President-elect Donald Trump is tapping “disruptors” to lead his incoming administration, Washington’s top Republican has said.
“They are the people who are going to shake up the status quo,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “I think it’s by design.”
Trump continues to announce the officials he wants to fill top positions in his administration, appearing to favor close allies with relevant policy experience.
Some of them have sent. Shocks in Washington And it was a cause for concern on both sides. But people close to Trump say there are backup plans in place if those nominees can’t get the support they need for approval.
Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has denied this. Accused of sexual assault And his potential attorney general Matt Getz At the heart of the ethics scandal. Nominated by his Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jris under investigation for its vaccine skepticism.
The president-elect’s son, Donald Trump Jr., defended his father’s nominees Sunday, saying on Fox News that “we know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.”
“It’s about surrounding my father with people who are capable and loyal. They will keep their promises,” he said. “They are not people who think they know better as unelected bureaucrats.”
He noted that some of the nominees are “controversial” and acknowledged that some may face problems in the Senate, which is tasked with vetting thousands of presidential candidates and voting on their appointments.
“We have backup plans, but we’re obviously going with the strongest candidates first,” the president-elect’s son said. “You know some of them are going to be controversial because they’re actually going to work.”
Donald Trump’s most recent pick, oil executive Chris Wright, who Trump has tapped to be energy secretary, has no government experience but is an ardent supporter of fossil fuels.
Mr. Wright, founder and CEO of fracking company Liberty Energy, is expected to work to deliver on Trump’s campaign promise to increase fossil fuel production — summed up in the campaign slogan “Drill, baby, “Drill”.
Mr Wright’s nomination is likely to cause further concern among environmental activists. Already worried about the effects of a second Trump term..
And it offered a full split-screen for President Joe Biden’s historic visit on Sunday, becoming the first US president to visit the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest.
AFPBiden took an aerial tour of part of the Amazon and met local and indigenous leaders working to save the region’s ecosystems before making a brief appearance in Manaus, a large city in the heart of the rainforest.
There, Biden described the fight against climate change as “a defining reason for my presidency” and noted the historic climate legislation passed under his administration.
The Democrat also pledged new funding for Amazon conservation, including an additional $50m (£40m) to the Amazon Conservation Fund, bringing the US commitment to $100m.
And while he didn’t mention Trump by name, Biden referred to his successor, saying that “few people may try to deny or delay the clean energy revolution underway in America… No one. “No one can reverse it.”
“The question now is which government will stand in the way and which will take advantage of the huge economic opportunity,” he said.
