Sunday, 22 December 2024
Sunday, 22 December 2024
Donald J. Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections has had reverberations across the world. From the fight against climate change to the US-China rivalry to Ukraine to the Middle East, almost every major global issue stands at the crossroads as no one really knows what the business tycoon actually plans to do. Although there are broad fears.
In such a scenario, who Trump chooses in key positions becomes key for the world as well.
His first move, last Thursday, was to name his campaign chief, Susie Wiles, as his White House chief of staff on Thursday. Dubbed the “ice maiden” by Trump, her claim to fame is that the longtime Republican strategist launched a bold and successful strategy to win over some Latino and Black voters.
Since then, more names have emerged and they hold clues to what the new Team Trump will aim at.
Michael Waltz is tipped as the national security adviser; Marco Rubio, the secretary of state; Lee Zeldin is tipped to be the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and Stephen Miller is the frontrunner for deputy chief of staff for policy. And, of course, former immigration officer Tom Homan has been named the “border czar”.
Here is all you need to know about them.
Marco Rubio as secretary of state
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to appoint Florida Senator Marco Rubio, 53, as his secretary of state.
Rubio was born in Miami, Florida and his parents were Cubans who immigrated to the US in 1956. He served as Speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives from 2006 to 2008 as a member of the Republican Party.
Rubio, who has a degree in Political Science from the University of Florida, was elected to the US Senate in 2010.
He is staunchly anti-abortion. He made headlines in 2015 when he declared he would ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest.
“I personally and honestly and deeply believe that all human life is worthy of protection, irrespective of the circumstances in which that human life was created,” Rubio was quoted as saying by The New York Times.
In 2016, he sought the Republican nomination for the President of the United States. Rubio had squared off against Trump at CNN’s Republican presidential debate, where he branded Trump as a “con artist”.
The next morning, Trump attacked Rubio on Twitter: “The problem is, he is a choker, and once a choker, always a choker! Mr. Meltdown.”
Rubio has also opposed UN Resolution 2334 that reaffirms “that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity”.
“Efforts to delegitimize Israel have been underway a long time at the United Nations and have now sadly been aided by the outgoing administration. But the time has come to turn back the tide and renew America’s commitment to the Jewish state,” Rubio was quoted as saying by The Times of Israel in 2017.
Michael Waltz as national security adviser
Michael Waltz, 50, is expected to be Trump’s national security adviser.
Waltz graduated with honours as a Distinguished Military Graduate from the Virginia Military Institute and served over 26 years in the US Army. As a Green Beret, he has toured Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. For his contribution in the Army, he was honoured with four Bronze Stars.
He is the author of the book Warrior Diplomat: A Green Beret’s Battles from Washington to Afghanistan.
Waltz worked as a defence policy director for defence secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates during the George W. Bush administration.
On July 19, 2022, Waltz voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, a federal law that protects same-sex and interracial marriage.
He is seen as hawkish on China and has supported aid to Ukraine.
Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff, policy
Stephen Miller, 39, is expected to work closely with Thomas Homan to oversee the planned deportations, per The New York Times. In 2016, Miller had joined Trump presidential campaign as a senior policy adviser. He wrote Trump’s speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and was later named the head of Trump's economic policy team.
Miller was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating attempts to overturn the 2020 US presidential election on September 8, 2022.
Born in Santa Monica, California, Miller grew up in the Jewish family of Michael D. Miller, a real estate investor, and Miriam. Miller earned his bachelor's degree in Political Science from Duke University in 2007.
Miller’s mother's ancestors Wolf Lieb Glotzer emigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire's Antopol, escaping the anti-Jewish pogroms in Belarus.
Per Politico magazine, at age 16, in his response to his school’s critique of the 9/11 attack, in a letter to the editor of the Santa Monica Outlook, Miller wrote: “Osama Bin Laden would feel very welcome at Santa Monica High School.”
After graduating college, Miller worked as a press secretary for Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a Tea Party Republican.
Miller is believed to have “helped kill” the bipartisan deal on comprehensive immigration reform in 2014.
Per an article by Kim Bellware in The Washington Post in 2019, Miller sent more than 900 emails to a writer at the far-right news syndicate Breitbart. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which reviewed the emails, characterised him as someone obsessed with ideas such as “white genocide” and against “nonwhite immigration”.
On October 27, 2024, at Trump’s campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Miller said: "America is for Americans and Americans only".
Lee Zeldin as chief of the EPA
Donald Trump is expected to make Lee Zeldin, 44, administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Born and raised in Suffolk County, New York, Zeldin served as an attorney in New York. He joined the US Army in 2003, and served as a military intelligence officer, prosecutor and military magistrate till 2007.
A former US representative, Zeldin represented New York’s first Congressional District from 2015 to 2023. He also served as a member of the New York State Senate from the third Senate district from 2011 to 2014.
Zeldin ran for governor of New York as a Republican nominee in 2020. Despite receiving the most votes as a Republican gubernatorial nominee statewide since Nelson Rockerfeller in 1970, he lost to incumbent governor Kathy Hochul.
Per The New York Times, when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which protected the right to abortion, Zeldin celebrated the ruling as “a victory for life, for family, for the Constitution, and for federalism”.
In 2016 he pushed to change the designation of about 150 square miles of federal waters in Long Island Sound to state jurisdiction for New York and Rhode Island. He wanted to open the area to striped bass fishing, which is allowed in state waters but banned in the federal area.
Per The Guardian, the EPA nominee “has rarely spoken out on environmental or climate issues, although he said in 2014 he was ‘not sold yet on the whole argument that we have as serious a problem as other people are’ with global heating, and added in 2018 that he did not support the Paris climate agreement, which Trump is again expected to withdraw the US from.”
Thomas Homan in charge of Nation’s Borders
A former police officer, immigration official and political commentator, Thomas Homan, 62, served Obama and the first Trump administration. He, along with Stephen Miller, is expected to be key in carrying out Trump's professed plans of mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.
From January 30, 2017, to June 29, 2018, Homan served as acting director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Homan was “significantly involved” in the separation of children from their parents after they crossed the border illegally, Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, has said.
In an interview published by The Atlantic in 2022, Homan admitted that separated families suffer. But at least “they’re not dead,” he said.
“I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Likewise, Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin,” he added.
