaetz revealed that he will not be returning to Congress next year.
Speaking to conservative talk show host Charlie Kirk, Gaetz, who withdrew his attorney general nomination yesterday, said:
“I’m still going to be in the fight, but it’s going to be from a new perch. I do not intend to join the 119th Congress,” CNN reports.
“There are a number of fantastic Floridians who’ve stepped up to run for my seat, people who have inspired with their heroism, with their public service. And I’m actually excited to see northwest Florida go to new heights and have great representation… I’m going to be fighting for President Trump. I’m going to be doing whatever he asks of me, as I always have. But I think that eight years is probably enough time in the United States Congress.”
“While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition.”
Continue reading...Karl Rove says in Wall Street Journal that Trump has ‘created chaos and controversy’ before he’s even in office
As Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump’s first nominee for attorney general, withdrew after eight days amid allegations of sexual misconduct and more, and as Trump’s new pick, Pam Bondi, faced scrutiny of her own, a leading Republican strategist rebuked the president-elect for bringing “chaos” back to Washington.
“Inadequate vetting, impatience, disregard for qualifications and a thirst for revenge have created chaos and controversy for Mr Trump before he’s even in office,” said Karl Rove, once known as George W Bush’s “Brain”, in the Wall Street Journal.
Continue reading...Former German chancellor says politics should govern the social balance between powerful and ordinary citizens
Angela Merkel, who in her new memoir raises fears for the western democratic order with Donald Trump as US president, has also expressed deep concerns about the outsized role to be played in Trump’s administration by Elon Musk.
The former German chancellor, who during Trump’s first term was given by some observers the designation of “leader of the free world” usually reserved for US presidents, said 16 years in power had taught her that business and political interests must be kept in fine balance.
Continue reading...Ex-Florida attorney general is longtime Trump ally and was one of his lawyers during first impeachment trial
Donald Trump announced that he would nominate for attorney general Pam Bondi, the former Florida state attorney general, hours after the former representative Matt Gaetz withdrew in the face of opposition from Senate Republicans who had balked over a series of sexual misconduct allegations.
The move to name Bondi reflected Trump’s determination to install a loyalist as the nation’s top law enforcement official and marked another instance of Trump putting his personal lawyers in the justice department.
Continue reading...The fall of the Florida congressman who was accused of sexual misconduct proves there is one rule for Trump and another for everyone else
When he ran for US president in 2016, Donald Trump boasted that he would “surround myself only with the best and most serious people”, adding: “We want top-of-the-line professionals.”
Second time around, Trump appears to have quality control issues. On Thursday Matt Gaetz, his pick to be attorney general, withdrew from consideration amid allegations including sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl, drug use and misappropriating campaign funds.
Continue reading...Gaetz’s withdrawal comes amid intense scrutiny of allegations of sexual misconduct against cabinet nominee
Matt Gaetz, the former Florida congressman, withdrew from consideration to serve as Donald Trump’s attorney general on Thursday, amid intense scrutiny of allegations of sexual misconduct, ending the brief nomination of one of Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks.
After meeting with senators on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Gaetz determined that his nomination was “becoming a distraction to the critical work” of the new Trump administration, he explained on X.
Continue reading...In a Washington farce for the ages, the far-right Republican has withdrawn from consideration for US attorney general – how did it happen?
Donald Trump decided to nominate Matt Gaetz as attorney general last Wednesday, during a flight home from Washington, where the president-elect had visited Joe Biden at the White House. The pick proved as surprising as it was controversial. Just eight days later, after a week of relentless hullabaloo, Gaetz withdrew from contention.
It was a Washington farce for the ages. But how did it happen?
Continue reading...Democrat Susan Wild says committee chair Michael Guest mischaracterized meeting and committee will reconvene in December; Markary opposed Covid vaccine mandates
The Federal Reserve must not remove Wells Fargo’s $1.95tn asset cap until the bank has fixed its risk management and compliance issues, top Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren told the US central bank on Wednesday, reports Reuters.
In a letter to Fed chair, Jerome Powell, and the central bank’s regulatory chief, Michael Barr, Warren said the Fed must reject Wells Fargo reported appeal to have the punishment imposed in 2018 lifted until it “can show that it can properly manage the risks associated with running a large bank”.
Continue reading...Panel met on Wednesday but didn’t reach a decision on releasing the report on Trump’s controversial AG pick
The House ethics committee deadlocked on releasing a report examining allegations of sexual misconduct against Matt Gaetz, the former Republican representative and Donald Trump’s choice to lead the US justice department, after the panel met behind closed doors on Wednesday.
Emerging from the meeting after roughly two hours, most members of the panel declined to offer details on their discussion, but the Republican chair, Michael Guest, told reporters that there was “not an agreement by the committee to release the report”.
Continue reading...Dr Oz, best known for his daytime talkshow, leaned heavily into Trumpism during his failed 2022 run for US Senate
Donald Trump has chosen Mehmet Oz, best known for starring in his eponymous daytime talkshow for more than a decade and leaning heavily into Trumpism during his failed 2022 run for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The cardiothoracic surgeon, who faced immense backlash from the medical and scientific communities for pushing misinformation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, will oversee the agency that operates on a $2.6tn annual budget and provides healthcare to more than 100 million people.
“I am honored to be nominated by [Donald Trump] to lead CMS,” Oz posted on X on Tuesday. “I look forward to serving my country to Make America Healthy Again under the leadership of HHS Secretary [Robert F Kennedy Jr].”
Continue reading...Billionaire and former Senate candidate served in president-elect’s cabinet in first administration
Linda McMahon, co-chair of Donald Trump’s transition team, has been named as the president-elect’s pick for education secretary in his upcoming administration.
In a statement, Trump extolled the “incredible” job McMahon, the billionaire co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), has been doing as transition team co-chair and said: “As Secretary of Education, Linda will fight tirelessly to expand ‘Choice’ to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families. … We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort.”
Continue reading...Some experts liken tariffs to a game of whack-a-mole, with trade flows simply rerouted if the potential rewards are big enough
Businesses are bracing for the economic impact of a second Trump presidency, which, if his campaign promises are to be believed, will mean tariffs across nearly all imports to the US, especially those from China.
But amid the gloom over the spectre of a renewed global trade war, some manufacturers may be looking to those who already have a playbook on dealing with aggressive US levies, such as China’s solar companies.
Continue reading...