U.S. President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate wrestling magnate Linda McMahon as his choice to head the Small Business Administration, Trump’s transition team said in a statement on Wednesday.
The following is a list of Republican Trump’s selections for top jobs in his administration. All the posts but that of national security adviser require Senate confirmation:
TREASURY SECRETARY: STEVEN MNUCHIN
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Mnuchin, 53, is a relatively little-known but successful private equity investor, hedge fund manager and Hollywood financier who spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs before leaving in 2002. He assembled an investor group to buy a failed California mortgage lender in 2009, rebranded it as OneWest Bank and built it into Southern California’s largest bank. The bank came under fire for its foreclosure practices as housing advocacy groups accused it of being too quick to foreclose on struggling homeowners.
DEFENSE SECRETARY: JAMES MATTIS
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Mattis is a retired Marine general known for his tough talk, distrust of Iran and battlefield experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. A former leader of Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, Mattis, 66, is known by many U.S. forces by his nickname “Mad Dog.” He was once rebuked for saying in 2005: “It’s fun to shoot some people.”
U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: U.S. SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS
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Sessions, 69, was the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump’s presidential bid and has been a close ally since. Son of a country-store owner, the Alabama senator and former federal prosecutor has long taken a tough stance on illegal immigration, opposing any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
COMMERCE SECRETARY: WILBUR ROSS
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Ross, 78, heads the private equity firm W.L. Ross & Co. His net worth was pegged by Forbes at about $2.9 billion. A staunch supporter of Trump and an economic adviser, Ross helped shape the Trump campaign’s views on trade policy. He blames the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, which went into force in 1994, and the 2001 entry of China into the World Trade Organization for causing massive U.S. factory job losses.
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TOM PRICE
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Price, 62, is an orthopedic surgeon who heads the House of Representatives’ Budget Committee. A representative from Georgia since 2005, Price has criticized Obamacare and has championed a plan of tax credits, expanded health savings accounts and lawsuit reforms to replace it. He is opposed to abortion.
HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY: BEN CARSON
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Carson, 65, is a retired neurosurgeon who dropped out of the Republican presidential nominating race in March and threw his support to Trump. A popular writer and speaker in conservative circles, Carson previously indicated reluctance to take a position in the incoming administration because of his lack of experience in the federal government. Carson is the first African-American picked for a Cabinet spot by Trump.
TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: ELAINE CHAO
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Chao, 63, was labour secretary under President George W. Bush for eight years and the first Asian-American woman to hold a Cabinet position. She is a director at Ingersoll Rand, News Corp and Vulcan Materials Company. She is married to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky.
EDUCATION SECRETARY: BETSY DEVOS
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DeVos, 58, is a billionaire Republican donor, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and an advocate for the privatisation of education. As chair of the American Federation for Children, she has pushed at the state level for vouchers that families can use to send their children to private schools and for the expansion of charter schools.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: JOHN KELLY
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The final leadership role of Kelly’s 45-year career was head of the U.S. Southern Command, responsible for U.S. military activities and relationships in Latin America and the Caribbean. Kelly, 66, differed with Democratic President Barack Obama on key issues and has warned of vulnerabilities along the United States’ southern border with Mexico.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR: SCOTT PRUITT
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An ardent opponent of President Barack Obama’s measures to stem climate change, Pruitt, 48, has enraged environmental activists, but he fits with the Republican president-elect’s promise to cut the agency back and eliminate regulation that he says is stifling oil and gas drilling. Pruitt became the top prosecutor for Oklahoma, which has extensive oil reserves, in 2011, and has challenged the EPA multiple times since.
SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION ADMINISTRATOR: LINDA MCMAHON
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McMahon, 68, is a co-founder and former CEO of the professional wrestling franchise WWE, which is based in Stamford, Connecticut. She ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012, and was an early supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign.
U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: GOVERNOR NIKKI HALEY
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Haley, 44, has been the Republican governor of South Carolina since 2011 and has little experience in foreign policy or the federal government. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she led a successful push last year to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol after the killing of nine black churchgoers in Charleston by a white gunman.
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: RETIRED LIEUTENANT GENERAL MICHAEL FLYNN
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Flynn, 57, was an early Trump supporter and serves as vice chairman on his transition team. He began his U.S. Army career in 1981 and was deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Flynn became head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 under President Barack Obama but retired a year earlier than expected, according to media reports, and became a fierce critic of Obama’s foreign policy.
CIA DIRECTOR: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE POMPEO
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Pompeo, 52, is a third-term congressman from Kansas who serves on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, which oversees the CIA, National Security Agency and cyber security. A retired Army officer and Harvard Law School graduate, Pompeo supports the U.S. government’s sweeping collection of Americans’ communications data and wants to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran.
(Feature image source: Reuters)