One week after winning the election against Vice President Kamala Harris, President-elect Donald Trump has begun to confirm who will be a part of his new cabinet.
John Ratcliffe, former Director of National Intelligence will serve as Trump’s Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
“From exposing fake Russian collusion to be a Clinton campaign operation, to catching the FBI’s abuse of Civil Liberties at the FISA Court, John Ratcliffe has always been a warrior for truth and honesty with the American Public,” Trump said in his announcement.
In announcing the nomination, Trump praised Hegseth’s commitment to veterans and his advocacy for a strong, merit-based military aligned with his “peace through strength” mandate.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was named lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Noem has said that people who cross into the United States illegally must be deported and that the spike in illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border is a problem.
“The border is a warzone, so we’re sending soldiers,” she said earlier this year, as she deployed National Guard troops to Texas to help officials there handle the surge in illegal immigrants crossing the border.
While not cabinet roles, Trump also named Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a proposed new department focused on improving government efficiency, reducing waste, and cutting excess regulation, dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency (‘DOGE’).
Trump described it as the “Manhattan project” of our time, driving “drastic change” to cut waste and fraud in the federal bureaucracy by July 4, 2026.
Susie Wiles, 67, will become the first woman to serve as Chief of Staff, and she comes to the White House after co-chairing Trump’s victorious campaign.
She is also credited for helping now-Sen. Tim Scott win his bid for Florida governor in 2010, and Gov. Ron DeSantis’s first campaign in 2018.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R–N.Y.), if approved by the Senate, will become the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. She was described by Trump as being “an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter.”
Stefanik replaced former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) as the Chair of the House Republican Conference in 2021 with Trump’s endorsement, and became the first member of Congress to endorse Trump for his reelection.
Former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin will assume the role of EPA Administrator with the expectation that he will enact swift deregulation while also maintaining the highest environmental standards.
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) will be Trump’s first National Security Adviser this term, despite just winning re-election in the Sixth Congressional District in east-central Florida one week ago.
He was the first Green Beret elected to Congress and has continued to advocate for taking a hard stance against Communist China.
He is a member of the House China Task Force, the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, and the House Armed Services committee.
Meanwhile, Stephen Miller will return to the White House as Trump’s deputy chief of policy. He has been with the president-elect since his 2016 campaign and was previously senior policy adviser. His prime focus was on immigration policies.
Trump also announced Mike Huckabee will become the U.S. ambassador to Israel, pending Senate approval.
The former governor of Arkansas and presidential candidate is a staunch Southern Baptist with a steadfast position in support of Israel, and against the idea of a ceasefire with Hamas.
Steven C. Witkoff was named Trump’s pick for Special Envoy to the Middle East. “Steve is a highly respected leader in business and philanthropy, who has made every project and community he has been involved with stronger and more prosperous,”
Trump said in his announcement: “Steve will be an unrelenting voice for peace, and make us all proud.”
Trump’s White House Counsel will be William Joseph McGinley. McGinley served in Trump’s first term as his cabinet secretary and Trump credited McGinley for his work as the RNC’s outside counsel for election integrity.
“Bill is a smart and tenacious lawyer who will help me advance our America First agenda while fighting for election integrity and against the weaponization of law enforcement,” Trump said.
Speculation continues to fly around the remaining cabinet positions and presidential appointments. As of this newsletter’s release, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is currently favored to be named Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, and Scott Bessent, 62, is expected to be picked by Trump to become Secretary of the Treasury,
Bessent is a seasoned hedge fund investor, and founder of Key Square Group, a global macro-investment company. He is also a large Republican donor.
—The Epoch Times Staff
DEMOCRATS GRAPPLE WITH LOSING THE WORKING-CLASS VOTE
President-elect Donald Trump won the 2024 election in part because working-class voters continued their migration toward the America First populism that Trump has preached for the last three election cycles.
The shift is significant enough to be termed a global phenomenon according to William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“We are witnessing the emergence of a new politics of class,” Galston said in a panel discussion on Nov 12. “Class, defined as educational attainment, dominates the scene in the United States and throughout the industrialized world.”
Analysts commonly use education and income levels as indicators of working-class identity.
Trump won 63 percent of the vote among those who never attended college according to exit polling conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of news organizations.
Trump won a majority of votes from households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $99,000. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income in 2023 was $80,610.
Kamala Harris did best with voters from the lowest and highest-earning households.
Harris won 50 percent of the votes from households earning below $30,000 per year. The federal poverty level for a family of four is $31,200 per year.
Harris won 51 percent among households earning $200,000 annually. Households earning more than double the U.S. median are considered upper income according to Pew Research.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Democrats must do better at connecting with poor and rural voters. “We don’t listen enough; we tell people what’s good for them,” Murphy wrote.
The economy was the driving force behind this migration into the Republican coalition for working-class Latinos, according to Gabriel Sanchez, a professor of political science at the University of New Mexico.
“Overwhelmingly, the economy is what Latino men have actually been talking about for three election cycles in a row,” Sanchez said.
While Democrats spent much of their time campaigning against Trump’s character, voters had other concerns according to commentator E.J. Dionne.
“[We thought] Trump’s unpopularity and the danger he posed to the Republic would move more voters than actually happened,” Dionne said. “It was a run-of-the-mill election because people were still deeply upset about the economy.”
While working-class voters helped put Trump on top in this election, experts say that should not be taken as a guarantee of future loyalty.
“I think it’s very important to underscore that when all the votes are counted, it could be a point or a point and a half victory in the popular vote,” Dionne said.
David Schultz, a professor of political science at Hamline University, told us, “A shift of 121,000 votes across Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin would have produced a different result with Harris winning.”
Working-class voters will need to see change before committing to the GOP long-term, according to Sanchez.
“It’s not a mandate to do everything that they talked about. It really was just a mandate on reducing the cost of goods,” he said.
—Lawrence Wilson
BOOKMARKS
A woman was fired from her position at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for allegedly urging her team not to visit homes with signs supporting now-President-elect Donald Trump. FEMA director Deanne Criswell called the allegation “a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation.”
Florida and Tennessee, have launched investigations into the matter. Thousands of FEMA employees have been out helping people across multiple states in the wake of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.
New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan delayed his ruling on President-elect Donald Trump’s immunity arguments in his falsified documents—or “hush money”—case. The delay was requested by both the Manhattan prosecutor Matthey Colangelo and one of Trump’s attorney’s Emil Bove, citing the election win as a reason for the delay. Merchan moved the sentencing date to Nov. 26.
U.S. District Judge John deGravelles blocked a new Louisiana law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms by Jan 1, 2025, calling it “unconstitutional in every application.” Signed by Gov. Jeff Landry on June 19, it was challenged that month as a First Amendment violation by several plaintiffs, including some represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Supreme Court rejected former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’s request to have his election interference case moved to federal court on Nov. 12. Meadows, who was indicted by a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, in August 2023, and accused of violating the Georgia RICO Act for alleged illegal efforts to contest presidential election results, said his reason for moving his case was because he was performing his duties as a federal officer. The justices gave no explanation for their rejection.
—T.J. Muscaro
