Donald Trump
Credit: Reuters photo
President-elect Donald Trump has been known to cast a wide net when seeking advice for hiring decisions. As his team ramps up the presidential transition process, Trump is calling friends and associates for input on who should be part of his administration, which he says will radically reshape the federal government.
But a group of aides and advisers, some of whom worked in the first Trump administration and others who are newcomers, have particular influence as the president-elect starts choosing his Cabinet and setting his administration's agenda.
The group of course includes his vice president-elect, JD Vance. Less known are other influential business executives and Republican operatives advising Trump. Over the weekend, the group began to navigate the ideological differences of the party -- and Trump's impulses -- as they began setting on appointments, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, as UN ambassador and Thomas Homan as border "czar."
"President-elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second administration soon," Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for his presidential transition, said Sunday. "Those decisions will be announced when they are made."
Here are some of the key people to watch as they bring their influence to bear on steering the next administration:
Elon Musk
After investing more than $100 million in Trump's campaign, the billionaire has gained tremendous access to the president-elect. Musk was around Mar-a-Lago, Trump's club and residence in Florida, last week as the president-elect began his first formal transition meetings.
On Wednesday, Trump handed the phone to Musk while speaking to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine. Trump has also said he wants Musk in a role focused on slashing government spending.
In a social media post on Sunday suggesting a willingness to weigh in on a key congressional leadership fight, Musk backed Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., for majority leader while knocking Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., as a "top choice for Democrats."
Musk also has something to gain from Trump: He is a major government contractor, and the Defense Department relies heavily on his company, SpaceX. Musk has sought to have some of his employees placed in government jobs.
Susie Wiles
Trump's first job announcement after winning the election was naming Wiles, a loyal member of his inner circle, as his chief of staff. Wiles will be the first woman to hold the job and is the only campaign manager to complete a campaign cycle working for Trump.
Wiles, a political strategist from Florida, gained the respect of leaders in the Make America Great Again movement while maintaining relationships in the old-guard Republican establishment. She worked on one of Ronald Reagan's presidential campaigns and in his White House. In recent years, she helped Scott win his Senate seat in Florida and worked with Ron DeSantis when he won the Florida governor's race in 2018.
As Trump's chief of staff, Wiles will take the lead on driving his agenda.
Howard Lutnick
Lutnick, the billionaire CEO of the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, is one of the names being floated as the next Treasury secretary. But as a co-chair of Trump's transition team, Lutnick has already taken on the high-profile assignment of identifying 4,000 hires for the new administration.
Lutnick, who also spent time at Mar-a-Lago the day after the election, has been fielding input from Republican donors and executives for potential hires. He has sought advice from major financial leaders like Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire CEO of the Blackstone Group, and brokerage firm founder Charles Schwab.
"We've got so many candidates," Lutnick said of referrals for the Trump administration during a CNN interview on Oct. 31. "We are so set up -- I feel great."
Lutnick was a longtime registered Democrat, but he said the party had moved away from his interests and he was now a Republican.
His role in staffing the new administration has generated concern among ethics watchdogs. Lutnick continues to run firms that serve corporate clients, traders, cryptocurrency platforms and real estate ventures around the world, which are regulated by agencies whose appointees he is helping to identify.
Stephen Miller
Miller was the architect of Trump's immigration agenda during his first administration and remains close to the president-elect. He has plans for an even more extreme crackdown on immigration.
A former policy aide and speechwriter, Miller is planning what Trump calls "the largest deportation program in American history" by using the military and local law enforcement to assist federal immigration officers. Miller will play a key role in choosing those who will fill roles relating to immigration policy.
He will work closely with Homan, Trump's former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Homan was one of the officials who endorsed Trump's "zero-tolerance policy" at the border that led to the separation of thousands of migrant families. He told "60 Minutes" last month that the new Trump administration would begin large-scale worksite raids that could lead to the arrest of workers in the country illegally.
During Trump's first term, Miller helped lead a purge of senior homeland security officials whom he and Trump did not view as effectively carrying out the administration's immigration policies. Miller is now one of Trump's aides evaluating conservative lawyers who could implement Trump's policies.
Steve Witkoff
Witkoff, a real estate developer and golf partner to the president-elect, was a donor to Trump's political action committee. He also testified at the former president's civil fraud trial this year and was playing golf with Trump at Mar-a-Lago during the second assassination attempt of the presidential campaign.
Witkoff helped connect Trump to the entrepreneurs leading his latest cryptocurrency venture. The president-elect announced Saturday that Witkoff would be the chair of his inaugural committee alongside Kelly Loeffler, the former Georgia senator.
Trump's first inaugural committee received scrutiny over its spending. The Trump family business and his 2017 inauguration committee jointly agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the attorney general for the District of Columbia, who claimed that the Trump International Hotel in Washington had illegally received excessive payments from the committee.