WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump’s team is vetting a series of candidates ahead of his return to the White House on 20 January 2025.
He has made the first official hires of his incoming administration, naming a chief of staff, a border tsar, an ambassador to the United Nations and an environmental protection agency head.
A president is responsible for about 4,000 political appointments – a process that can take months. Here is a closer look at those posts already filled, and the names in the mix for the top jobs.
National security adviser – Mike Waltz
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to select Florida congressman Michael Waltz as the next national security adviser, sources told CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner.
The national security adviser counsels the president on various threats to the US and Waltz would likely have to help navigate the US position on the wars in Israel, and in Ukraine and Russia.
It is considered an influential role and does not require Senate confirmation.
Defence secretary
Trump has previously singled out Christopher Miller, his final acting defence secretary, as a candidate who could be nominated to lead the military.
Other names being discussed include Michael Waltz, a Florida lawmaker who sits on the armed services committee in the US House of Representatives, and Robert O’Brien.
United Nations ambassador – Elise Stefanik
Media reports – confirmed by the BBC’s US partner CBS News – say the New York congresswoman has been offered the UN ambassador job.
Stefanik has made national headlines with her sharp questioning in congressional committees, first at Trump’s 2019 impeachment hearings and again this year quizzing college leaders about anti-semitism on campus.
CIA Chief
Kash Patel, a loyalist who staffed the national security council and became chief of staff to the acting secretary of defence in Trump’s final months in office.
Patel, 44, who helped block the transition to the incoming Joe Biden administration in the latter role, is tipped to become the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief.
Trump has also said he would fire Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) Director Chris Wray, who he nominated in 2017 but has since fallen out with. Jeffrey Jensen, a former Trump-appointed US attorney, is under consideration to replace Wray.
Secretary of state
The US secretary of state is the president’s main adviser on foreign affairs, and acts as America’s top diplomat when representing the country overseas.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio – who was most recently under consideration to be Trump’s vice-president – is a major name being floated for the key cabinet post.
Rubio, 53, takes a hawkish view of China. He opposed Trump in the 2016 Republican primary but has since mended fences. He is a senior member of the Senate foreign relations committee and vice-chairman of the chamber’s select intelligence panel.
Elon Musk
The world’s richest man poured millions of dollars into re-electing Trump and critics say he will now have the power to shape the regulations that affect his companies Tesla, SpaceX and X.
Both he and Trump have focused on the idea of him leading a new “Department of Government Efficiency”, where he would cut costs and streamline what he calls a “massive, suffocating federal bureaucracy”.
The would-be agency’s acronym – DOGE – is a playful reference to a “meme-coin” cryptocurrency Musk has previously promoted.
But Musk, 53, could also play a role in global diplomacy. He participated in Trump’s first call with Ukraine’s Zelensky on Wednesday.
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