WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. — Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump started to put together his foreign policy team. He announced that he is naming Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host and Army veteran, to be his defense secretary and John Ratcliffe, a former Director of National Intelligence, to be the head of the Central Intelligence Agency.
He made a lot of announcements at once. Trump said that his close friend Steven Witkoff would be a special envoy to the Middle East and that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee would be ambassador to Israel. Trump also said that he would put South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem forward to lead the Department of Homeland Security. He also made Bill McGinley, who was his Cabinet secretary in the first administration, his White House lawyer.
Trump is nominating and appointeeing people all the time for his new administration. So far, this is going faster and with less drama than his first shift after running for office in 2016.
Hegseth, 44, is a co-host on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend.” He has worked for the network since 2014 as a contributor, and it was on the show that he met Trump and became friends with him. He wrote “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free” as well.
Captain Hegseth was an infantryman in the Army National Guard. He served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was the head of the group Concerned Veterans for America, which was backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch. In 2012, he ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in Minnesota but lost.
In a statement, Trump said, “These are the words that America’s enemies should hear: Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down.” “Pete will be a brave and patriotic leader of our ‘Peace through Strength’ policy. No one fights harder for the Troops.”
Ratcliffe was a Republican congressman from Texas who led the U.S. government’s spy agencies during the coronavirus pandemic as head of national intelligence in the last few months of Trump’s first term. He is a more traditional choice for the job, which needs to be approved by the Senate, than some rumored Trump fans who want to put forward loyalists.
Trump has promised to make U.S. foreign policy more in line with Israel’s needs as it fights Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Huckabee is a strong supporter of Israel, and he is expected to be nominated at the same time. Witkoff is an investor in real estate in Florida, and he is also the chair of Trump’s inaugural group. He also worked in real estate in New York, which is where Trump first became famous.
Democrats didn’t like Ratcliffe’s decision to make public, in the last few days of the 2020 presidential election, Russian intelligence that said Democrats had damaging information during the 2016 election, even though he knew it might not be true.
Ratcliffe became better known when, in 2019, he became a strong Trump supporter during the House’s first impeachment hearings. His job was to help Trump with the impeachment process, and during the sessions, he questioned witnesses very harshly.
Ratcliffe said, “This is the thinnest, fastest, and weakest impeachment our country has ever seen” after the House of Representatives moved to remove Trump from office. He also asked former special counsel Robert Mueller tough questions when he testified before the House Judiciary Committee about his probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
This would make John the first person in U.S. history to hold both of the country’s top intelligence jobs, Trump said in a statement. “He will fight without fear for all Americans’ constitutional rights while at the same time ensuring the highest levels of national security and peace through strength.”
Huckabee has been taking paid tour groups to Israel for years, and right news outlets often talk about the trips.
“Mike has been a great servant to the people, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years,” Trump said. The people of Israel love him, and he loves Israel and the people of Israel. Mike is going to do everything he can to make the Middle East peaceful!
When Trump was in his first term, David Friedman was his ambassador to Israel. He said he was “thrilled” that Trump chose Huckabee.
While the president-elect was at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Fla., in September, he was the target of a second attempt on his life. Witkoff is also his playing partner.
There were no specifics from Trump’s transition team about the role of Middle East envoy. However, Trump said in a statement, “Steve will be an unwavering Voice for PEACE and make us all proud.”
Trump often puts close friends and family in key positions on the Middle East portfolio, and Witkoff’s appointment is no different. He put his former corporate lawyer Jason Greenbaltt in charge of foreign talks eight years ago, and he relied on his son-in-law Jared Kushner as his personal representative in those talks.
