Who might be in Donald Trump’s cabinet? What the new government might look like

Donald Trump’s transition team is already reviewing potential candidates who could serve in his administration when he returns to the White House in January.

On Thursday, he first announced the appointment of his campaign co-manager, Susan Summerall Wiles, as White House chief of staff.

Many figures who served during Trump’s first term do not plan to return, although there are rumors that a few loyalists will make a comeback.

But the U.S. president-elect is now surrounded by a new group of figures who could fill out his Cabinet, the White House and take on key positions in the administration.

Here are some of the names being nominated for the top jobs.

The past two years have been quite a journey for the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy.

He is an environmental lawyer who is running for president as a Democrat, and most of his family members have spoken out against his anti-vaccine views and conspiracy theories as they support Joe Biden’s reelection.

He subsequently became an independent candidate, but failed to gain traction due to a series of controversies, so he dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump.

In the final two months of the 2024 election cycle, he spearheaded a Trump campaign initiative called “Make America Healthy Again.”

Trump recently pledged that he would play an important role in public health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

RFK Jr (as he is commonly known) recently claimed that he would push to remove fluoride from drinking water because “it’s a really bad way to deliver fluoride into our system,” although this has been disputed by some experts .

In an interview with NBC News, Kennedy denied his “anti-vaccine” views, saying he would not “take away the vaccine from anyone” but instead provide them with “the best information” to make their own choices.

Kennedy does not hold a formal Cabinet position, but used the interview to hint that he could take on a broader role in the White House.

Trump’s landslide victory over Kamala Harris was orchestrated by campaign co-chairs Chris LaCivita and Suzy Wells, whom Trump dubbed “ice” during his victory speech on Wednesday. Baby”.

she has since been confirmed as the incoming chief of staff This is the first confirmed appointment during Trump’s second term in office, making her the first woman to hold the position.

Trump claimed Wiles “liked to stay in the background” and was considered one of the most feared and respected political figures in the country.

Less than a year into her political career, she worked on Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign and later became a White House scheduler.

In 2010, she appointed Rick Scott, a businessman with little political experience at the time, as governor of Florida in just seven months. Scott is now a U.S. Senator.

Wiles met Trump during the 2015 Republican presidential primary and became a co-chairman of his campaign in Florida, which was considered a swing state at the time. In 2016, Trump narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton there.

Wiles has been praised by Republicans for her ability to earn the president-elect’s respect and check those with egos, potentially allowing her to impose a sense of order that none of his previous four chiefs of staff were able to do.

The world’s richest man announced his support for the former president earlier this year, despite saying in 2022 that “it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat and ride off into the sunset.”

The tech billionaire has since become one of Trump’s most high-profile and high-profile supporters, donating more than $119m (£91.6m) to America PAC this election cycle )—the political action committee he created to support the former president.

Musk, the head of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of social media platform X, has also launched a voter registration drive, including Giving away $1m (£771,000) a day to random swing state voters in the final stages of the campaign.

Since registering as a Republican ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Musk has become increasingly vocal on issues such as illegal immigration and transgender rights.

Both Musk and Trump have focused on him leading a new “Department of Government Effectiveness” that will cut costs, reform regulations and streamline what he calls a “vast, suffocating federal bureaucracy.”

The agency’s acronym “DOGE” is an interesting reference to the “memecoin” cryptocurrency that Musk previously promoted.

The former Kansas congressman served as CIA director and then secretary of state during Trump’s first administration.

A foreign policy hawk and staunch supporter of Israel, he played a high-profile role in moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He was one of the key figures in the implementation of the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

He remains a loyal defender of his boss and joked that “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration” amid Trump’s false claims of fraud in the late 2020 election.

He is considered a top contender for defense secretary, alongside Florida congressman and Army veteran Michael Waltz, a member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee.

Richard Grenell served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany, special envoy to the Balkans and acting director of national intelligence.

The Republican has also been active in Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the swing state of Nevada.

Trump cherished Grenell’s loyalty and called him “my special envoy.”

In September, he sat in on a private meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky. The former president frequently claimed that he would end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” after taking office, and Grenell advocated the creation of autonomous regions in eastern Ukraine as a means to achieve this goal – an idea considered unacceptable by Kiev.

He is considered a contender for secretary of state or national security adviser, a position that does not require Senate confirmation.

The national press secretary of the Trump 2024 campaign previously served as an assistant press secretary in the White House Press Office.

The 27-year-old Gen Zer tried unsuccessfully to become the youngest woman elected to the U.S. Congress in 2022, representing a seat in her home state of New Hampshire.

She was expected to become White House press secretary — the most public-facing position in the Cabinet.

Tom Homan, who served as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the first Trump administration, supported separating migrant children from their parents to deter illegal border crossings.

At the time, he made headlines for saying politicians who support sanctuary city policies should be charged with crimes. He later resigned from his on-ice duties in 2018, midway through Trump’s presidential term.

He has since become a key figure in shaping Trump’s massive immigration deportation plan and has been viewed as a potential choice for Homeland Security secretary.

Homan spoke about the deportation plans in an interview with BBC America partner CBS News last month, saying “it’s not going to be a massive sweep of the community.”

“They will be targeted arrests. We will know who we are going to arrest and where we are most likely to find them based on an extensive investigative process,” he said.