Trump names Elon Musk to 'efficiency' post, taps Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defence secretary

 

US President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated military veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as defence secretary when the Republican takes back the White House in January.

"With Pete at the helm, America's enemies are on notice -- Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down," Trump said in a statement.

Trump also announced Tuesday that the world's richest man, Elon Musk, will lead a new US "government efficiency" group tasked with cutting federal waste, as the Republican president-elect added a series of seasoned figures and hard-liners to his incoming administration.

Musk became a key ally to Trump during his campaign, reportedly spending well over $100 million to help the Republican win and repeatedly boosting Trump's candidacy on X, the platform which he owns.

Trump said Musk and another stalwart ally, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, would lead a "Department of Government Efficiency ('DOGE')" a tongue-in-cheek reference to an internet meme and cryptocurrency.

"Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies," Trump said in a statement.

He said the department "will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government," a move that could allow Musk to avoid disclosing his financial holdings.

Trump, 78, is set to make a triumphant return to Washington on Wednesday, meeting President Joe Biden in the Oval Office.

He may also visit the US Capitol where his party has won a narrow majority in the Senate and is poised to retain control of the House of Representatives.

With just over two months until he takes office, Trump is moving quickly to consolidate an extraordinary comeback.

Governments worldwide are scrutinizing Trump's picks for signs of how closely the incoming administration will stick to his promises of an isolationist foreign policy, harsh crackdowns on illegal immigration, and persecution of people he perceives as enemies.

- Hard-liners -

Late Tuesday, Trump named military veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as his incoming defence secretary.

"With Pete at the helm, America's enemies are on notice -- Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down," he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, US media reported that Florida's Senator Marco Rubio would be nominated to the key position of secretary of state.

Trump separately named congressman Mike Waltz, a former special forces officer, as his incoming national security advisor.

Waltz has hawkish views on China and is not considered isolationist, despite desire in some Trump circles for the United States to retreat from foreign engagements and cut obligations to allies like NATO.

Trump also announced he was choosing his former director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

On the domestic front, Trump has signalled he will back up his extreme election campaign rhetoric aimed at stirring fear and anger against illegal immigrants ahead of promised mass deportations.

On Tuesday, he named South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as secretary of homeland security, noting she had been the first governor to deploy national guard troops to help Texas combat illegal border crossings.

A day earlier, he said veteran hard-line immigration official Tom Homan would take on a role as "border czar."

US media reported that Stephen Miller, author of Trump's so-called "Muslim ban" immigration policy during his first term, will hold a powerful position as deputy chief of staff.

Trump has also picked Lee Zeldin to head the Environmental Protection Agency, with a mandate to slash climate and pollution regulations.

New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a fierce Trump ally and pro-Israel stalwart, got the nod for UN ambassador, Trump's transition team said.

Another fervent pro-Israel figure, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, was named as ambassador to Israel.

- Return to the Oval -

Biden's Oval Office invitation restores a presidential transition tradition that Trump tore up when he lost the 2020 election, refusing to sit down with Biden or even attend the inauguration.

By the time Trump took his last Marine One flight from the White House lawn on January 20, 2021, he had also been repudiated by many in his own party for having encouraged a mob to assault the US Capitol.

The period of disgrace soon evaporated, however, as Republicans returned to Trump's side, recognizing his unique electoral force leading the far-right movement that has now swept him back to power.

While many of his cabinet nominations require approval by the Senate, Trump is trying to bypass that oversight by forcing through so-called recess appointments.

Rubio and Waltz picks signal 'existential' fight with China

In leaning on hawks Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz, Donald Trump is setting the stage for an existential battle against China -- although, as always, the president-elect's knack for dealmaking may intervene.

Trump, who rhetorically at least has long broken with the historic bipartisan consensus in Washington for an assertive US global role, tapped two Florida politicians who still believe in traditional US engagement with the world.

But Rubio, a senator said to be tapped for secretary of state, and Waltz, a congressman named national security advisor, differ sharply from President Joe Biden's vision of internationalism.

Rubio in a speech last year said that the United States was already in a broad global conflict with China, which "doesn't just seek to be the most powerful nation in the world, they seek to reorient the world."

The Biden administration also described China as the top long-term adversary of the United States and ramped up sanctions, but tensions have markedly eased recently, with Biden's top diplomat Antony Blinken focusing on dialogue to prevent unintentional conflict.

The Biden administration believed the United States "should compete with China as effectively as it can on each issue in ways that may be to China's detriment," said Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.

"Now we see people who are longtime proponents of the view that the Chinese Communist Party is an existential threat to the United States."

Chinese officials "will tend to see these appointments as proof of what they see anyway: that no matter what they do -- cut a trade deal -- they are facing a United States that is committed to the destruction of the Communist Party," Daly said. "And that will change the nature of the competition."

Trump frequently speaks in terms of deal-making and has boasted of his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But it will ultimately be up to Rubio and Waltz, not Trump, to set the day-to-day "strategic scheme" for US policy, Daly said.

- 'Best pick' for traditionalists? -

Rubio, like Waltz, is a fervent supporter of Israel, as is Trump's nominee for US ambassador to Israel, evangelical former governor Mike Huckabee.

The son of working-class Cuban immigrants, Rubio is also a vociferous critic of Latin American leftists.

But the senator, unlike many Trump allies, has also backed international causes alongside Democrats, including supporting development assistance to Africa and US global funding to fight HIV/AIDS.

"Trump isn't picking anyone who hasn't pledged fealty to him. That said, Rubio is probably the best pick that conservative internationalists could have realistically hoped for," said Matthew Waxman, a senior State Department official under former president George W. Bush.

Waxman, now a professor at Columbia Law School, said that Rubio "doesn't suck up to autocrats like some in his party, most importantly the president-elect."

"Republicans are split between internationalists, who believe in exercising American leadership around the world, and isolationists who want to pull out from that role," Waxman said.

"Rubio is much more the former, and his choice will likely disappoint the latter, who brand him as too hawkish."

- Allure of the deal -

In a preemptive nod to Trump, Rubio, a longtime critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has said that Ukraine is at a stalemate against Moscow's invasion, backing a negotiated solution.

Trump churned through aides in his first term, naming four national security advisors and two secretaries of state as he soured on his team.

His new appointees are certain to know where they stand and how they risk being pushed aside if they disagree, said Allison McManus, managing director for national security and foreign policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

Trump, she said, is likely less concerned about ideology than dealmaking, including on two priorities that eluded Biden -- ending the Gaza war and winning Saudi recognition of Israel.

Trump has even spoken of reaching an agreement with Israel's arch-nemesis Iran, despite walking away from a major diplomatic deal with the country during his first term, which had been negotiated under Barack Obama.

Trump would likely brush aside aides if he believed he can "one-up Biden," McManus said.

"We know that for Trump, his north star is cutting a deal -- especially a better deal than whoever the president was before him," she said.