The White House News

President-elect Trump has made quick work of pulling together a Cabinet and group of senior aides for his incoming administration, roiling Washington with some of his more controversial picks in the process.

Trump issued a flurry of nominations and appointments during his first full week as president-elect, sending lawmakers scrambling to react.

Here are five takeaways from Trump’s Cabinet thus far.

Trump prioritizes loyalty

The president-elect has long made clear that loyalty is paramount for anyone in his orbit, and his Cabinet picks thus far are a sign that he is rewarding those who have stayed on his good side.

Nearly every nominee or appointment Trump has made to date has been an individual who has defended the president-elect in some capacity, endorsed him on the campaign trail or stuck by him during some of his more turbulent moments.

Four Cabinet nominees – Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for United Nations ambassador, Lee Zeldin for Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Doug Collins for Veterans Affairs secretary and John Ratcliffe for CIA director – were part of his impeachment defense team in 2020.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has been one of Trump’s most brash and vocal defenders since 2016. Gaetz abruptly resigned from Congress when Trump rocked Washington by announcing the Florida Republican as the pick for attorney general.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard were prominent surrogates for Trump on the campaign trail after endorsing him as former Democrats. And Trump’s own personal criminal attorneys, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, were picked for top jobs in the Justice Department after representing him during the hush money trial earlier this year.

The assembled administration is a far cry from the “team of rivals” that formed the first batch of top officials in Trump’s first term.

“It does seem like this group is a closer knit group of people,” Marc Short, who served as Trump’s first legislative affairs director, said on MSNBC. “Now, you may not like the people they’re coming forward with, but at the same time I think they’ve moved pretty quickly.”

Some nominees undercut agencies they’re tasked to lead

Multiple nominees for Cabinet positions have used rhetoric in the past that would undercut the mission of the agencies they have been put forward to lead.

Gabbard, the former Democrat tapped to serve as director of national intelligence, has been accused of parroting Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine and refused to label Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad a war criminal after he was implicated in using chemical weapons on civilians. 

Gaetz  has in the past called for defunding the FBI and introduced legislation that would have eliminated the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Both agencies are housed within the Justice Department and would be under his purview as attorney general.

Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, has come under scrutiny for writing in his book published earlier this year that women were less suited than men to serve in combat roles. He has also been critical of the Pentagon’s efforts to embrace diversity and equity. If confirmed, Hegseth would preside over the millions of men and women employed by the Defense Department.

And Kennedy, who has been chosen to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has for years spread anti-vaccine conspiracies, promoted the consumption of raw milk and pushed unproven treatments for COVID-19 like ivermectin. If confirmed, Kennedy would have broad authority over the nation’s health and regulatory agencies that approve vaccines, manage Medicare and Medicaid and conduct research into treatments for various diseases.

A quicker pace and clearer vision than 2016

When Trump won the White House in 2016, he and his team appeared to be caught flat-footed and were slow to ramp up efforts to staff a new administration.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) was ousted as head of the transition shortly after the election, and Trump paraded candidates in and out of Trump Tower for the press to see. He did not name his first Cabinet picks until Nov. 18, 2016, 10 days after the election.

By contrast, Trump has moved at a rapid clip to nominate not just his main Cabinet officials, but second-tier officials at the Justice Department and senior staff at the White House all within roughly one week of his victory over Vice President Harris.

Allies took it as a clear indication that Trump knows what he’s looking for this time around.

“I think the transition is in obviously a much better place than it was in 2016, because four years in the wilderness wasn’t wasted,” said Sean Spicer, who served as White House press secretary during Trump’s first term.

“The plans, the personnel, the process were all thought about, and the people that he is surrounding himself with now are all committed to advancing the agenda,” he continued. “He doesn’t have to wonder anymore about their commitment to the agenda.”

Tests lie ahead for Senate confirmations

Trump’s nominees – Gaetz, Gabbard and Kennedy in particular – are going to pose a test for Republicans in the Senate and provide a barometer of how independent those lawmakers intend to be from the incoming president.

Republicans are poised to hold 53 seats in the Senate beginning in January, meaning any Trump nominee can afford three GOP defections, assuming they get no Democratic support. Vice President-elect JD Vance (R-Ohio) would break any 50-50 ties.

Senators in particular often speak about the importance of the institution serving as a serious body and a check on the House and the executive. But Trump’s convincing victory in the election may increase the pressure on lawmakers to bend to the president-elect’s will.

Trump started the pressure campaign on Senate Republicans before even putting forward any names, pushing for whoever became GOP leader to approve of recess appointments, a procedure that would allow the president to essentially sidestep the confirmation process for any controversial nominees.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who was elected Republican leader this week, hasn’t ruled out recess appointments, but has also acknowledged they could be procedurally difficult to achieve if there is enough GOP opposition.

“All this is a process. But I don’t think any of those things are necessarily off the table. I think we have to have all the options on the table,” Thune told Fox News.

“And these nominees deserve their day in court. They deserve a hearing, a confirmation hearing, an opportunity to be vetted,” he added. “And the Senate will perform its constitutional role under advise and consent.”

Key positions still to come

While many of the highest profile nominees have already been announced, there are still several Cabinet-level positions and top White House jobs Trump is expected to fill in the coming days.

The most notable is his economic team. Trump must still announce picks for Treasury secretary, Commerce secretary and U.S. Trade Representative. 

Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick are viewed as the finalists for Treasury, while Robert Lighthizer, who served as Trump’s trade representative during his first term and is a strong advocate for the use of tariffs, is likely to land a job in the new administration.

There are also still openings for the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Trump pledged on the campaign trail to shutter the Department of Education, but doing so would require congressional approval. It’s unclear if Trump intends to nominate a secretary for the department in the meantime.

Sarah Matthews, a former spokesperson for President-elect Trump, said his recent Cabinet picks stem from him being “drunk on power.” 

In an MSNBC appearance Friday afternoon, Matthews said the narrative of Trump playing “4D chess” by making distracting nominations is “hilarious.” 

“That’s not what’s happening. He knows that he is drunk on power right now because he feels like he was given a mandate by winning the popular vote,” she said. “He has control of both chambers of Congress, and he doesn’t have to worry about running for reelection.” 

Matthews also said Trump does not want to “please the establishment,” and his choice to nominate now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) does exactly that.  

“He wants someone who’s going to be a loyalist and who’s going to do his bidding at the Department of Justice,” she said. “He doesn’t want an independent DOJ.” 

Other controversial Cabinet appointments include Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has said the choices face difficult paths to confirmation in the Senate, warning that “none of this is gonna be easy.” 

Leading up to the election, Matthews criticized Trump and backed Vice President Harris in her bid for the White House, joining her fellow ex-Trump White House officials Alyssa Farah Griffin and Cassidy Hutchinson in their efforts.  

The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.  

In addition to leading the Interior Department, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) will also serve as a broad energy coordinator across the federal government, President-elect Trump announced Friday.

“I am thrilled to announce that Doug Burgum, the Governor of North Dakota, will be joining my Administration as both Secretary of the Interior and, as Chairman of the newly formed, and very important, National Energy Council,” Trump said in a statement.

He said that this new council will include “all Departments and Agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation, of ALL forms of American Energy.” 

“This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation,” Trump added. 

He said that in this role, Burgum will also have a seat on the White House’s National Security Council.

In the new statement, Trump said that at Interior, Burgum will “be a key leader in ushering in a new ‘Golden Age of American Prosperity’ and World Peace.”

Burgum briefly mounted his own presidential bid this cycle before dropping out and endorsing Trump. He was among the contenders to be Trump’s vice president.

Trump has praised Burgum’s energy acumen in the past, saying earlier this year that Burgum “probably knows more about energy than anybody I know.”

As North Dakota governor, Burgum was at the helm of a major fossil-fuel producing state. North Dakota is third-in-the-nation for oil production and seventh for coal production.

While leading the state, Burgum said he hoped to reach net-zero emissions. But he said the state could get there not by cutting back its use of planet-warming fossil fuels but rather by reducing and offsetting its emissions through use of carbon capture technology.

This emerging technology could be promising in helping polluting plants reduce emissions, but critics have questioned whether it actually delivers the emissions reductions it promises and raised concerns about the safety of pipelines that transport the carbon for storage. 

CNBC reported earlier this year that Burgum leases farmland to oil company Continental Resources and has collected $50,000 in royalties since 2022. Continental’s executive chairman is Trump ally and donor Harold Hamm

Burgum, like many of Trump’s appointees, has been a vocal defender of the president-elect during his hush money trial.

— Updated at 4:26 p.m.

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman’s (D) message to fellow Democrats regarding President-elect Trump and his appointments is to “chill” since “he hasn’t even been inaugurated yet.” 

“And that’s the thing. If you’re already exhausted, freaking out, and it’s not even Thanksgiving, then you really ought to pace yourselves. Because he hasn’t even been inaugurated yet,” Fetterman said in an interview with NBC News that was published on Friday. 

“So you really have to chill out, and you’re going to have to be more discerning or discriminate on what’s going to freak you out, or what’s just trolling,” he added. “Because it’s not the weather, it’s the climate now for the next four years.” 

Fetterman’s comments come as Trump has rolled out a bevy of Cabinet and other administration appointments this week, with some of them drawing shock across Washington. He picked Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to be his attorney general, former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) as the director of national intelligence and Fox News’s Pete Hegseth for defense secretary. 

The Pennsylvania Democrat said Trump’s decision to tap Gaetz as the nation’s top law enforcement official is “just nothing but trolling. And, you know, even the Republicans know who he is,” he said during Friday’s interview. 

“That’s got to be candy for him [Trump] to have and watch everybody get triggered. I’ve said this before, it’s like, clutch those pearls harder and scold louder, that’s not going to win,” Fetterman said during the Friday interview. “And that’s been demonstrated in this cycle.” 

In the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election that saw Trump beat the Democratic nominee, Vice President Harris, in all seven battleground states, Fetterman said his party has made mistakes when it came to targeting certain voter groups. 

“We have a challenge. We have our own kind of ‘childless cat ladies’ situation: ‘Bros.’ People refer to these young guys as bros, and clearly that’s not a positive term,” Fetterman said earlier this month. 

Despite the senator characterizing Trump’s decision to pick Gaetz as the “ultimate troll,” Fetterman said earlier this week that he would vote to confirm a different nominee of the president-elect, fellow upper chamber lawmaker, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)

“Unsurprisingly, the other team’s pick will have political differences than my own. That being said, my colleague @SenMarcoRubio is a strong choice and I look forward to voting for his confirmation,” the freshman senator said on social media.

Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel raised alarming concerns with President-elect Trump’s choice to appoint Pete Hegseth to the highly regarded post in a New York Times op-ed published on Friday. 

“Political independence and ethics are the bedrock of our military. Today, I am concerned that both are in danger. If we begin to compromise those standards by politicizing the Department of Defense, the character of the military could change inexorably, putting its very effectiveness at risk,” Hagel wrote. 

He disapproved of Trump’s “recess appointments” that would allow nominees to bypass public hearings and background checks reiterating that Hegseth should have a “full and transparent confirmation process.”

Trump’s decision to nominate a Fox News host with little experience in military leadership has already spurred backlash from lawmakers. 

Some have questioned if Hegseth will blindly acquiesce to the demands of the former president including using military force on Americans as he referenced in remarks on the campaign trail. 

Trump has allegedly drafted an executive order to create a “warrior board” of retired generals and noncommissioned officers who would be given power to review three- and four-star officers and to remove anyone “lacking in requisite leadership qualities.”

“This is a dangerous idea that violates the very essence of the most stable, respected and nonpolitical military in the world,” Hagel stated.

He argued the board could reduce people’s interest in serving, which has already seen a sharp decline in recent years.

“The idea that an external group might promote or punish our military leadership based on those political criteria could completely alter the nature of our forces,” the former Republican Senator wrote. 

“Recruitment and retention could also be intensely affected by such a change, with the motivations for joining the military potentially shifting to an entirely new basis.”

Hagel added that Trump’s restructuring of the armed forces would forcibly impact foreign policy measures for the nation’s allies and enemies. 

“There are global consequences to inserting political management into our military. Both our allies and adversaries would take note,” Hagel said. 

“To our allies, which depend on us for their freedom and security, any deterioration of the quality or effectiveness of our military would be a disaster. To our adversaries, it would be a gift.”