Topline
President-elect Donald Trump selected his campaign’s lead press secretary Karoline Leavitt as White House press secretary Friday, not long after he selected campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung as White House communications director—the latest choices for top-level administrative posts, as Trump has made a flurry of appointments since winning the election last week.
Karoline Leavitt worked as press secretary for Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. (AP … [+]
Key Facts
Trump has chosen people for a handful of Senate-confirmed Cabinet-level jobs, and he’s picked a White House chief of staff and a national security adviser, two key roles that don’t require confirmation.
Trump is reportedly keen on candidates who will remove career bureaucrats Trump considers to be part of what he refers to as the “deep state,” according to The New York Times.
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White House Press Secretary: Karoline Leavitt
Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, will serve as White House Press Secretary once the president-elect assumes his office. Leavitt, 27, was an assistant press secretary during Trump’s first presidency. She also won the Republican primary in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District in 2022, becoming the second Gen Z candidate to win a House primary.
White House Communications Director: Steven Cheung
Trump picked his campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, to serve as his communications director at the White House. Cheung was the director of communications for the president-elect’s 2024 presidential campaign and served as director of strategic response during Trump’s last term, after working in communications for the Ultimate Fighting Championship previously.
Health And Human Services Secretary: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Health and Human Services Department, making good on his promise to give Kennedy broad leeway over public health decisions. Kennedy, who ran for the Democratic nomination then as an independent candidate before dropping out and endorsing Trump, espouses debunked views on public health—including skepticism about the efficacy of childhood vaccines and the Covid-19 vaccine. He has also advocated for removing fluoride from public water, an idea Trump said he as open to. As HHS secretary, Kennedy would oversee 13 public health-related agencies, and has expressed plans to upend many of them, telling an audience at a conference in November he would halt infectious disease studies at the National Institutes of Health if given a role in the Trump administration. “I’m going to say to NIH scientists, God bless you all . . . thank you for your public service,” NBC reported. The appointment is another surprise pick by Trump, whose transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick told CNN late last month Kennedy wouldn’t be in charge of HHS. The selection of Kennedy drew criticism from many Democrats, and some Republicans expressed wariness about the pick, with Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins saying Kennedy “would be a surprising choice” and House Rep. Rep. John Duarte, R-Calif., expressing concerns that he could “move against one of the most life-saving technologies in the history of the world,” referring to vaccines. Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence spoke against Kennedy as the pick to lead HHS in a statement Friday and urged Senate Republicans to reject the nomination, citing Kennedy’s support of abortion rights and saying, “If confirmed, RFK, Jr. would be the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history.” Pence became one of the biggest-name Republicans to speak against the selection Friday when he called on the Senate to reject the nomination, which he called “an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration.”
Interior Secretary: Doug Burgum (and Head Of New National Energy Council)
Trump plans to nominate North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as secretary of the interior, he said at an event Thursday. If confirmed by the Senate, he’ll be responsible for managing vast swaths of federally owned land, administering national parks and handling oil and gas drilling on federal property—which Trump has vowed to ramp up. Trump also tapped Burgum as chairman of the new National Energy Council, which will cut down on regulations and “oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE,” according to Trump. The position will also provide Burgum a seat on the National Security Council. First elected North Dakota governor in 2016, Burgum briefly ran against Trump in the 2024 GOP primaries, but dropped out before the Iowa caucuses and endorsed Trump. A tech executive and investor by trade, Burgum previously ran Great Plains Software, remaining at the company after it was acquired by Microsoft. Last year, Forbes estimated his net worth at at least $100 million.
