Washington After losing campaigns to Democrats in recent years, in part because of their connections to Trump, president-elect Donald Trump is selecting a group of devoted supporters for high-profile federal government positions.
The selections consist of:
- Two former Georgia senators who lost their races in 2020 after promoting Trump s false claims that he won the last election. David Perdue, who went on to lose the 2022 primary for governor while echoing Trump s election denial, is tapped to be ambassador to China. Kelly Loeffler has been picked to lead the Small Business Administration.
-
Trump’s handpicked Georgia Senate candidate in 2022, former football player
Herschel Walker
, was tapped late Tuesday
to be ambassador to the Bahamas. Walker ran as a MAGA prot g and lost, but he has remained a steadfast supporter of Trump. - Mehmet Oz, the doctor and TV personality whom Trump elevated to run for Senate in Pennsylvania two years ago, has been selected to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
- Kari Lake, the Trump ally who lost races in Arizona for governor in 2022 and for Senate in 2024, has been chosen to run Voice of America, an international news broadcaster backed by U.S. funding.
-
Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore. who lost re-election to a Democrat who linked her to Trump and derisively
told voters
she was standing by her man was chosen for labor secretary.
- Doug Collins, the pro-Trump former congressman who lost a Georgia jungle primary to Loeffler in 2022, has been tapped to run the Department of Veterans Affairs.
- Lee Zeldin, the Trump-aligned former New York congressman who lost his race for governor in 2022, has been selected to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
One word sums up Trump’s guiding principle when making these selections: loyalty.
As he constructs his second administration, he is once again displaying his long-standing admiration for those who are politically loyal to him. It comes as little surprise to close allies.
Hard stop, he values loyalty. Sometimes more than anything else. According to a Trump friend with knowledge of the transition process, “we were not surprised by anyone you mentioned being picked.” In addition to being well-suited for the roles for which they are nominated, they have demonstrated a strong commitment to President Trump. He wants people he knows he can trust in order to alter Washington.
The former president is rewarding supporters and attempting to tell Republicans, “Don’t cross me if you’re in the Congress,” according to Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California. since he can recall.
However, he questioned whether Trump is picking the brightest and greatest.
In an interview, Swalwell stated, “I don’t understand why you’d want a Cabinet full of electoral losers.”
Trump and the senators who must approve the nominations should prioritize competency, according to Rep. Hillary Scholten, a Democrat from Michigan.
I cannot begin to get in the mind of Trump, but it certainly seems from the outside that this is a way to keep people who were close to him, who took a stand for him, within the inner circle, Scholten said. Since the Senate is a place of great trust, I’m happy that we have a screening procedure in place to ensure that we’re not just rewarding political loyalty. For these positions, we need the most qualified candidate.
Texas Senator John Cornyn, a Republican, backed Trump’s selections.
“I’m happy that he’s utilizing some of the talent available,” he remarked. That gives me encouragement.
The catch to Trump’s decisions to elevate those figures is that those who dared to challenge him were either passed over or frozen out. Two such individuals are Mike Pompeo, who served as Trump’s secretary of state but is now seen by many in the MAGA movement as disloyal to Trump and faced withering public criticism from many Trump supporters as well as a covert lobbying effort by Donald Trump Jr. to keep him out of a second administration, and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador during Trump’s first term who later challenged him for the Republican presidential nomination.
I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation, Trumpannouncedon his social media platform a few days after the election, amid speculation.
The planned Trump nominees who have recently lost elections have easily checked the loyalty box; some count themselves among Trump s most vocal advocates.
Lake most notably became one of the most enduring voices pushing the falsehood that Trump won the 2020 election, and over the 2024 election period was a mainstay at Mar-a-Lago, regularly posting on social media about her visits to West Palm Beach.
At times, her presence was so consistent that she began towear out her welcomeeven with Trump s own advisers.
At the end of the day, those are not the sort of things that will end a relationship with Trump, the Trump ally said of reporting throughout this year that Trump urged her to leave Mar-a-Lago to do more campaigning for her own Senate race in Arizona.
The loyalty test is also a way past Trump political foes have used to get back into his good graces and his second administration.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is Trump s pick to serve as secretary of state even after the two had a bruising primary fight in 2016. Trump and Rubio regularly sparred, with Trump dubbing the senior Florida senator Little Marco, and Rubio making an off-color joke about Trump shand size.
Since that race, Rubio recalibrated to become a vocal Trump ally, in the process re-establishing his standing with both Trump world and the MAGA movement at large.
He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries, Trump said in November whenannouncingRubio as his pick to lead the State Department.
Zeldin, the former New York congressman, stands out from the underperforming Republican picks because he overperformed, coming within 7 points of victory in the gubernatorial race in the solidly blue state.
In other cases, Trump s choices appear more transactional, such as the choice of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, a scion of the storied Democratic family, ran in the Democratic 2024 primary before launching an independent bid and ultimately dropping out to endorse Trump.
There is very little that someone can do to Trump, even if they were once political enemies, that can t be fixed by showing that you are committed to his message and his movement, the Trump ally said, adding that after his victory I think he has every right to expect that sort of loyalty for those around him.
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