Trump’s personnel choices tell us about his plans for a second term

A week after Donald Trump won a second term in the White House, the contours of his new presidency are beginning to take shape.

The president-elect announced nearly a dozen appointees, the first steps in staffing the White House and key government agencies. He also made comments to the media and social media to highlight his priorities when he took office in January, with a particular focus on foreign policy and immigration.

After a sometimes chaotic start to his first term, Trump is laying the groundwork for his next administration with a more clearly defined plan — and the personnel ready to carry it out.

Here’s what we’ve learned so far.

Some of Trump’s newly revealed appointments suggest that the president-elect’s campaign promise to deport millions of undocumented migrants living in the US was not an exaggeration.

Stephen Miller, who has been a close adviser and speechwriter to Trump since 2015, will likely shape any plans for mass deportations — and reduce both undocumented immigration and legal – when Trump chose to be White House deputy chief of staff for policy. During Trump’s first term, he was involved in developing some of the administration’s strictest immigration policies.

Thomas Homan, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s first term, supported the president’s policy of separating undocumented families detained at the US-Mexico border. Now he returns with an even broader portfolio, as Trump’s “immigration czar.”

“I will run the largest deportation force this country has ever seen,” Homan said at a conservative conference in July.

Critics have warned that Trump’s mass deportation plan could cost up to $300 billion. However, in an interview with NBC News last week, the president-elect said cost is not an issue.

“When people kill and murder, when drug lords destroy countries, and now they will return to those countries because they are not here anymore,” he said. “There is no price list.”

Many conservatives believe that China is the greatest threat to America’s global dominance, both economically and militarily. While Trump is more cautious, largely limiting his control over China Criticism of the commercial sectorhe is filling his foreign policy team with strong criticism of China.

The president-elect chose Florida Congressman Mike Waltz, a retired army colonel, to be his national security adviser – an important foreign policy position in the White House. Waltz believes that the US is in a “cold war” with China and was one of the first members of Congress to call for the US to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

In October, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick to be US ambassador to the United Nations, accused China of “flagrant and malicious election interference” amid reports that Chinese-backed hackers tried to collect information from the former president’s phone.

While Trump has yet to officially name his choice for secretary of state, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio – another China hawk – appears to be the leading candidate for the foreign post. Top delivery. In 2020, Rubio was sanctioned by the Chinese government after he pushed for sanctions against the country for its crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

US-China relations often encountered many storms during Trump’s first term, amid trade disputes and the Covid pandemic. The Biden administration, which kept many of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods and imposed some new tariffs, has only partially eased the situation. Now it appears that the next Trump administration will pick up where the previous administration left off.

While the list of Trump’s political appointees is growing, there is another group that remains small – and extremely influential.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is already a full-time presence at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago transition headquarters. According to press reports, he is advising the president-elect on cabinet nominees and even participated in a conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week.

On Tuesday night, Trump announced that he was assigning Musk to work with tech entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on a “government effectiveness department” tasked with determining determine new budget cuts.

Musk regularly airs his political views on social media platform X, including supporting Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s bid to become the next Senate majority leader.

Musk’s political action committee has spent about $200 million to help Trump’s presidential campaign, and he promised to continue funding the group’s efforts to advance the president-elect’s agenda. elect and help Republican candidates in the upcoming congressional elections.

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen where Robert F Kennedy Jr, another key figure, will land. Trump has said he plans to give the former Democrat and vaccine skeptic, who abandoned his independent effort and threw his weight behind Republicans, a role in making the country America is “healthy” again.

“He wants to do some things and we’ll let him do it,” Mr. Trump said in his election victory speech.

When Trump took office, Republicans had control of the Senate and could still take the House, albeit by a very small margin. However, the president-elect’s initial actions showed he was more interested in exercising presidential power than working with the legislature.

Last week, he posted on social media that the Senate Republican leadership should clear the way for more presidential “recess appointments” — allowing him to take on top administrative jobs without Senate approval when Congress is not in session. The move would strengthen the president’s power by reducing the chamber’s constitutional role in “advising and consenting” to political appointees.

Meanwhile, the president-elect continues to shrink his narrow majority in Congress. Senators who move into administration roles can be quickly replaced by appointment from their home state’s governor. But any vacancies in the House — such as those created by the departures of Stefanik and Waltz — require special elections and can take months to schedule.

Some Trump advisers, including Musk, have warned that the president-elect could jeopardize his legislative agenda if he removes too many Republicans from the chamber.

Even under the best of circumstances, legislation from Congress takes time, effort and compromise. Executive action, such as implementing new immigration laws, can be taken with the stroke of the president’s pen.

Trump’s actions show that, at least for now, he is more focused on the latter issue.

Trump has only just begun filling the thousands of jobs opening up in the new presidential administration, not yet including the senior officials he claims to replace.

In 2016, as a political newcomer, he had to rely on more established Republicans to fill key roles. This time, he has plenty of potential candidates with a proven track record of supporting him, and after eight years, Trump loyalists have become Republican.

On Tuesday, Trump appointed South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security and Fox News host and conservative author Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Both have been fierce defenders of Trump from the beginning.

Others, like Rubio and Stefanik, criticized Trump early in his first presidential run, but they have now spent years proving that their harsh words are a thing of the past.

However, Rubio, who ran for president against Trump in 2016, may still have White House ambitions. Trump often appears uneasy with appointees, who seem to gravitate toward the limelight during his first term, and even the warmest of relationships can turn sour. .

Trump may promote loyalty with his initial staff announcements, but executive pressure will ultimately reveal whether his second four years in office end differently than his first.