Trump’s picks the clearest path yet to power consolidation

Washington: As President-elect Donald Trump taps the people he wants in his second-term administration, one quality is paramount: unwavering loyalty.

The least surprising of his picks was Elon Musk, the SpaceX chief who spent tens of millions of dollars to get Trump elected and has been rewarded with a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, an entity Trump indicated will operate outside government, to slash spending and force “drastic change” throughout the bureaucracy by July 4, 2026.

Donald Trump on election night in Florida.Credit: AP, digitally tinted

Also chosen to head the department alongside Musk was another wealthy Trump supporter: biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who initially challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination before dropping out of the race and becoming one of the former president’s strongest campaign surrogates.

Then there was the unexpected pick in the form of Fox and Friends Weekend co-host Pete Hegseth, who Trump nominated to be his secretary of defence, giving the 44-year-old army veteran the job of leading America’s military amid growing global uncertainty.

While Hegseth is a non-traditional choice to head the Pentagon, the Army National Guard veteran has been an ardent supporter of Trump since he joined Fox News in 2014, backing everything from his hardline stance on China to his interactions with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

As for his views on the US military itself?

“I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” Hegseth told the Shawn Ryan Show last week. “It hasn’t made us more effective, it hasn’t made us more lethal, but it has made fighting more complicated.”

Pete Hegseth at Trump Tower in 2016.Credit: AP

The latest appointments came amid a flurry of other cabinet picks, including former immigration boss Tom Homan as Trump’s new border tsar, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as secretary for Homeland Security and Florida congressman Mike Waltz as national security adviser.

Senator Marco Rubio is tipped to be his secretary of state, while Trump’s former immigration adviser Stephen Miller is set to be appointed as the deputy chief of staff for policy.

Such picks are not only emblematic of Trump’s desire to rapidly round out his administration before inauguration day on January 20; they also offer the clearest insights yet into Trump’s priorities as he prepares to consolidate power within the Oval Office.

Although most appointments will need to be confirmed by the Senate, Trump has made it clear he wants people in his new administration who will deliver on his populist promises, strengthen executive power and reshape the government according to his vision.

Firstly, he wants to cut spending, eliminate regulations and restructure federal agencies.

So too does Musk (whose frustrations have been shaped by the federal oversight he’s had to endure through SpaceX and his other businesses) and Ramaswamy (whose policy proposals include scrapping the Education Department and the FBI, and slashing the federal workforce by cutting 75 per cent of jobs).

Secondly, Trump is determined to focus on strategic rivalry with Beijing, and both Rubio and Waltz are viewed as particularly strident anti-China hawks: the latter is a leading critic of China in Congress while the former was sanctioned by Beijing for his criticism of its human rights violations and democracy crackdown on Hong Kong.

Elon Musk at a rally for Donald Trump. His investment will be rewarded.Credit: Getty Images

Thirdly, his biggest priority is stopping the flow of illegal immigrants at the US-Mexico border, no matter the price, or indeed the human cost. To that end, Trump’s appointment of Homan and Miller couldn’t be more apt.

Homan was one of the top advocates of the controversial family separation policy enacted during Trump’s first term, which separated more than 5500 children of immigrants from their parents at the border in 2018 under the shortlived “Zero Tolerance” policy.

Now he’s setting his bar even higher. Asked last month whether it would be possible to carry out mass deportations without separating families, Homan replied matter of factly: “Families can be deported together”, suggesting children who are US citizens but with undocumented parents would have to go with them.

As for Miller, he’s the lead architect of Trump’s plans for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. His policy views have been shaped in part by racist conspiracy theories about white people being replaced by immigrants.

“America is for Americans and Americans only!” Miller declared at Trump’s now infamous Madison Gardens rally last month.

The US is in for a rude awakening, but Trump’s election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris was so resounding that there can be no doubt he has the mandate to carry out his plans. He’s wasting no time finding the loyalists to help him.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.