Transition News Round Up

Plus: Transition Priorities, DC Events, and the Recess Appointments Thing

Word count: 1,996; ten minutes to read.

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Appointee Announcements

Susie Wiles, Trump 2024 senior campaign adviser, as White House Chief of Staff.

Susie is loyal. Knows how to succeed.

Trump calls her the “Ice Maiden,” which means she’s a cool operator and good manager who doesn’t care about being in the media . . . this is the sort of person you want as Chief.

Her first task is overseeing White House organizational design.

This means determining the position descriptions and roles plus responsibilities of the other Assistants to the President (her deputies, the special assistants to the president, the Counsel, etc.) and all the other key positions that make up the Executive Office of the President (NSC, OMB, DPC, NEC, PPO) in general and the White House Office in specific.

Roles/responsibilities must be clear for everyone involved. Not having these shared understandings leads to disorganization, factionalization, process fouls, and other forms of chaos, which plagued the first Trump admin.

Her big challenge will be ensuring the positions get filled with people loyal to President Trump, who are aligned with his agenda, and can make things happen.

The good news is that list exists.

President Trump isn’t starting from scratch.

Those of us in the last admin recall the McEntee era PPO in Year Four interviewing every appointee and finding out who was naughty or nice.

I was telling a few folks the other day it wouldn’t surprise me if there wasn’t a website put up for potential appointees to apply for jobs until after Inauguration Day.

It’s not necessarily needed.

The names needed now exist and have been supplemented by loyal supporters over the last four years who put skin in the game to defend the president and get him elected.

We’ll see what happens.

The other major piece for Susie is instituting a formal presidential decision-making process.

This means controlling what paper makes it to the Resolute Desk and who has access to the Oval.

Getting the White House organizational design right and the policy and decision-making processes correct at the start is important because these tend to wrap around the people and positions involved and once instituted become calcified and difficult to change later.

It also allows the admin to have a running start and not get behind.

Once the admin begins it will be difficult if not impossible to catch back up.

Others names announced . . .

Tom Homan is the new Border Czar . . . was the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the first admin.

Tom is hardcore and unafraid to do the controversial work.

The real question will be how much he can get done b/c the “czar” positions (really a coordinator role) don’t have the congressional authorizations and decision rights someone like the actual DHS Secretary will have.

That means whoever becomes the actual DHS Secretary still needs to be aligned with the president’s agenda to make things run smoothly.

Homan will have to maintain the ability to exert influence on the DHS Sec. and everyone else in the executive branch who will play a role (i.e., DoD and HHS) in managing the illegal immigrant population and securing the border.

Homan won’t need Senate confirmation, which is good.

The other positive is he’ll have access to and the attention plus backing of the president to fix our immigration problems.

No word on what his exact responsibilities will be beyond what’s listed in President Trump’s Truth Social post.

Great 60 Minutes interview of him here.

Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Domestic Policy.

Based choice.

Stephen is a smart bureaucratic knife fighter, and one of the OG’s from the first campaign, and his America First Legal has done awesome work between admins.

Having him in this key role is a great signal President Trump and the transition team aren’t playing games and are primed to enact an America First agenda.

President Trump also announced Elise Stefanik will be the United Nations Ambassador.

It’s a prestige and highly public position, but the real national security and foreign policy work is done by the NSC, SECSTATE, and DoD, with decision rights reserved for the president.

That means the UN AMB is really just an advisor, someone who tells POTUS what foreign countries are saying, communicates messages between the two, and thinks strategically and gives advice. She’ll vote as directed on the Security Council and in the General Assembly while traveling abroad to check-in with allies.

Her big responsibility will be achieving strategic communications wins for the admin.

Lee Zeldin, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, has been tapped for the Environmental Protection Agency. I know little about him or the role so no commentary here.

The New York Times is reporting they have sources inside the transition saying Congressman Mike Waltz is going to be the new National Security Advisor (no Senate confirmation required) and Senator Marco Rubio will be Secretary of State.

No official confirmation from Trump on these names as of 10 p.m. EST, which is when I’m finishing this up for a Tuesday morning send as I’m about to go to bed, so it may not be accurate, or it may have been confirmed by the time you read this newsletter.

No Mike Pompeo Nikki Haley . . . both neocons in MAGA skinsuits . . . great sign they and their teams are not coming in . . . shows President Trump and the transition team knows what’s what!

Lots more after the paywall, including what the transition is focusing on, two upcoming events in D.C., an explainer on Recess Appointments, and key news articles.

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