President-elect Donald Trump continued naming Cabinet nominees and hiring staff officials this week, having most recently named Tom Homan, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as his “border czar.”
He chose South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary and former GOP Representative Lee Zeldin as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and some say he will name Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as secretary of state.
Florida GOP Congressman Mike Waltz will be national security advisor, and Stephen Miller will be deputy chief of staff for policy. Trump named campaign chief Susie Wiles as chief of staff last week.
Noem
Noem’s position on immigration makes her a likely pick for chief of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
As CNN reported, “Although Noem does not represent a border state, she has a long history of taking hardline positions on immigration.”
She favored Arizona’s ultimately struck-down immigration law, SB 70, which required police to check the immigration status of anyone with whom they had an otherwise lawful contact.
She also wants Democratic sanctuary cities punished for not cooperating with ICE on apprehending and deporting illegal aliens.
Noem has strongly supported Trump for years.
Zeldin
Zeldin plans to overturn the Biden administration’s far-left policy agenda, CNN complained, noting that he has a poor rating with the far-left League of Conservation Voters:
As a congressman from New York, Zeldin received the League of Conservation Voters’ worst score on environmental issues out of the entire New York delegation in 2020.
Zeldin has a 14% lifetime score from LCV, a national environmental advocacy group. While in Congress, LCV showed Zeldin voting against several things the EPA is charged with leading on, including replacing lead service lines across the country. However, in 2020, Zeldin voted against a Republican amendment that would have slashed EPA funding.
Waltz
A 27-year Army veteran, Waltz is a former Green Beret, and has received four Bronze Stars, two of them for valor, during combat tours in Africa, Afghanistan, and the Middle East.
Waltz supports military aid to Ukraine, but believes it can no longer have a “blank check” from American taxpayers, as he wrote for Fox News. He expects NATO nations to increase their aid to Ukraine in its losing war with Russia, and strangely believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “invasion is the next big step in his goal of recreating the old Soviet Union.”
Though “stopping Russia … is the right thing to do,” he wrote, “the burden cannot continue to be solely on the shoulders of the American people, especially while Western Europe gets a pass.”
Miller
Miller ran immigration policy in the first Trump administration, and, as deputy chief of staff, will almost certainly shape immigration policy this time around, with Tom Homan carrying out the policy directives he will help shape.
After he left the Trump administration, Miller founded America First Legal, which bills itself as “the long-awaited answer to the American Civil Liberties Union” and regularly sues the Biden administration to stop its far-left policies.
In September, AFL sued several counties in Arizona for refusing to purge noncitizens from the voter rolls.
Wiles
As Forbes noted, Wiles is the first woman to be White House chief of staff. Trump picked her two days after he crushed Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Susie Wiles is about to be the most powerful woman in Washington,” Politico observed:
But many people in this town are just learning who she is.
A veteran of Florida politics, Wiles rose from Donald Trump’s 2016 Florida campaign director to senior adviser to his 2024 bid. She’s credited with running a disciplined, professionalized campaign operation that helped Trump secure a sweeping Electoral College victory and probably a popular vote win as well.
Daughter of late sports broadcaster and New York Giants football star Pat Summerall, Wiles has a neoconservative background, having toiled for late GOP congressman and housing secretary Jack Kemp. She also worked for Mitt Romney, and received the approval of Trump rival Jeb Bush.
Zero-tolerance Homan
Homan is Trump’s best pick thus far.
The no-nonsense former beat cop and Border Patrol agent has clearly and loudly said he will fulfill Trump’s vow of carrying out the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
Speaking at the Republican National Convention in July, Homan warned the illegal aliens whom Biden unlawfully released that “you better start packing now … because you’re going home.”
He warned that ICE would deport illegals in sanctuary cities and states with or without the help of Democratic local authorities.
He also threatened the drug cartels who now control the southwest border with Mexico: “When President Trump gets back in office, he’s going to designate you a terrorist organization, and he’s going to wipe you off the face of the earth. You’re done. You’re done.”
Unclear is whether his “border czar” title means he will become ICE director. When Trump announced the pick, he said that Homan would be “in charge of our Nation’s Borders (‘The Border Czar’), including, but not limited to, the Southern Border, the Northern Border, all Maritime, and Aviation Security.”
