WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President-elect Donald Trump is spending Thanksgiving at his Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida, which has served as the epicenter of his presidential transition — with the past and future commander in chief already naming nearly all of his Cabinet nominees.
There are just three Cabinet-level positions that remain to be filled after Trump quickly announced his team of allies to take control of the federal bureaucracy on Jan. 20 — though other major non-Cabinet roles, such as FBI director and major ambassadorships, also have not been announced.
Trump, 78, has not yet named his small business administrator, science and technology adviser or the next chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisers.
There are no clear front-runners for any of the posts, though it’s possible Trump will seek to add additional racial diversity to his Cabinet line-up with minority candidates — after adding significant ideological diversity with his selection of former Democrats to lead key posts.
The Small Business Administration, which oversaw the $953 billion Paycheck Protection Program during the COVID-19 pandemic, was led during Trump’s first term by Linda McMahon — Trump’s designee for education secretary in his second — and then Jovita Carranza.
The post could go to any number of Trump’s supporters in the business world, though no candidate has gained significant speculation.
The Council of Economic Advisers, which helps develop and champion administration economic strategy, was led by Kevin Hassett early in Trump’s first term before taking on a lower profile with only acting chairmen subsequently.
Hassett, a telegenic and affable longtime Republican economist, is due to serve as Trump’s top in-house economist as director of the White House National Economic Council and may eclipse whoever serves in his former post.
The White House Science and Technology Office had a relatively low profile during Trump’s first term, with Kelvin Droegemeier serving as its top functionary, but it potentially could take on a larger role in the next four years due to issues involving artificial intelligence and Trump’s advocacy of online free speech and cryptocurrency.
FBI’s fate remains up in air
The three unfilled Cabinet-level posts have attracted relatively little scuttlebutt compared to fevered speculation about who will become FBI director — with Trump widely expected to dismiss FBI boss Christopher Wray after assuming power.
One prominent contender for FBI director is Kash Patel, who held significant military and intelligence positions during Trump’s first term. Trump loyalists believe Patel would help clean house at the bureau after alleged bias against Trump in the leaky probe of whether he colluded with Russia in 2016, which turned up no evidence that he did so, and as it relates to a pair of criminal cases lodged against Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents and challenging the 2020 election results.
Richard Grenell, the former acting director of national intelligence and former US ambassador to Germany, also has been discussed as a possible FBI director.
Some members of Trump’s incoming Cabinet publicly called for the FBI to be dramatically overhauled or even abolished — with incoming budget office director Russ Vought calling for the federal investigative outfit to be “broken into a thousand pieces, [i]nvestigated, defunded, abolished [and] rent asunder” after the August 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago to recover classified documents.
Replacement nominees may be needed
It’s possible that Trump will have to select replacements to his existing Cabinet lineup if Senate Republicans, who will control the confirmation process, balk.
Trump has demanded the right to recess-appoint nominees if they can’t win a majority vote in the Senate, but that would require the chamber to voluntarily grant him that opening, which GOP leaders suggest could be torpedoed by opponents of embattled nominees.
National Intelligence director-designee Tulsi Gabbard, a former Hawaii Democratic congresswoman, has garnered scrutiny from some Republicans over her outspoken anti-war and anti-mass surveillance political positions and from Democrats over her deviation from the party’s mainstream positions on the Syrian Civil War and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Health and Human Services secretary-designee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also faces headwinds for his skepticism of vaccine efficacy and defense secretary-designee Pete Hegseth has been buffeted by the revelation of a 2017 sexual assault allegation, though a police report included exonerating information revealing that evidence and testimony contradicted his accuser’s account.
Leading roles in the second Trump term were awarded to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (secretary of state), former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi (US attorney general), Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick (commerce secretary) and businessman Scott Bessent (treasury secretary).
New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik is Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations and former New York Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin was tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
In addition to the official Cabinet, Trump is leaning heavily on outside advisers and named Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to serve as leaders of the currently informal Department of Government Efficiency to advise him on sweeping cuts to federal spending.
