2024 Trump Cabinet race

The Trump Cabinet race -- namely, the race for positions in the Cabinet of the second Trump Administration, has the following appointees. The ones whom Dems, the Deep State, and RINOs will try most to block are:

1. Pete Hegseth for Secy of Defense - great guy, but Fox's echo chamber is not great training
2. RFK Jr. for Secy of HHS - payback time for Dems to criticize him, and Big Pharma will line up NAY votes
3. Pam Bondi for AG - the most important position, so Dems will try their hardest here to force a retreat and obtain concessions

A small fuss by a few Dems:

1. Tulsi Gabbard for National Intelligence Director - liberal Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) is against her, but she'll be easily confirmed and California Dems have lost credibility

Protege picks to top Trump advisors:

• Jamieson Greer is a protege of Robert Lighthizer
• Marty Makary is presumably a protege of Ben Carson (both from Johns Hopkins University medical school)
• Jim O'Neill is a protege of Peter Thiel

Cabinet position (or Cabinet rank)	Frontrunner	Contenders	Withdrawn from consideration
Secretary of State	Marco Rubio (appointed)	Ric Grenell, Bill Hagerty, and Vivek Ramaswamy
Attorney General	Pam Bondi (appointed)	Matt Gaetz (appointed, withdrew), Ken Paxton, Matthew Whitaker, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), John Ratcliffe, Jeffrey Clark, Mike Davis, Ashley Moody, Pam Bondi, and Mark Paoletta
Secretary of Health & Human Services	RFK Jr. (appointed)	Ben Carson, Scott Atlas, and Joseph Ladapo
Secretary of Defense	Pete Hegseth (appointed)
Secretary of Homeland Security	Kristi Noem (appointed)
Chief of Staff	Susie Wiles (appointed)	Brooke Rollins
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)	John Ratcliffe (appointed)
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development	Scott Turner (appointed)	Ben Carson
Secretary of Treasury	Scott Bessent (appointed)	Howard Lutnick, endorsed by Elon Musk; Scott Bessent, a former adviser to George Soros; former Fed governor Kevin Warsh; Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan.	John Paulson
EPA Administrator	Lee Zeldin (appointed)
Ambassador at the UN	Elise Stefanik (appointed)
Secretary of Commerce	Howard Lutnick (appointed)	Robert Lighthizer
Secretary of Agriculture	Brooke Rollins (appointed)

Additional key positions

Position	Appointee
Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy	Stephen Miller
Border Czar (an apparently private advisory position)	Tom Homan
Ambassador to Israel	Mike Huckabee
Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) (an apparently private advisory position)	Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy
National Security Advisor	Mike Waltz
White House Counsel	William McGinley
Press Secretary	Karoline Leavitt
Special Envoy to the Middle East	Steve Witkoff
Special Envoy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict	Richard Grenell
Deputy CIA Director	Amaryllis Fox Kennedy

See also

• Analysis by the British Guardian
• Trump transition 1.0
• Second Cabinet of Donald Trump
• Up-to-date tracking of the status of nominations, confirmations, and vacant positions