The White House News

President-elect Trump has announced former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), a chaplain in the Air Force Reserve, as his pick for the next secretary of Veterans Affairs. 

A lawyer by trade and a member of Congress from 2013 to 2021, Collins is a staunch supporter of Trump and was one of his biggest defenders in the House during Democratic-led impeachment hearings against the then-president and attempted to use that stance during an unsuccessful run for Senate in 2020.

Since leaving Washington, D.C., he has served as a legal counsel for Trump, particularly on the MAGA movement’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen in Georgia due to illegally-cast ballots. 

Collins, 58, joined the Air Force Reserve in 2002 after serving for two years as a Navy chaplain in the mid-1990s. He later deployed to Iraq in 2008 as part of the 94th Air Wing at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Ga. 

In a statement announcing his intent to nominate Collins as VA Secretary, Trump said he will “be a great advocate” for current and former service members.

“Doug is a Veteran himself, who currently serves our Nation as a Chaplain in the United States Air Force Reserve Command, and fought for our Country in the Iraq War,” Trump said. “We must take care of our brave men and women in uniform, and Doug will be a great advocate for our Active Duty Servicemembers, Veterans, and Military Families to ensure they have the support they need.”

President-elect Trump announced Thursday he will nominate three of his personal criminal defense attorneys to serve in senior Justice Department roles.

Todd Blanche will serve as deputy attorney general, and Emil Bove will serve as principal associate deputy attorney general, the department’s No. 3 official, Trump announced in a statement.

Both men serve as Trump’s trial attorneys in his New York hush money case, which culminated in the first criminal conviction of a former president this spring, and Trump’s two federal criminal prosecutions brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

Trump also announced Thursday he will nominate D. John Sauer, an appellate attorney who argued Trump’s presidential immunity case at the Supreme Court earlier this year, as solicitor general. 

That position is the fourth highest-ranking Justice Department official and decides which cases the government will appeal, including representing the administration before the nation’s highest court.

The three attorneys will presumably serve under former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), whom Trump announced as his attorney general nominee one day prior, sending political shockwaves through Washington.

Unlike Gaetz, both Blanche and Bove previously worked as prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

Trump in his announcement highlighted that experience, making no mention of the duo’s work as his defense attorneys.

“Todd is an excellent attorney who will be a crucial leader in the Justice Department, fixing what has been a broken System of Justice for far too long,” Trump said of Blanche.

The president-elect similarly wrote of Bove, “Emil is a tough and strong attorney, who will be a crucial part of the Justice Department, rooting out corruption and crime.”

Both entered private practice before ultimately joining Trump’s criminal defense team last year.

Blanche started representing the former president when he was indicted in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records in April 2023, his first set of criminal charges. To do so, Blanche was forced to leave his partnership at a prominent law firm, and he created his own firm instead.

Bove began working for Blanche’s new firm later in the year as the special counsel moved to indict Trump in Washington, D.C., on accusations of conspiring to subvert the 2020 election results and in Florida on charges of mishandling classified documents.

Sauer, Trump’s solicitor general nominee, served as Missouri’s solicitor general for six years. He worked under Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) during their stints as the state’s attorney general.

Sauer also clerked for Antonin Scalia, the late conservative Supreme Court justice.

In announcing Sauer, Trump did highlight the attorney’s work on his criminal defense.

“Most recently, John was the lead counsel representing me in the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States, winning a Historic Victory on Presidential Immunity, which was key to defeating the unConstitutional campaign of Lawfare against me and the entire MAGA Movement,” Trump wrote.

Sauer also represents Trump in his appeal of a jury’s verdict finding the former president civilly liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s. 

Updated 6:58 p.m.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) position was “f‑‑‑ing insane.”

“He’s a vaccine denier and a tin foil hat conspiracy theorist,” Garcia wrote in a Thursday post on social platform X.

“He will destroy our public health infrastructure and our vaccine distribution systems. This is going to cost lives.”

Earlier in the day, he warned of the dangers Kennedy’s leadership could pose in a heated conversation with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) during a House hearing related to future pandemics. 

During the session, which occurred before President-elect Trump’s announcement, Garcia criticized Trump’s potential selection of Kennedy, saying he has “no scientific or medical credentials, who’s falsely claimed for decades that vaccines cause autism.”

“If this committee is about pandemic prevention, we should be very concerned as a country that RFK Jr. could be put in charge of health when he is a vaccine denier and has caused great harm to the American public,” Garcia argued. 

“I want to say just finally that I’m very concerned that someone that wants to gut the NIH, HHS, and other services could be put in charge of health of any kind in this country,” he said, referring to the National Institutes of Health.

Other Democrats have agreed with Garcia’s sentiments.

“Mr. Kennedy’s outlandish views on basic scientific facts are disturbing and should worry all parents who expect schools and other public spaces to be safe for their children,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement. “When Mr. Kennedy comes before the Finance Committee, it’s going to be very clear what Americans stand to lose under Trump and Republicans in Congress.”  

Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) claimed Kennedy would cause the nation to backslide in terms of “public health, reproductive rights, research and innovation, and so much else.”

Despite their dismay, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) praised Trump’s choice.

“I’m excited by the news that the President-Elect will appoint @RobertKennedyJr to @HHSGov. He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA,” Polis wrote in a post on X.

Although, he previously criticized Kennedy’s anti-vaccine rhetoric in August.

A California Republican has requested President-elect Trump’s help in an open letter, saying that his state “is grappling with a variety of problems” like “devastating wildfires” and “an escalating housing crisis.”

“As Republican Leader in the California State Assembly, I am reaching out to extend my congratulations on your recent victory and to ask for your partnership in addressing the significant challenges facing California,” Assembly member James Gallagher (R) said in the letter.

“Many Californians believe your leadership can help us tackle issues that have plagued California for too long,” he added.

Gallagher said the Golden State faces challenges like “devastating wildfires, an escalating housing crisis, rising crime, and unaffordable energy and gas prices,” as well as “a critical need to ensure swift accountability for criminals throughout the state.”

“These issues require federal support, and I firmly believe that working together is the best way to deliver meaningful solutions for Californians,” he said. “While Governor Gavin Newsom wants to ‘Trump-proof’ California; Legislative Republicans want to partner with you to pursue real solutions.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), a frequent critic of the president-elect, issued a proclamation last week for the convening of a special session of California’s Legislature to try and preserve civil rights and allow for potential litigation before the new presidential administration.

“The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we won’t sit idle,” Newsom said in a previous statement.

“California has faced this challenge before, and we know how to respond,” he continued. “We will do everything necessary to ensure Californians have the support and resources they need to thrive.”

However, Newsom also said in a statement following Trump’s win that “California will seek to work with the incoming president.”

“Our job, my job, is not to wake up every single day and get a crowbar and try [to put it in the] spokes of the wheel of the Trump administration,” Newsom said in a video posted to the social platform X last weekend. “And so again, in that spirit of an open hand, not a closed fist, that’s how we want to proceed.”

The Hill has reached out to Newsom’s press office and the Trump transition team for comment.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) said that President-elect Trump choosing Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to serve as attorney general was “very surprising,” though he has “trust” in the confirmation hearing process.

“As for that particular nomination, look, we have a process under the Constitution where the Senate provides advice and consent. And I trust that process,” Cruz told Newsmax’s Bianca de la Garza on Thursday. “That nominee, like every other will, will have a vigorous vetting, will have confirmation hearings. And every nominee is going to be judged on the merits.”

“I will say that was a pick that was, I think, very surprising to the entirety of the Senate,” Cruz added.

Cruz’s comments come as Trump’s pick of Gaetz as attorney general sent shock waves through Washington; a source in the room where House Republicans were waiting to start leadership elections at the time said there were audible gasps when Trump made the announcement.

Trump’s nod toward Gaetz also coincides with a House Ethics Committee investigation into the Florida congressman over allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other claims.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) also announced on Wednesday that Gaetz had resigned from Congress “effective immediately,” essentially killing the probe.

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R), an ardent Trump ally, warned his Republican colleagues on Thursday that “we’re gonna try to get you out of the Senate” if they oppose Trump’s picks and legislative agenda.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — who’s been locked in a long-standing feud with Gaetz after the Florida congressman spearheaded the effort to oust McCarthy as Speaker — predicted that Gaetz would not get confirmed by the Senate during an interview on Bloomberg Television earlier this week.

“Look, Gaetz won’t get confirmed,” McCarthy, a loyal Trump ally, had said. “Everybody knows that.”

Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was quick to urge the Ethics Committee to “preserve and share” its report on Gaetz on Thursday, despite his resignation. The panel could still vote to release the report, in what would be a rare move.