We’ll see how much effort I put into keeping this up…

Who Did Trump Appoint to What?

Politico has a tracker!

• Department of Government Efficiency
  • Elon Musk & Vivek Ramaswamy
  • NOTE: The Department of Government Efficiency will not be a federal agency in the U.S. government but will provide advice and guidance “outside of government” and partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget.
• Secretary of State
  • Marco Rubio :: who has served in the Senate since 2011, holds hardline views on many foreign policy issues when it comes to Iran and Cuba but has championed maintaining international alliances that Trump remains skeptical of, such as NATO.
• Chief of Staff
  • Susie Wiles :: has a background in Florida politics. She helped 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.
• Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
  • Stephen Miller :: was a vocal spokesperson during the presidential campaign for Trump’s priority of mass deportations. The 39-year-old was a senior adviser during Trump’s first administration, and has been a central figure in some of Trump’s policy decisions, notably his move to separate thousands of immigrant families.
• Defense Secretary
  • Pete Hegseth :: co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” and has been a contributor with the network since 2014, who also lacks senior military or national security experience.
• Homeland Security Secretary
  • Kristi Noem :: remember that South Dakota governor that shot her dog? Yeah, her. In addition to key immigration agencies, the Department of Homeland Security oversees natural disaster response, the U.S. Secret Service, and Transportation Security Administration agents who work at airports.
• Attorney General
  • Matt Gaetz :: uh… the guy once being investigated for underage sex trafficking? Cool. Cool cool.
• White House Counsel
  • William 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.
• CIA Director
  • John Ratcliffe :: a former Texas congressman who served as director of national intelligence during his first administration.
• Special Envoy to the Middle East
  • Steven Witkoff :: is the president-elect’s golf partner and was golfing with him at Trump’s club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15, when the former president was the target of a second attempted assassination.
• Ambassador to Israel
  • Mike Huckabee :: ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination in 2008 and 2016, has been a popular figure among evangelical Christian conservatives, many of whom support Israel due to Old Testament writings that Jews are God’s chosen people and that Israel is their rightful homeland.
• National Security Adviser
  • Mike Waltz :: a retired Army National Guard officer and war veteran, is a three-term GOP congressman from east-central Florida. 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.
• “Border Czar”
  • Tom Homan :: who served under Trump in his first administration leading U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
• UN Ambassador
  • Elise Stefanik :: was selected by her GOP House colleagues as House Republican Conference chair in 2021, when former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney was removed from the post after publicly criticizing Trump for falsely claiming he won the 2020 election.
• Environmental Protection Agency
  • Lee Zeldin :: former New York Rep, does not appear to have any experience in environmental issues.

Trump’s Plan for Government Agencies

From Government Executive, Washington Post, (read these), but here’s what’s bothering me out the gate…

• Department of Education
  • Put simply, Trump wants to eliminate the department. Education has been in the crosshairs of numerous politicians since its creation in 1980. President Reagan pledged to eliminate it, as have Republican lawmakers ever since in numerous failed bills. Trump’s Education secretary in his first term, Betsy DeVos, said after her tenure the agency she led “should not exist.”
  • It administers federal grant programs, including the $18.4 billion Title I program that provides supplemental funding to high-poverty K-12 schools, as well as the $15.5 billion program that helps cover the cost of education for students with disabilities. The department oversees the $1.6 trillion federal student loan program and sets rules for what colleges must do to participate.
  • And the agency is charged with enforcing civil rights laws that bar discrimination in federally funded schools on the basis of race, sex and other factors. The Biden administration has used that power, for instance, to prohibit schools from discriminating against students on the basis of gender identity. Trump could do the same in the opposite direction, perhaps barring schools from allowing trans girls and women to compete on women’s sports teams.