President-elect Donald Trump is already beginning to finalize his Cabinet roster less than a week after his decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.
The president’s Cabinet usually includes the vice president and the heads of 15 executive departments, including the president’s chief of staff, the secretary of state, and the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
Trump has chosen South Dakota Gov.Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security, pending Senate confirmation.“Kristi has been very strong on Border Security,” Trump said in his announcement. “She was the first Governor to send National Guard Soldiers to help Texas fight the Biden Border Crisis, and they were sent a total of eight times.
“She will work closely with ‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan to secure the Border and will guarantee that our American Homeland is secure from our adversaries.”
Noem became South Dakota’s first-ever female governor in 2018, and was reelected in 2022 by an historic vote count for the state. She was floated as the possible choice for Trump’s vice president before Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) was selected.
The 52-year-old mother and grandmother has continued to take a strong stance against illegal immigration. Previously describing the Texas border with Mexico as a “warzone,” she is aligned with Homan in the belief that anybody who crosses the U.S. border illegally must be deported.
Besides border security, the Department of Homeland Security encompasses several agencies, including the Secret Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Pete Hegseth, Secretary of the Department of Defense
Trump announced Pete Hegseth as his pick for Defense Secretary, pending Senate confirmation.Hegseth is the latest veteran to be named in the president-elect’s Cabinet. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a captain in the Army National Guard. He has been awarded two Bronze Stars and a Combat Infantryman’s Badge.
Trump highlighted Hegseth’s military background in his announcement.
“Pete has spent his entire life as a Warrior for the Troops and for the Country,” Trump said. “Pete is tough, smart, and a true believer in America First. With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice - Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down.”
Hegseth also graduated from Princeton and Harvard, wrote the bestselling book “The War on Warriors,” which criticizes left-wind policies concerning the military, and he spent eight years as a Fox News host.
John Ratcliffe, CIA Director
Trump announced John Ratcliffe as his pick to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Ratcliffe served as the director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, as well as Trump’s primary intelligence adviser. Trump awarded him the National Security Medal in 2020.Trump said Ratcliffe would be a “fearless fighter for the Constitutional Rights of all Americans while ensuring the highest levels of national security.”
The Notre Dame and SMU Law graduate previously served as a member of Congress, where he was a member of the House Intelligence Committee and House Judiciary Committee. While in Congress, he was also questioned about the foundation of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign in 2016, and, in late 2020, made the claim that year’s elections were marred by foreign intelligence.
Ratcliffe also spoke out against communist China intelligence, stating that the Chinese Communist Party attempted to meddle in the 2020 elections and later testifying that a lab leak in China was “the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, by science, and by common sense” for the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mike Waltz, National Security Adviser
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), a colonel (ret.) in the National Guard and combat-decorated Green Beret, will be Trump’s national security adviser. He is the first Green Beret elected to Congress and the third veteran to join Trump’s Cabinet.
While this is not traditionally a Cabinet-ranked position, Trump announced that Waltz’s role will be promoted to the Cabinet.
On Nov. 5, Waltz won reelection in the Sixth Congressional District in east-central Florida. He has been a member of the House China Task Force, the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, and the House Armed Services Committee, and he served as Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness. He has also been a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
He served as a military adviser in the George W. Bush administration and worked as a defense policy director under Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.
Waltz continues to be a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), calling out human rights violations and the ongoing threat of espionage and advocating for more support of Taiwan’s self-defense.
“Mike has been a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy agenda and will be a tremendous champion of our pursuit of Peace through Strength,” Trump said in a statement.
Lee Zeldin, Administrator of the EPA
Former New York congressman Lee Zeldin will take on the role of EPA administrator, and it is expected that he will quickly focus on deregulation.Zeldin’s political service began in 2010 when he was elected to the New York Senate. He served at the state level until 2014 before being elected to Congress to represent New York’s First Congressional District. He served in that role from 2015 to 2023.
He ran for governor of New York in 2022 but lost the closer-than-expected race to current Gov. Kathy Hochul.
While he was in Washington, Zeldin served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Financial Services Committee. One of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, he co-chaired the House Republican Israel Caucus.
Zeldin is an Army veteran, having served four years of active duty—including a deployment to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He still serves as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves.
Elise Stefanik, US Ambassador to the UN
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R–N.Y.) has been described by Trump as “an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter.”Pending approval in the Senate, the Harvard graduate will assume the ambassadorship after serving five terms in the House of Representatives. At age 30, she was the youngest woman elected to Congress in U.S. history when she was elected in 2014.
Stefanik replaced former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) as the chair of the House Republican Conference in 2021 with Trump’s endorsement, and she has been in that role since. She is also on the House Armed Services Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, and the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
She has positioned herself as a Trump ally since his 2016 election and was the first member of Congress to endorse him for reelection in 2024.
If approved by the Senate, she will replace Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a Biden administration appointee, to become Trump’s third appointed ambassador to the U.N., following Nikki Haley and Kelly Craft.
Susie Wiles, Chief of Staff
Susie Wiles, 67, will become the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff. Co-chair of Trump’s successful campaign, she is being credited with several key campaign victories in her home state of Florida.She gained national attention managing Rick Scott’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign and has been credited by some with rescuing current Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign. Both races were extremely close in what was then considered a battleground state. Wiles also worked as DeSantis’s senior adviser from September 2018 through January 2019.
Wiles met Trump in 2015 and was hired to co-chair his Florida operations in 2016 and 2020. She was named CEO of his Save America Leadership PAC in 2021 before being asked to co-chair the 2024 campaign.
Wiles has been described as a background figure in the Trump world, responsible for instilling discipline and suggesting key course corrections in his positions, including his stance on mail-in voting.
She’s also had a successful career in government affairs and communications consulting and is the co-chair of Mercury Public Affairs, a global public strategy firm.
JD Vance, Vice President
Vice President-elect JD Vance will be the first millennial vice president and, at age 40, the youngest vice president in the nation’s history.Before joining the Senate in 2023, Vance served in the Marine Corps as a combat correspondent in the Iraq war. A graduate of Ohio State University and Yale Law School, he has worked in venture capital with Peter Thiel and was a CNN commentator. His 2016 best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” details his life growing up in poverty in a Rust Belt town in Ohio, where he was raised by his grandmother while his mother struggled with substance abuse.
In the Senate, Vance served on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, and the Special Committee on Aging. He has a conservative voting record, expressed support for Israel and criticism of the war in Ukraine, and sees focus on China as a priority.
He is married to corporate litigator Usha Chilukuri Vance, who will become the first Hindu spouse of a vice president and the first woman of color second lady. They have three children—Ewan, 7, Vivek, 4, and Mirabel, 2.
