WASHINGTON DC: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is moving quickly to fill his nascent administration with Republican officials who have been the most politically loyal to him in the four years he was out of office.
Trump, according to various U.S. news accounts, has decided to name Florida Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state, the country’s top diplomat, and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as the Homeland Security chief.
Both Rubio and Noem were on Trump’s short list of possible vice-presidential running mates several months ago.
While Trump later picked first-term Ohio Senator JD Vance, now the vice president-elect, to join him on the Republican national ticket, both Rubio and Noem remained Trump stalwarts as he easily won the election last week over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump announced he is nominating former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to serve as CIA director.
Ratcliffe was the nation’s sixth DNI, serving during the last eight months of the Trump administration.
Trump also announced on Tuesday that he has chosen William McGinley as White House counsel.
Trump also has settled on Michael Waltz, a Florida congressman, as his national security adviser.
Waltz earlier this year supported a long-shot Republican legislative effort to rename Washington’s international airport for Trump.
Trump on Monday also named Thomas Homan, his former acting immigration chief, to be his “border czar” to head efforts to deport undocumented migrants living in the U.S., possibly millions, back to their home countries.
News accounts reported that Stephen Miller, another vocal anti-migrant adviser who served in Trump’s first term, would be named as Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy.
The president-elect picked another ardent supporter, Elise Stefanik, a New York congresswoman, as the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He nominated former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel.
Just ahead of the election, Trump, who only rarely publicly admits making any mistakes, told podcaster Joe Rogan that his biggest error during his term from 2017 to 2021 was hiring “bad people, or disloyal people.”
“I picked some people that I shouldn’t have picked,” he said.
Some of the top officials Trump chose then, including former chief of staff John Kelly and national security adviser John Bolton, became sharp public Trump critics after he ousted them.
Trump is heading to Washington on Wednesday to meet with President Joe Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election, about the transfer of power when Trump is inaugurated on January 20. Trump is also planning to meet with Republicans in the House of Representatives.
(VOA)
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