Donald Trump, the president-elect, concentrates on selecting the advisers and supporters who supported him the most during the 2024 campaign.
President-elect Donald Trump is beginning to appoint people to important positions in his second government, with a focus thus far on aides and allies who supported him most during the 2024 campaign.
Here is a list of the people he has chosen thus far:
The head of staff, Susie Wiles
Wiles, 67, served as the de facto manager and senior advisor for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Wiles has political experience in Florida. She contributed to Ron DeSantis’ victory in his first Florida gubernatorial campaign. She played a crucial role in Trump’s loss in the 2024 Republican primary six years later.
Given her personal relationship with the president-elect, Wiles’ appointment was Trump’s first significant move as president-elect and could prove to be a defining test of his future government. According to reports, Wiles helped lead what was the most orderly of Trump’s three presidential campaigns, which helped him gain Trump’s trust.
Few people have been able to help keep Trump on course like Wiles did, not by criticizing his whims but by gaining his respect by showing him how successful he was after following her advise.
‘Border czar’ Tom Homan
Homan, 62, has been assigned to carry out the biggest deportation operation in the history of the country, which is Trump’s top priority.
It was generally anticipated that Homan, who oversaw US Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s first administration, would be offered a job pertaining to the border, a topic that Trump made a major campaign concern.
Homan has long been a devoted follower of Trump’s policy initiatives, even though he has maintained that such a large project would be compassionate. In July, he suggested at a conference in Washington that he would be willing to “run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”
Ambassador Elise Stefanik of the United Nations
New York Representative Stefanik has been one of Trump’s most ardent supporters since his initial impeachment.
Stefanik was chosen by her Republican House colleagues to serve as the chair of the House Republican Conference in 2021 after being elected to the House in 2014.
Since then, the 40-year-old Stefanik has been the third-ranking member of the House leadership.
As Trump promises to put a stop to the bloodshed in Ukraine, if confirmed, she would speak for American interests at the UN. As Israel continues its assault in occupied Gaza and Lebanon, she has also advocated for peace.
Stephen Miller, policy deputy chief of staff
During the presidential campaign, Miller, an immigration hardliner, was a strong advocate for Trump’s mass deportation agenda. During the first Trump administration, the 39-year-old served as a senior adviser.
Throughout the campaign, Trump said that deporting undocumented immigrants from the US would help the country achieve its social, economic, and national security goals.
Miller has been head of America First Legal, a group of former Trump advisers that challenges the Biden administration, media outlets, academic institutions, and others on matters including free speech and national security, since Trump stepped down in 2021.
Environmental Protection Agency’s Lee Zeldin
Lee Zeldin, a former representative from New York, has been appointed by Trump to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
Despite being a lifelong supporter of the former president, Zeldin doesn’t seem to have any experience with environmental issues. “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalise our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI,” the 44-year-old former New York member of the US House wrote on X. “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water,” he stated.
In a statement, Trump stated that Zeldin “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.”