Trump makes his riskiest pick yet
Plus: The race to replace Mitch McConnell.
Good morning! It’s Wednesday, November 13, 2024. Inauguration Day is 68 days away.
On the menu this morning: Trump’s latest picks, from DoD to DOGE. Everything you need to know about the race to replace Mitch McConnell. The photo-op that will be seen around the world. And more.
Donald Trump’s earliest staffing choices for his second administration didn’t look all that different from his first.
For White House chief of staff, he chose a Republican strategist who helped lead his campaign. For key national security posts, he chose a collection of hawks, putting Elise Stefanik and (reportedly) Marco Rubio in spots that once went to Nikki Haley and Rex Tillerson. For EPA administrator, he again elevated an anti-regulation former congressman. For Treasury secretary, he appears poised to nominate another Wall Street exec in the mold of Steve Mnuchin.
Sure, putting the South Dakota governor in charge of the Department of Homeland Security was a little out of left field. But most of the picks roughly aligned with those from his first term. Two appointees, the immigration hardliners Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, were even plucked directly from his last team, although both are poised to wield more expansive roles this time around.
Tuesday night is when Trump started pushing the envelope.
For Defense secretary — a post that went to a four-star general and a business leader in his first term — Trump nominated Pete Hegseth, a weekend host on “Fox & Friends,” the president-elect’s favorite TV show.
“Pete has spent his entire life as a Warrior for the Troops, and for the Country,” Trump said in a statement. “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.”
A Fox News pundit since 2014, Hegseth previously served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as an infantry major in the Army National Guard. Before his TV career, he led a pair of conservative veterans organizations, including a Koch-backed group that supported outsourcing veterans’ health care.
If confirmed, Hegseth would assume one of the most important (and traditionally apolitical) posts in government, charged with overseeing an $800 billion budget and the world’s second-largest employer. (The Defense Department is comprised of 2.9 million service members and civilian employees. Out of all the world’s businesses and government agencies, only India’s Defense Ministry commands a larger workforce.)
At 44, Hegseth would be the second-youngest Defense Secretary in history, behind only 43-year-old Don Rumsfeld.
During Trump’s first administration, Hegseth was floated as a candidate for Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Although he wasn’t chosen, he remained an outside adviser, successfully lobbying the then-president to pardon three service members who had been charged with war crimes. Hegseth is the author of a recent book accusing the military of “following the rest of our country off the cliff of cultural chaos and weakness,” echoing Trump’s criticism of “woke” generals.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s transition team is considering establishing a review board that would fast-track the removals of generals and admirals found to be “lacking in requisite leadership qualities,” circumventing the Pentagon’s existing protocols.
Hegseth is Trump’s only pick so far who isn’t guaranteed confirmation in the Senate, setting up the first real test of the president-elect’s power over GOP lawmakers upon his return to Washington.
“Wow,” moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told reporters when asked about the nomination. “Who?” asked Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), another centrist lawmaker. Even more Trump-aligned senators declined to immediately offer their approval: “Oh, really?” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said when told about the pick. “I’d have to think about that.”
His confirmation is certainly unlikely to mirror the sweeping votes received by the past three Pentagon chiefs: Lloyd Austin (93-2), Mark Esper (90-8), and Jim Mattis (98-1). If no Democrats vote for Hegseth’s confirmation, he would be the first Defense Secretary nominee in history not to receive support from both sides of the aisle.
Still, even without the bipartisan support traditional for Defense Secretaries, Hegseth is heavily favored to win approval: with Republicans set to command a 53-seat majority, four GOP defections would be required to defeat him.
Speaking of Senate Republicans…
They are meeting this morning to pick their new leader, as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) plans to step down after 18 years atop the Senate GOP. There are three candidates to succeed him:
Sen. John Thune (R-SD) is McConnell’s No. 2, having served as Senate Republican Whip since 2021. He’s been in Congress since the ’90s, and in the Senate since 2005, when he defeated Democrat Tom Daschle, himself a former Senate Majority Leader. Thune has occasionally crossed swords with Trump in the past, calling for the future president to drop out after the “Access Hollywood” tape and dismissing Trump’s theories about the 2020 election, which led Trump to criticize him as a “RINO.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) was Thune’s predecessor as whip, a position he held from 2013 until being term-limited in 2019. He’s been in the Senate since 2002; before that, he served as Texas attorney general and as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court. A top party fundraiser who was seen as a potential FBI director during the first Trump administration, Cornyn was the main GOP negotiator on the bipartisan gun control package in 2022 — a role that earned him backlash from conservatives.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) is running in the MAGA lane. A perpetual leadership critic since joining the Senate in 2019 (he previously served as Florida’s governor), Scott waged a leader bid against McConnell after the 2022 elections, earning just 10 votes. He has won endorsements from Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and other Trump allies — although that outside support is unlikely to translate to success in the clubby Senate, where senators have not taken kindly to pro-Scott lobbying from MAGA forces.
Whoever wins will be charged with executing Trump’s agenda on Capitol Hill, including shepherding nominees like Hegseth.
Trump — who is set to visit the Hill today, while in D.C. to meet with President Joe Biden — has not expressed a preference in the leader race, although he reportedly backs Scott in private. According to the Bulwark, Trump has refrained from endorsing his fellow Floridian because he doesn’t believe that Scott can win.
The president-elect has, however, issued a demand of all three leader candidates, posting on Truth Social over the weekend that “any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner.”
Under the Constitution, presidents are empowered to unilaterally install appointees during Senate recesses; the appointees then stay in place until the next session of Congress ends (in this case, January 2027). Since the Obama era, under both parties, the Senate has held pro forma sessions instead of formally recessing, in order to prevent presidents from making recess appointments; Trump is calling for that practice to stop.
Scott quickly announced that he agreed with Trump “100%”; Thune and Cornyn were less committal, although both noted that recess appointments were an option on the table.
This morning’s leadership election will be held by secret ballot.
TRIVIA BREAK
Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth has several tattoos, including one that’s gotten him in hot water featuring a symbol known as the Crusader Cross.
Which former U.S. Cabinet secretary had a tattoo of a tiger on their rear end?
Answer at the bottom of the newsletter.
More Trump transition news
Latest appointees:
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy have been tapped to co-lead an outside initiative that Trump is calling the “Department of Government Efficiency” (or “DOGE,” a reference to Musk’s memecoin). According to Trump’s statement, DOGE will essentially serve as an advisory board to recommend cuts to government spending, with a report due by July 4, 2026. “It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” Trump wrote.
Former Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe has been nominated to serve as CIA director. During Trump’s first administration, Ratcliffe served as Director of National Intelligence, using the perch to criticize the Trump/Russia investigations and release unverified intelligence about Trump’s rivals.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to Israel, while Trump’s close friend and fellow real estate tycoon Steve Witkoff has been named as Special Envoy to the Middle East.
Republican lawyer Bill McGinley will serve as White House Counsel, the president’s top lawyer. McGinley served as White House Cabinet Secretary in Trump’s first term and has long been a top attorney in GOP circles.
More news:
Trump is considering tapping RFK Jr. for a Senate-confirmed position, girding for another difficult fight.
MAGA insiders are not happy about Marco Rubio’s reported selection as secretary of state.
The CEO of Exxon Mobil is urging Trump not to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.
Special Counsel Jack Smith plans to wrap up his work and resign before Trump takes office.
The day ahead
All times Eastern.
President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump will meet at 11 a.m. in the Oval Office. Also today, Biden will deliver remarks at a White House summit on education and the workforce; Trump will meet with congressional Republicans.
The Senate will hold a confirmation vote on a district judge nominee and a procedural vote to advance a nominee to be Director of the Office of Government Ethics.
The House will vote on a rule to allow consideration of pieces of legislation on energy and student aid.
House and Senate Republicans will hold their leadership elections.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in NVIDIA Corp. v. E. Ohman J:or Fonder AB, a case involving NVIDIA chip sales and cryptocurrency mining.
TRIVIA ANSWER
George Schultz, who held a record four Cabinet-level posts (including serving as Reagan’s Secretary of State and Nixon’s Secretary of the Treasury), had a Princeton tiger tattooed on his behind in celebration of his alma mater. As the Chicago Tribune reported in 1987:
Confirmation of the fact that Schultz’s posterior is decorated with a tiger tattoo came from his wife, Helena. Mrs. Schultz informed reporters of the tattoo while aboard the secretary’s plane, which was on its way to China.
A month ago there had been a report that Schultz’s behind bore the tiger tattoo, but there had been no way to confirm it. However, aboard the China-bound plane, Mrs. Schultz told the reporters, “He got it at Princeton.”
Thanks to CNN’s Jake Tapper for bestowing upon me this knowledge, which I now unfortunately pass on to all of you.
Your headline is a head scratcher. Risky for who? It seems you think that this selection is a less certain one for Trump, but that's you assuming that our future dictator-in-chief will follow the normal Senate review and approval process.
To me the answer is risky for America. Trump has named a FOX NEWS HOST as his nominee for the head of the armed forces. You can better believe that firing generals who won't kowtow to Trump will be at the top of his to-do list once he's confirmed.
I've already stopped reading the legacy media who sane-washed us into this nightmare. You are young and talented. PLEASE, I beg of you, stop acting as if this is business as usual in DC. Please start reporting what is really happening. Our country's future is at stake. Or I will definitely cancel this subscription too and encourage others to do so as well. There are brave journalists out there who are doing smart, insightful analysis of what's really going on. You could be one of them too.
Unfortunately, after the news today, the nomination of Hegseth can’t carry a candle to the nomination of Gaetz, in terms of riskiness, and insanity I. Ight add.