Trump's White House circle takes shape amid fears of extremist appointments | Donald Trump

DDonald Trump's second administration is taking shape amid fears of extremists being appointed and how far to the right the US will go as Republicans control the White House and likely both chambers of Congress.

The range of suggested names ranges from members of Trump's inner circle to the richest man in the world, technology mogul Elon Musk. In addition to plutocrats and technocrats, there are hardline ideologues on immigration and foreign policy, as well as the controversial figure Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading vaccine conspiracy theorist.

On Thursday, Trump made his first appointment, naming Susie Wiles, a co-campaign chair, as White House chief of staff. Trump praised the 67-year-old Wiles as “tenacious, smart, innovative… universally admired and respected” and relished appointing “the first-ever female chief of staff in the history of the United States.”

Wiles is the daughter of NFL legend Pat Summerall and has worked on Republican campaigns since the days of Ronald Reagan. But she faces a thankless task. Chief of Staff is an extremely demanding role, both as a gatekeeper and as an advisor. In Trump's first four-year term there were four: Reince Priebus, John Kelly, Mick Mulvaney and Mark Meadows. None flourished. Before this year's election, Kelly even went so far as to publicly say that Trump praised Adolf Hitler and met “the general definition of a fascist.”

In public, Wiles is a woman who says fewer words. On election night, Trump called her “the ice cream baby” in his victory speech.

The Trump transition team is chaired by Howard Lutnick, chief executive of financial giant Cantor Fitzgerald, and Linda McMahon, the World Wrestling Entertainment impresario who led the Small Business Administration during Trump's first term. There is still speculation about top jobs. Given campaign promises, including mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and pardons for the Jan. 6 rioters, the role of attorney general is perhaps drawing the most attention.

Mike Davis, a lawyer and former Senate aide, is constantly attached to the role. This week, Davis made headlines when he threatened Letitia James, the New York attorney general who has launched successful civil cases against Trump and his company and said she would “fight back” if Trump returns to power.

“Let me just say this to Big Tish James,” Davis told podcaster Benny Johnson. “I urge you to seek to continue your legal challenge against President Trump in his second term. Because listen, darling, we're not kidding this time. And we’ll put your fat ass in jail for conspiring against the right, I promise you.”

Davis also asked a Jan. 6 conspiracy theorist for “pardon and commutation lists” and said of Trump's opponents, “I want to drag their dead political bodies through the streets, burn them and throw them off the wall.” (Legally, politically and financially, of course .)”

Lauded by Donald Trump Jr. as “the tip of the spear in my father's defense” and “exactly the type of fighter I would like to see in a second Trump administration,” Davis appears to be a guarantee that both criminal charges against Trump will be dropped to have and condemn his 34 criminal convictions in his hush money trial in New York.

However, Davis himself has admitted to being intentionally outrageous – telling Politico: “It's hilarious that it's so easy to trigger.” [Trump’s opponents and the press]. I am apparently they are trolling.” The Guardian understands that Davis has told allies privately and publicly that he does not want to be attorney general, an opinion he passed on to Trump.

Many observers are eyeing Mike Lee, the Utah senator who eagerly participated in Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election, for attorney general. John Ratcliffe, Trump's former director of national intelligence, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton – like Trump, a scandal magnet, indicted and indicted – are also in the race.

Sources advised paying close attention to the names being discussed for the deputy attorney general position, given the DAG's role in the day-to-day running of the Justice Department. Mark Paoletta, a lawyer and Catholic hardliner who is close to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, right-wing activist Ginni Thomas, is said to be a suspect. Paoletta, who was general counsel for the Office of Management and Budget in the first Trump administration, is also tied to the top post.

Other characters from the first administration are linked to roles in the second. Many have ties to Project 2025, a policy planning initiative coordinated by the far-right Heritage Foundation that produced the Mandate for Leadership, a 900-page compendium of extreme proposals.

The chapter's authors who are now candidates for Trump jobs include Christopher Miller, who was acting defense secretary during the attack on the Capitol; Russell Vought, Trump's chairman of the Office of Management and Budget; Peter Navarro, a trade consultant who went to prison for contempt of Congress; and Roger Severino, a former senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Trump has announced that he will give Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a prominent role in health policy, as a kind of “czar,” if not secretary of health. Kennedy ran for president as an independent before endorsing Trump. He is also a vaccine conspiracy theorist and an advocate for removing fluoride from public drinking water, positions that raise concerns among public health advocates.

After Trump indicated that he was open to Kennedy's desire to ban vaccinations, Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and faculty member at the New England Complex Systems Institute, said simply: “What I grieve most is the children who may soon no longer be vaccinated “to save their lives from preventable diseases.”

Musk, owner of X, Tesla and SpaceX, supported Trump's campaign and said he expects a role in cutting the federal budget. Among the less wealthy figures likely to be influential as advisers, if not cabinet members, are Stephen Miller, the far-right immigration hawk; Kash Patel, who ended Trump's first term at the Pentagon; and Johnny McEntee, who went from “body man” to purge planner in Trump’s first White House.

For defense secretary, Trump is likely to consider Christopher Miller, the former special forces officer and author of Project 2025, whose actions (or inactions) were examined by the House Investigations Committee on January 6. The names in the Pentagon frame also include Mike Waltz, a Florida congressman and former Green Beret, and Mike Pompeo, a soldier and congressman who was CIA director and then secretary of state last time.

Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who ran against Trump for the Republican nomination in 2016, is widely touted for secretary of state. This week, Rubio told CNN: “I'm always interested in serving this country.”

Bill Hagerty, a senator from Tennessee and former ambassador to Japan, is also reportedly being considered as Trump's top diplomat. Richard Grenell, former ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence, is also reportedly seeking the role. Fox News reported that Grenell could become national security adviser. Robert O'Brien, the sixth and final man to fill the role in Trump's first term, is also a possible candidate to return. Elise Stefanik, the New Yorker in the Republican House of Representatives, is said to be a possible UN ambassador.

Numerous plutocrats, including hedge fund billionaire John Paulson, have been nominated for Treasury Secretary. Robert Lighthizer, a veteran who most recently served as U.S. trade representative, likely an important post given Trump's obsession with China and tariffs, is also in the picture. Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor whom Trump considered for running mate before choosing Ohio Sen. JD Vance, is reportedly well-suited to be Interior secretary.

Amid the incessant speculation about Trump's plans, sources told the Guardian to keep in mind that Project 2025, while deeply troubling to progressives because it calls for purges of federal workers and attacks on minority rights, is most likely something of a red herring – a new one Version of this policy plans drawn up by the Heritage Foundation since the days of Reagan and never fully implemented.

The America First Policy Institute, founded by Stephen Miller and of which McMahon is chairman, is much more involved in transition plans. Also with AFPI is Chad Wolf, former acting Secretary of Homeland Security and a candidate this time.

Mass deportations – and the placement of migrants in camps – were a central part of Trump's push. During the campaign, Trump spoke favorably about Tom Homan, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Homan, a Heritage fellow and author of Project 2025, said at the Republican National Convention this summer in Milwaukee that he had “a message to the millions of illegal aliens that Joe Biden has allowed into the country in violation of federal law – catch it.” to start packing, because you will be going home.”

Homan also reportedly accepted an invitation to a white nationalist conference hosted by Nick Fuentes, the Holocaust denier and Hitler admirer who dined with Trump and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago in 2022.

On Thursday, Homan told Fox News he had “not taken any political action or … asked for a Cabinet position” and no offer had been made. But he added: “President Trump knows that if he needs help securing this border, I'll be there. If he needs help carrying out a deportation operation, I'll be there.”