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Nominations So far, Trump has named the people listed below to cabinet and White House positions as well as ambassadorships. It remains to be seen if the Senate will hold confirmation hearings. Some of them contributed to Project 2025, are members of the American First Policy Institute or both, as noted. Last updated 12/16/2024. |
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| National Security and Defense | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominee | Position | Confirmation Required | Hearing Date | Additional Information | |
| Pete Hegseth | Secretary of Defense | Yes | Jan. 14 |
Fox "News" weekend host, Hegseth was accused of rape when he attended a conference in Monterey, CA. The police report gives details, timeline of the incident. News: Hegseth's finance and management skills and drunken antics were reported by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker on 12/1. At least 12 GOP senators want to see Hegseth's FBI background investigation. |
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| Billionaire Stephen Feinberg | Deputy Secretary of Defense | Yes | Billionaire Stephen Feinberg is chief executive of the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. Feinberg has been a big-time donor to Trump and comes with significant conflicts of interest. | ||
| Tulsi Gabbard | Director of National Intelligence. The 18 eighteen intelligence agencies would report to her. | Yes | Tulsi Gabbard is well-known for spreading conspiracy theories (bioweapons labs in Ukraine) and Russian talking points. News: Nearly 100 former national security officials are 'alarmed' at the prospect of Gabbard leading the intel community. | ||
| John Ratcliffe | Director of the CIA | Yes | Ratliffe is a former two-term Texas congressman who served as the director of National intelligence for the last year of Trump's first term. The Director of the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence. Ratliffe is a member of the America First Policy Institute and a contributor to Project 2025. | ||
| John Phelan | Secretary of the Navy | Yes | John Phelan is the co-founder and chairman of Rugger Management LLC, which advised Michael Dell on investment decisions. | ||
| Marco Rubio | Secretary of State | Yes | If confirmed, Florida governor Ron DeSantis will appoint Rubio's replacement. He may appoint himself or, it's rumored, Lara Trump. | ||
| Christopher Landau | Deputy Secretary of State | Yes | Landau served as his ambassador to Mexico from 2019 to 2021. Landau is a lawyer turned diplomat who clerked for Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.” | ||
| Michael Anton | State Department director of policy planning | No? | Michael Anton is an American conservative essayist, speechwriter and former private-equity executive who was a senior national security official in the first Trump administration. Under a pseudonym he wrote "The Flight 93 Election", an influential essay in support of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. Anton was Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Communications on the National Security Council under Trump.[5] He is a former speechwriter for Rupert Murdoch,[6] Rudy Giuliani, and Condoleezza Rice, and worked as director of communications at the investment bank Citigroup and as managing director of investing firm BlackRock. | ||
| Michael Needham | Counselor of the State Department, directly advising Rubio | No? | Needham currently holds top leadership posts at the conservative policy groups American Compass and American 2100 and previously led the Heritage Foundation’s advocacy arm. | ||
| Jacob Helberg | Undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment | Yes? | Trump has nominatedJacob Helberg as undersecretary of state. Helberg is a Senior Advisor to the Chief Executive Officer of Palantir Technologies (founded by J.D. Vance's buddy, Peter Thiel) a commissioner for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and an Adjunct Senior Fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at CNAS. From 2016 to 2020, Helberg was Google’s global lead for the company's internal global product policy efforts to combat foreign interference. Helberg received his M.S. in cybersecurity risk and strategy from New York University | ||
| Michael Waltz | National Security Advisor | No | Until he resigns on Jan. 20, Waltz represents Florida's CD-6 in Congress. | ||
| Alex Wong | Deputy National Security Advisor | No | |||
| Sebastian Gorka | Deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counter-terrorism | No | |||
| Anthony Salisbury | Deputy Homeland Security adviser | No | Anthony Salisbury is currently a Miami Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge. | ||
| Matt Whitacker | Ambassador to NATO | Yes |
Former Iowa football player,
Matt Whitaker has no foreign policy or national security experience. In Trump's first administration, Whitaker was chief of staff to Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was acting attorney general when Sessions resigned until Bill Barr was confirmed. Whitaker was once the pitchman for toilets for extra-masculine men. Whitacker is a member of the America First Policy Institute. |
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| Elise Stefanik | Ambassador to the U.N | Yes | Elise Stefanik | ||
| Ambassadoships and Envoys | |||||
| Nominee | Position | Confirmation Required | Hearing | Additional Information | |
| Billionaire Warren Stephens | Ambassador to the U.K. | Yes | Stevens is an investment banker. | ||
| Billionaire Charles Kushner | Ambassador to France | Yes | Charles Kushner is Ivanka Trump's father-in-law. | ||
| Pete Hoekstra | Ambassador to Canada | Yes | Hoekstra is a former GOP congressman from Michigan and contributor to Project 2025. | ||
| Mike Huckabee | Ambassador to Israel | Yes | Info. | ||
| Massad Boulos | Senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs | No | Boulos is Tiffany Trump's father-in-law. | ||
| Keith Kellogg | Assistant to the President and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia. | No | 80-year-old retired General Keith Kellogg has written that future US aid - likely given as a loan - will be conditioned on Ukraine negotiating with Russia. The frontlines would be frozen by a ceasefire, and a demilitarized zone imposed. Kellogg is a member of the America First Policy Institute. | ||
| David Perdue | Ambassador to China | Yes | Perdue was once a U.S. Senator for Georgia, defeated by Jon Ossoff. | ||
| Brandon Judd | Ambassador to Chile | Yes | Judd is the former head of the Border Patrol union. | ||
| Kimberly Guilfoyle | Ambassador to Greece | Yes | |||
| Ron Johnson | Ambassador to Mexico | Yes | This Ron Johnson is NOT the U.S. senator. Instead, this Ron Johnson served as the ambassador to El Salvador from 2019 to 2021 | ||
| Billionaire Tom Barrack | Ambassador to Turkey | Yes | Confidant and top donor Tom Barrack is Trump's pick to serve as ambassador to Turkey. Barrack, 77, is a billionaire investor who was an adviser to Trump during his first term and also served as the chair of his 2016 Inaugural Committee. In 2022, Barrack was accused of using his connections to the Trump administration to try to sway U.S. foreign policy for a client, the United Arab Emirates, but a New York jury found him not guilty of all charges. | Billionaire Steve Witkoff | Special envoy to the Middle East | No | Witkoff is a real estate developer. |
| Law Enforcement/Department of Justice | |||||
| Nominee | Position | Confirmation Required | Hearing | Additional Information | |
| Pam Bondi | Attorney General | Yes | Former Florida Attorney General and Trump loyalist, Bondi was nominated after Matt Gsetz withdrew his nomination. Six things to know about Bondi, such as that $25,000 check. Member of America First Policy Institute. | ||
| Todd Blanche | Deputy Attorney General | Yes | Todd Blanche was part of Trump's defense team for the election interference case brought by New York DA Alvin Bragg. | ||
| Harmeet Dhillon | Head of the Civil Rights Division | Yes | Dhillon is a big election denier, Trump loyalist who pushes "election integrity." This is very bad for voting rights going forward. | ||
| Gail Slater | Head of the Anti-trust Division | Yes | In the past, Slater Slater has worked for Fox "News" and Roku. Slater also represented Big Tech companies including Amazon.com and Google at a now-defunct trade group called the Internet Association. She is still viewed as an antitrust hawk among Washington tech skeptics, who welcomed her appointment. | ||
| Emil Bove | Principal associate deputy attorney general | No | Bove was part of Trump's defense team for the election interference case brought by New York DA Alvin Bragg. | ||
| Kash Patel | FBI Director | Yes |
Republican senators Bill Hagerty and Ted Cruz offered early support for Patel, while others seem indifferent (Mike Rounds and Chuck Grassley), although Rounds seemed skeptical on the Sunday shows. Trump will have to fire Christopher Wray "for cause" because Wray's 10-year term is up in 2027. Trump may try to put Patel under Wray, then fire Wray and move Patel up. Trump tried something like that for Ken Cuccinelli, but that was struck down by the courts and Trump declined to appeal it. News: Former Mike Pence counterterrorism aide, Olivia Troye says Patel has threatened legal action against her for over remarks she made on MSNBC. The remarks stemmed from an incident over a Seal team exfiltration operation in Nigeria during Trump 1.0. Patel was supposed to get permission from the Nigerian government for the operation, said he had gotten the permission when he had not, putting the mission on hold and at risk. Patel is a member of the America First Policy Institute. |
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| John Sauer | Solicitor General, who defend U.S. law before the Supreme Court. | Yes | Trump lawyer, John Sauer, defended Trump before the Supreme Court in his immunity appeal. | ||
| Jay Clayton | U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York | Yes | Jay Clayton. | ||
| Chad Chronister, withdrawn. | Head of the Drug Enforcement Agency | Yes | Chad Chronister is the sheriff of Hillsborough County Florida. Trump claims he "pulled him out, because I did not like what he said to my pastors and other supporters." | ||
| Thomas Homan | "Border czar" | No? | Homan is the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He's a contributor to Project 2025. On Dec. 11, NBC News reported that Trump plans to scrap the Trump 1.0 policy restricting ICE arrests at churches, schools, hospitals and events such as funerals and weddings. | ||
| Jamieson Greer | U.S. Trade Representative | Yes | As U.S. trade representative Greer will help lead tariff hikes. | ||
| Health and Health Care | |||||
| Nominee | Position | Confirmation Required | Hearing | Additional Information | |
| RFK Jr. | Secretary of Health and Human Services | Yes | Anti-vaxxer RFK Jr.. Kennedy could not ban vaccines by fiat, but he would “control the people who control the agencies that have a lot of authority over vaccines. ... He could begin the process of having the FDA re-review the safety of vaccines and move to revoke or place restrictions on some vaccine approvals." Collins, Murkowski and Bill Cassidy may be no votes on RFK. | ||
| Jim O'Neill | Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services | Yes | Jim O'Neill is an associate of billionaire Peter Thiel. | ||
| Dr. Mehmet Oz | Administrator of the U.S Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services | Yes | Oz failed in his 2022 Pennsylvania run for the U.S. Senate. | ||
| Dr. Jay Bhattacharya | Head of the National Institutes of Health | Yes | Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, is a long-time critic of COVID mandates. | ||
| Dr. Dave Weldon | Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | Yes | Florida Republican Weldon served as a congressman for 14 years and is an outspoken critic of the CDC and its vaccine program. In the past, people named to this position did not require Senate confirmation, but it will require Senate confirmation in January thanks to a provision in an omnibus bill passed in 2023 that takes effect in 2025. | ||
| Dr. Janette Nesheiwat | Surgeon General | Yes | Dr Janette Nesheiwat is a Fox News contributor. | ||
| Dr. Marty Makary | Head the Food and Drug Administration | Yes | Dr. Makary gained national attention for opposing vaccine mandates and some other public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. | ||
| Domestic Policy | |||||
| Nominee | Position | Confirmation Required | Hearing | Additional Information | |
| Brooke Rollins | Secretary of Agriculture | Yes |
Former White House aide and attorney Brooke Rollins. Rollins is the president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, founded in 2021 to promote Trump's public policy agenda. Other than being born and educated in Texas, she does not appear to have any agricultural experience. News: USDA launches national testing of milk from dairy farms to track bird flu outbreak. Rollins is a member of the America First Policy Institute. |
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| Billionaire Scott Bessent | Secretary of the Treasury | Yes | Manager of the Key Square Group hedge fund Bessentopenly gay cabinet member. | ||
| Billionaire Paul Atkins | SEC Chair | Yes | Cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins the CEO of Patomak Partners and a former SEC commissioner. The current SEC chair, Gary Gensler, has been leading the U.S. government’s crackdown on the crypto industry. | ||
| Venture capitalist David Sacks | "Crypto czar" | No | South African-American entrepreneur, author, and investor in internet technology firms David Sacks co-founder of Craft Ventures, an early-stage venture fund. His "angel" investments include Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, and Airbnb. | ||
| Billy Long | Head of the IRS | Yes | Former GOP congressman from Missouri and auctioneer Billy Long. Long has advocated for a flat tax which many experts think would lead to low- and middle-income taxpayers paying a larger share of their incomes than would wealthy Americans. He has tried to eliminate the estate tax as well and supported the Tax Code Termination Act. President Biden's efforts in the Inflation Reduction Act to beef up tax enforcement of the wealthy found that thousands of millionaires haven't filed tax returns for years. Such efforts have gotten millionaires to pay up $1 billion in past-due taxes. IRS Commissioners have five-year terms, so Trump will have to fire Biden's 2023 appointee, Danny Werfel. | ||
| Near billionaire Frank Bisignano | Head of the Social Security Administration | Yes | Bisignano would be responsible for managing the pensions and benefits of the country’s retirees. The president of Fiserv Inc, a Wisconsin-based financial technology firm, his current wealth is estimated at around $974m. | ||
| Scott Turner | Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development | Yes | Scott Turner is an NFL veteran and motivational speaker who previously served in the Texas House of Representatives. Turner is member of the America First Policy Institute. | ||
| Lori Chavez-DeRemer | Secretary of Labor | Yes | Former Republican Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer lost her seat in the U.S. House to Democrat Janelle Bynum on Nov. 5. Is alleged to have good connections to labor, or maybe it's just the teamsters. | ||
| Russell Vought | Director of the Office of Management and Budget | Yes | As director of the OMB, Russell Voughtwill help decide policy priorities and how they should be funded. Vought is the architect of Project 2025. Vought's nomination puts Social Security and Medicare at risk. | ||
| Howard Lutnick | Secretary of Commerce | Yes | Wall Street billionaire Howard Lutnick. | ||
| Andrew Ferguson | Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) | Yes | Ferguson was already on the FTC, which coordinates the handling of antitrust probes with Gail Slater, a veteran conservative lawyer who Trump recently named to lead his Justice Department’s antitrust division. Ferguson has vowed to 'terminate uncooperative bureaucrats' and fight 'DEI wokeism.' | ||
| Mark Meador | A commissioner of the FTC | Yes | Meador is a former staff member to the Mike Lee (R-UT). He joined the DOJ in 2019 as a trial attorney in the antitrust division. | ||
| Billionaire Linda McMahon | Secretary of Education | Yes |
With husband Vince,
Linda McMahon co-founded the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) During Trump's first administration, Linda McMahon served as small business adminstrator. As administrator, McMahon was responsible for billions of dollars in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans that went to companies owned by wealthy celebrities, including Tom Brady and Khloe Kardashian, and companies that thrived during COVID, like many manufacturing and construction firms. 92% of the loans have been granted full or partial forgiveness. In October 2024, McMahon and her husband Vince were sued by five John Does who say they were ages 13 to 15 when WWE ringside announcer Melvin Phillips Jr. recruited them to work as “Ring Boys.” They say they suffered mental and emotional abuse as a result of alleged sexual abuse the McMahons knew of but did nothing to stop. The lawsuit claims the McMahons were negligent as employers and failed to protect the plaintiffs, who are demanding more than $30,000 in damages. On Dec. 9, 2024, a federal judge stayed this case. Linda McMahon is a member of the America First Policy Institute. |
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| Sean Duffy | Secretary of Transportation | Yes | Sean Duffy is a Fox Business host and fellow former reality TV star. | ||
| Chris Wright | Secretary of Energy | Yes | Wright is a fossil fuel executive | ||
| Kristi Noem | Secretary of Homeland Security | Yes | Kristi Noem has served as governor of South Dakota since 2019. | ||
| Rodney Scott | Commissioner - U.S. Customs and Border Protection | Yes | Scott Scott was a vocal critical of the Biden administration's policies at the U.S.-Mexico border. | ||
| Caleb Vitello | Acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) | Yes? | Vitello is currently assistant director of ICE's Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs. He previously served as director of interior enforcement in the White House National Security Council in Trump's first term. | ||
| Lee Zeldin | EPA administrator | Yes | Former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY). Zeldin is a member of the America First Policy Institute. | ||
| Doug Collins | Secretary of Veterans Affairs | Yes | Rabid former GOP congressman during the Obama administration. Member of America First Policy Institute. | ||
| Billionaire Doug Burgum | Secretary of the Interior | Yes | Burgum has served as North Dakota's governor sine 2016. | ||
| Brendan Carr | Head the Federal Communications Commission | Yes | Carr already sits on this board and wrote the FCC chapter in Project 2025. He's aligned with Elon Musk and likely would restore to Musk's Starlink wireless internet service a $900 million grant Carr thinks was "revoked unlawfully" during the Biden administration because Starlink service is too slow. | ||
| Billionaire Jared Isaacman | Head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) | Yes | Isaacman is a commercial astronaut and entrepreneur. | ||
| Billionaire Kelly Loeffler | Small Business Administrator | Yes | Billionaire and election-denying Loeffler was a U.S. Senator for Georgia until Raphael Warnock (D) defeated her in a runoff election 2021. Before that, Loeffler was CEO of Bakkt, a subsidiary of commodity and financial service provider Intercontinental Exchange, of which her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, is CEO. | ||
| White House Staff | |||||
| Nominee | Position | Confirmation Required | Hearing | Additional Information | |
| Russell Vought | Director of the Office of Management and Budget | Yes | As Director of the OMB, Vought will play a major role in deciding policy priorities and how to fund them. Vought was the architect of Project 2025. Vought's nomination puts Social Security and Medicare at risk. | ||
| Dan Bishop | Deputy Director for Budget in of the Office of Management and Budget | Yes | Former congressman Dan Bishop (R-NC) left Congress in to run for North Carolina attorney general in 2024 and lost. Prior to serving in Congress, Bishop was elected to North Carolina's state senate where he was the lead author of North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, commonly called the bathroom bill, which prohibited transgender people from using public restrooms other than those of their biological sex as defined on their birth certificates. | ||
| Vince Haley | Director of the Domestic Policy Council | No | Established by Executive Order in 1993, the Domestic Policy Council (DPC) coordinates the domestic policy-making process in the White House, ensures that domestic policy decisions and programs are consistent with the President's stated goals, and monitors implementation of the President's domestic policy agenda. Haley was a speech writer for Trump in the first administration and is a McGinley served as White House cabinet secretary during part of Trump’s first term and was the Republican National Committee’s counsel for election integrity in 2024. | ||
| Sergio Gor | Head the Presidential Personnel Office | No | Sergio Gor will be in charge of thousands of appointees in the administration and Schedule F implementation. | ||
| Steven Cheung | White House communications director | No | Cheung was communications director for the second Trump campaign. | ||
| Karoline Levitt | White House press secretary | No | Levitt was a spokesperson for the second Trump campaign. She is a contributor to Project 2025. | ||
| Billionaire Elon Musk and billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy. | The faux "Department of Government Efficiency", aka "DOGE" | No | Musk and Ramasewamy have said they want to cut $2 trillion from the $6.1 trillion U.S. budget. During the week of Dec. 2, 2024, they walked the halls of Congress proposing to cut $516 billion by completely eliminating VA health care ($119 billion), the NIH ($47 billion), Pell Grants ($22 billion), Head Start ($12 billion), the FBI ($11 billion), federal prisons ($8 billion) and the SEC ($2 billion). The cuts don't touch the $3.5 billion in government contracts Musk's SpaceX receives. | ||
| Pete Navarro | Senior counselor for trade and manufacturing | No | |||
| Susie Wiles | Chief of Staff | No | Wiles was Trump's campaign manager for his third campaign. | ||
| Dan Scavino | Deputy Chief of Staff | No | Senior Campaign advisor, member of Trump 1.0 staff | ||
| Stephen Miller | Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor | No | |||
| James Blair | Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative Affairs | No | Senior Campaign advisor | ||
| Taylor Budowich | Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications | No | Senior Campaign advisor | ||
| Alina Habba | Counselor to the president | No | |||