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Trump picks vaccine skeptic to lead top US public health department

President-elect Donald Trump says he intends to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy disagrees with much of the scientific community on subjects including vaccines and HIV/AIDS. VOA’s Anita Powell has our story.
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Promise and peril for Southeast Asia in Trump’s tariff talk

BANGKOK — Southeast Asia could see a new wave of factories moving in from China to evade the soaring tariffs U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has proposed to impose on the world’s second-largest economy, trade experts tell VOA.

But the trade surpluses the region has built up with the United States and its heavy use of Chinese inputs for its own exports may blunt the benefits, they add.

A number of firms with factories in China, both Chinese and foreign owned, moved their plants to Southeast Asia to skirt the tariffs Trump imposed on the country — as high as 25% on some goods — during his first term from 2017 to 2021. For his second term, which starts in January, Trump has threatened to push tariffs on all imports from China up to 60%.

If that happens, “the speed of relocation will increase, and we will almost certainly now be looking at a world of bifurcated supply chains,” said Jayant Menon, a senior fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

“What that means is a world where most important manufactured goods are produced not once but twice using two sets of supply chains,” he added, one for the U.S. and possibly European markets and another for everyone else.

And whereas the first wave of relocations mostly brought Southeast Asia factories hungry for lots of cheap labor, he said the second could bring in factories that rely more on equipment, technology and other capital for making machines, electronics, cars and the like.

“Countries that can closely replicate the costs and conditions in China will benefit, and at the moment a lot of those countries are in Southeast Asia,” Menon said. “Other countries can benefit if they respond to this opportunity, but at the moment Southeast Asia is the closest competitor.”

Aat Pisanwanich, an associate professor at Thailand’s Center for International Trade Studies, agreed.

Facing even higher U.S. tariffs than before, factories in China will “come to Thailand and other ASEAN countries more than [during] Trump 1,” he said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and to Trump’s first term.

Memon said most of the factories that left China for Southeast Asia after Trump’s first round of tariffs settled in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam and that those fleeing a second would follow suit. He added that Cambodia and Laos — both very close with China — as well as Indonesia could start to attract more interest as well.

Some of the sub-region’s largest industrial park developers and operators have reportedly begun preparing for an expected influx already by expanding their sales teams and hiring more Chinese speakers.

But trade experts say Trump’s take on tariffs, and on international trade in general, also poses risks for Southeast Asia that could dull, or even outstrip, the potential rewards.

Trump has repeatedly railed against the trade surpluses many countries besides China have built up with the U.S. and suggested bringing them down with higher tariffs on their goods as well, or with other trade restrictions.

That could prove problematic for many countries in Asia, and Vietnam especially, says Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation, a Singapore-based research group focused on sustainable global trade.

Trump called Vietnam “almost the single worst abuser” of the global trade system in 2019, when the country’s annual trade surplus with the U.S. stood at $55.8 billion. It has soared well past $100 billion since then.

“That’s put Vietnam quite high up in the crosshairs for retaliation this time, and that makes it a less popular location for firms because you don’t want to move out of China into Vietnam, only to find yourself hit with more tariffs and other kinds of trade restrictions because you’re now in Vietnam and they’re trying to reset the trade balance,” said Elms.

Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand all now have trade surpluses with the U.S. in the tens of billions of dollars as well.

The other major risk the region faces, experts say, is the growing attention the United States is paying to imports not only from China but from anywhere else with a large share of Chinese inputs, and the added trade curbs they too might face in Trump’s second term.

“That would present a real problem for Southeast Asia, because you can move manufacturing — you can sew a T-shirt in the region, you can make a phone case in the region, whatever, that goes to the United States — but a lot of the raw materials, parts and components in those products, whether it’s fabrics or plastics or screws or whatever it is that’s in the product, is imported from China,” said Elms.

Aat, of the Center for International Trade Studies, said factories that move to Southeast Asia to make exports but continue to draw heavily on Chinese inputs also crowd out producers across the sub-region that could be supplying them instead, leaving local economies with little to gain from their arrival.

And even if Southeast Asian countries avoid the added U.S. tariffs or trade curbs many fear, they may still face the 10%-20% levy Trump has proposed imposing on all U.S. imports across the board.

Elms says it’s also not clear how much of what Trump has said about tariffs he will actually follow through on, and how quickly, making the choice firms will face on whether to move out of China all the more difficult.

Some of them will be “dusting off” the relocation plans they shelved after Trump left office in 2021 for another look now that he is headed back to the White House, she said.

“Whether they execute those is still, I think, an open question,” she added. “There are so many factors that matter, but there’s a reason why firms are so heavily located in China, and it’s because China just continues to have a speed and a scale that is hard for anywhere else to match.”

Rather than move, Elms said some of those firms may end up choosing instead to absorb higher tariffs, if they can, or to focus on other markets besides the U.S.

While that could give regional trade within Asia a boost, Aat and others fear it will flood Southeast Asia with cheap Chinese goods that undercut local producers.

All three experts said Trump’s tough talk on tariffs ultimately holds more peril than promise for the countries of the region.

“In the short term, of course they will benefit from the massive relocation, if there’s an increase in this relocation,” said Menon. “But eventually, as these things work themselves out, this is not going to be very beneficial.”
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 Trump announces picks for economic, health posts

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced a set of economic advisers he wants to appoint for his administration, including international trade attorney Jamieson Greer as his pick to be the U.S. trade representative.

Greer served in Trump’s first administration as the chief of staff to the trade representative, and Trump said Tuesday that Greer played a key role in both imposing tariffs on China and in the creation of a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico.

Trump said Kevin Hassett is his choice to lead the White House National Economic Council.

Hassett led the Council of Economic Advisers during Trump’s previous term. Trump said in the new role, Hassett would work to “renew and improve” a set of tax cuts implemented in 2017 and “will play an important role in helping American families recover from the inflation that was unleashed by the Biden Administration.”

Trump also announced Tuesday several health-related nominees, including his choice of health economist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health.

Bhattacharya was a sharp critic of lockdowns and vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump said Bhattacharya will work with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), “to direct the Nation’s Medical Research, and to make important discoveries that will improve Health, and save lives.”

“Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease,” Trump said.

Another nomination announced Tuesday was Trump’s pick of former HHS official Jim O’Neill to serve as the agency’s deputy secretary.

Trump also said he was nominating private investor John Phelan to serve as secretary of the Navy.

Earlier Tuesday, Trump’s transition team announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Biden administration about the process of starting to work with federal agencies.

A statement from Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, said, “This engagement allows our intended Cabinet nominees to begin critical preparations, including the deployment of landing teams to every department and agency, and complete the orderly transition of power.”

Wiles’ announcement said the transition will use only private funding, and the donors will be disclosed to the public.

The Trump-Vance transition team will not use government offices or technology, Wiles said. She added that the transition has an existing ethics plan and “security and information protections built in, which means we will not require additional government and bureaucratic oversight.”

The signing of the MOU means that teams from the transition will “quickly integrate directly into federal agencies and departments with access to documents and policy sharing,” Wiles’ announcement said.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Trump’s defense pick ‘unusual,’ hints at major military changes

President-elect Donald Trump made a largely unexpected pick to run the world’s largest military, nominating Fox News television host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth to be defense secretary. VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb has more.
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Analysis: Trump’s win powered by improved performance across electorate

Nearly three weeks after the 2024 election, with almost all of the votes counted, it has become clear that Donald Trump won his second term in the White House by orchestrating a nationwide rightward shift in voting patterns that largely persisted across most of the 50 states, whether their electoral votes went to Trump or to his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

The main force behind Trump’s victory was strong support from his base, which is generally made up of white Americans without a college degree. His win would not have been possible, however, had the president-elect not improved his showing among groups who tend to support Democratic candidates.

Trump won larger shares of the vote in parts of the country with large Hispanic and Asian American populations, many of whom appeared to respond to his criticism of the Biden administration’s handling of the economy and of immigration. Many areas of the country with a large concentration of Black voters, who have historically favored Democrats, saw lower turnout than in past years, creating a further disadvantage for Harris.

The shift in favor of Trump was apparent in an overwhelming majority of communities across the country. An analysis of county-level data updated by CNN on November 22 demonstrated that in nearly nine of 10 U.S. counties, Trump’s 2024 vote share had improved over that of 2020.  

‘He did much better’

Drew McCoy, president of Decision Desk HQ, an organization that gathers data on elections in the United States, told VOA that Trump’s improvement with the electorate had been broad and cut across several demographic groups.

“We definitely have a lot of data on how Trump did, and across the board, he did much better,” McCoy said, mentioning that the president-elect had improved among white voters, Hispanic voters and Asian American voters.

Meanwhile, while many had predicted a sharp increase in the gender gap in favor of Harris, it never materialized.

While female voters appear to have favored Harris decisively, McCoy said the margin was “essentially flat” compared with Trump’s last two runs for the presidency.

“It wasn’t the blowout across the board with women that many people were expecting,” McCoy said.

The shift in the Hispanic vote was especially noticeable, he said. For example, in the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande Valley, just north of the border with Mexico, Trump’s share of the vote surged. In Florida’s Miami-Dade County region, which Hillary Clinton won by 30 percentage points in 2016, Trump won by 13 points.

Popular and electoral vote tally

Trump became the first Republican candidate in two decades to win the popular vote.

As of November 25, The Associated Press tally had Trump with precisely 50% of the vote and Harris at 48.4%, with the remainder scattered among third-party candidates.

In total, Americans cast more than 151 million votes for president, about 4 million fewer than were cast in 2020, when Trump lost to Joe Biden. However, Trump won approximately 77 million votes, nearly 3 million more than he did in 2020.

Each U.S. state has a specified number of votes in the Electoral College, which is the body that officially elects the president. Each state allocates its votes to candidates based on the popular result in that state, in most cases on a winner-take-all basis.

Trump needed 270 electoral votes to win. He received 312, or 58% of the total available. Historically, that is not a large percentage. Many presidents have won well over 75% of the electoral vote. However, in the seven presidential elections held since 2000, only Barack Obama, in 2008 and 2012, won more than 58% of electoral votes.

Swing state sweep

In the months leading up to the election, the American public’s attention was focused on seven battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In 2020, Trump lost all of them, except for North Carolina, to Biden. This time, Trump won them all, in some cases by larger margins than Biden enjoyed in 2020.

In Arizona, which Biden won by just over 10,000 votes in 2020, Trump won by nearly 200,000 votes. Much of the swing was attributable to a shift in the Hispanic vote toward Trump. He trimmed Biden’s advantage considerably, in both more diverse Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, as well as the heavily Hispanic counties along the state’s southern border with Mexico.

In Georgia, Harris’ chance for victory hinged on running up her margins in the city of Atlanta and its densely populated suburbs, which represent the core of Democratic support in an otherwise reliably Republican state. In the end, she failed to do so, winning by a slimmer margin than Biden did in populous Fulton, Gwinnett and DeKalb counties.

In Michigan, many of the same dynamics at play across the country remained in force, but Harris’ performance was further hindered by the presence of large Arab American voting blocs in several metropolitan areas.

The Biden administration’s support for Israel in its ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon greatly angered many Arab Americans, and helped hand the state to Trump. In some precincts in the majority Arab American city of Dearborn, where Biden received 88% of the vote in 2020, Harris not only lost to Trump, but came in third, behind Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

Betting on Las Vegas

In Nevada, some 7 in 10 voters live in Clark County, in and around the city of Las Vegas. Nearly 1 in 3 voters in Clark are Hispanic, and the county also has Nevada’s largest share of Black and Asian American voters. Biden beat Trump by more than nine percentage points four years ago, but Harris won by less than three, a difference that appears to have been driven by Hispanic and Asian American voters switching to the Republican candidate.

Democrats in North Carolina may have been hopeful that the presence of a popular incumbent Democratic governor on the ticket would give Harris a shot at a pickup there. However, Trump improved his margin in the state, winning with 51% of the vote.

One of the things that harmed Harris in North Carolina was earning fewer votes than Biden in majority-Black counties. For example, in majority-Black areas like Bertie and Hertford counties, her winning margin fell by six and seven percentage points,  respectively. She also performed worse among college-educated white voters.

In Pennsylvania, which put Biden over the top in 2020, Harris also underperformed. In the city of Philadelphia, she garnered 50,000 fewer votes than Biden had four years earlier. Trump won a much higher share of the vote in several communities with high concentrations of Hispanic voters than he had in 2020 and remained dominant in the state’s more rural areas.

Finally, in Wisconsin, Trump triumphed by increasing his vote totals in counties across In some counties in the rural southwestern part of the state, where the white population exceeds 95%, he won by as much as six percentage points more than he did in 2020.  

Safe and sound

In the days and weeks leading up to the election, there had been considerable concern about whether the balloting would be disrupted in any way. Trump frequently claimed that fraud was likely, and there was also considerable evidence that non-U.S. actors were using social media to sow doubts about the safety and soundness of the process.

Also, after 2020, when the counting of ballots took several days in a number of key states, there were questions about how long it would take to name a winner.

Several weeks after the polls closed, groups that monitor elections in the U.S told VOA that in terms of its administration, the election had been an unqualified success.

David Becker, executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, called the election “a triumph of public service.”

“The election ended up being safe and secure, even with massive amounts of disinformation, even with foreign adversaries like Russia circulating fake videos, even with bomb threats and [the] firebombing of a couple of drop boxes in the Pacific Northwest. All of those things were handled, and largely, everything went very well,” he said.

“We had clear results, with a winner declared by the media less than 12 hours after the polls closed,” Becker said. “We had no certification challenges. That’s just a remarkable success by the professionals who run elections around the country.”

Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director for Verified Voting, an organization that works to ensure the responsible use of technology in elections, agreed.

“The 2024 election went very smoothly, thanks to a lot of preparation and hard work by election officials,” Lindeman said.

“Over the last eight years since 2016, the entire country has wrapped its head around election-related cybersecurity. And the level of training and the level of resources both have improved quite substantially,” he said.
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US farm groups want Trump to spare their workers from deportation

washington — U.S. farm industry groups want President-elect Donald Trump to spare their sector from his promise of mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain heavily dependent on immigrants in the United States illegally. 

So far Trump officials have not committed to any exemptions, according to interviews with farm and worker groups and Trump’s incoming “border czar” Tom Homan. 

Nearly half of the nation’s approximately 2 million farmworkers lack legal status, according to the Labor and Agriculture departments, as well as many dairy and meatpacking workers. 

Trump, a Republican, vowed to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally as part of his campaign to win back the White House, a logistically challenging undertaking that critics say could split apart families and disrupt U.S. businesses.  

Homan has said immigration enforcement will focus on criminals and people with final deportation orders but that no immigrant in the U.S. illegally will be exempt.  

He told Fox News on November 11 that enforcement against businesses would “have to happen” but has not said whether the agricultural sector would be targeted. 

“We’ve got a lot on our plate,” Homan said in a phone interview this month. 

Mass removal of farmworkers would shock the food supply chain and drive consumer grocery prices higher, said David Ortega, a professor of food economics and policy at Michigan State University.  

“They’re filling critical roles that many U.S.-born workers are either unable or unwilling to perform,” Ortega said.  

Farm groups and Republican allies are encouraged by the incoming administration’s stated focus on criminals. 

Dave Puglia, president and CEO of Western Growers, which represents produce farmers, said the group supported that approach and was concerned about effects on the farm sector if a deportation plan was targeted at farmworkers.  

Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt did not directly address the farmer concerns in a statement to Reuters. She said American voters wanted Trump “to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail, like deporting migrant criminals.” 

Trump announced on Saturday that he would nominate Brooke Rollins, who chaired the White House Domestic Policy Council during his first term, to become agriculture secretary.  

Agriculture and related industries contributed $1.5 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product, or 5.6%, in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

In his first administration, Trump promised the farm sector that his deportation effort would not target food sector workers, though the administration did conduct raids at some agricultural worksites, including poultry processing plants in Mississippi and produce processing facilities in Nebraska. 

U.S. Representative John Duarte, a Republican and fourth-generation farmer in California’s Central Valley, said farms in the area depend on immigrants in the U.S. illegally and that small towns would collapse if those workers were deported. 

Duarte’s congressional seat is one of a handful of close races in which a winner has yet to be declared. 

Duarte said the Trump administration should pledge that immigrant workers in the country for five years or longer with no criminal record will not be targeted and look at avenues to permanent legal status. 

“I would like to hear more clearly expressed that these families will not be targeted,” he said.  

‘We need the certainty’ 

Farmers have a legal option for hiring labor with the H-2A visa program, which allows employers to bring in an unlimited number of seasonal workers if they can show there are not enough U.S. workers willing, qualified and available to do the job. 

The program has grown over time, with 378,000 H-2A positions certified by the Labor Department in 2023, three times more than in 2014, according to agency data.  

But that figure is only about 20% of the nation’s farmworkers, according to the USDA. Many farmers say they cannot afford the visa’s wage and housing requirements. Others have year-round labor needs that rule out the seasonal visas. 

Farmers and workers would benefit from expanded legal pathways for agricultural laborers, said John Walt Boatright, director of government affairs at the American Farm Bureau Federation, a farmer lobby group. 

“We need the certainty, reliability and affordability of a workforce program and programs that are going to allow us to continue to deliver food from the farm to the table,” said John Hollay, director of government relations at the International Fresh Produce Association, which represents produce farmers. 

For decades, farm and worker groups have attempted to pass immigration reform that would enable more agricultural workers to stay in the U.S., but the legislation has failed so far. 

The risk of enforcement against farms is likely low because of the necessity of the workers, said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney at Holland & Knight.  

“There are some very significant business interests that obviously want agricultural labor and need it,” he said. 

But for farmworkers, the fear of enforcement can create chronic stress, said Mary Jo Dudley, director of the Cornell Farmworker Program, which is training workers to know their rights if confronted by immigration officials. 

If there are again raids on meatpacking plants, immigration enforcement should take precautions to avoid detaining workers in the country legally, said Marc Perrone, international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents some meatpacking workers.  

Edgar Franks, a former farmworker and political director at Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a worker union in Washington state, said the group was seeing new energy from workers to organize.  

“The anxiety and fear is real. But if we’re together, there’s a better chance for us to fight back,” he said.
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Democrats plan to elect new party leader days after Trump’s inauguration

WASHINGTON — The chair of the Democratic National Committee informed party leaders on Monday that the DNC would choose his successor in February, an election that will speak volumes about how the party wants to present itself during four more years of Donald Trump in the White House.

Jaime Harrison, in a letter to members of the party’s powerful Rules & Bylaws Committee, outlined the process of how the party would elect its new chair. Harrison said in the letter that the committee would host four candidate forums — some in person and some virtually — in January, with the final election on February 1 during the party’s winter meeting in National Harbor, Maryland.

The race to become the next chair of the Democratic National Committee, while an insular party affair, will come days after Trump is inaugurated for a second term. Democrats’ selection of a leader after Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 loss will be a key starting point as the party starts to move forward, including addressing any structural problems and determining how to oppose Trump.

Members of the Rules & Bylaws Committee will meet on December 12 to establish the rules for these elections, which beyond the chair position will include top party roles such as vice chairs, treasurer, secretary and national finance chair. The committee will also use that meeting to decide the requirements for gaining access to the ballot for those top party roles. In 2021, candidates were required to submit a nominating statement that included signatures from 40 DNC members, and that will likely be the same standard for the 2025 campaigns.

“The DNC is committed to running a transparent, equitable, and impartial election for the next generation of leadership to guide the party forward,” Harrison said in a statement. “Electing the Chair and DNC officers is one of the most important responsibilities of the DNC Membership, and our staff will run an inclusive and transparent process that gives members the opportunity to get to know the candidates as they prepare to cast their votes.”

Two Democrats have announced campaigns for chair: Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and a vice chair of the national party, and Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor and current commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

Other top Democrats are either considering a run to succeed Harrison or are being pushed by party insiders, including former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke; Michael Blake, a former vice chair of the party; Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin; Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan and a former Chicago mayor; Sen. Mallory McMorrow, majority whip of the Michigan Senate, and Chuck Rocha, a longtime Democratic strategist.

The next chair of the committee will be tasked with rebuilding a party demoralized by a second Trump victory. They will also oversee the party’s 2028 nominating process, a complex and contentious exercise that will make the chair central to the next presidential election.

Harrison, of South Carolina, made clear in his letter to the rules committee that the four forums hosted by the party would be live streamed and the party would give grassroots Democrats across the country the ability to engage with the process through those events. He also said he intends to remain neutral during the chair election.
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Trump taps America First Policy Institute CEO to be agriculture secretary

WASHINGTON — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Brooke Rollins, president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, to be agriculture secretary.

“As our next Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke will spearhead the effort to protect American Farmers, who are truly the backbone of our Country,” Trump said in a statement.

If confirmed by the Senate, Rollins would lead a 100,000-person agency with offices in every county in the country, whose scope includes farm and nutrition programs, forestry, home and farm lending, food safety, rural development, agricultural research, trade and more. It had a budget of $437.2 billion in 2024.

The nominee’s agenda would carry implications for American diets and wallets, both urban and rural. Department of Agriculture officials and staff negotiate trade deals, guide dietary recommendations, inspect meat, fight wildfires and support rural broadband, among other activities.

“Brooke’s commitment to support the American Farmer, defense of American Food Self-Sufficiency, and the restoration of Agriculture-dependent American Small Towns is second to none,” Trump said in the statement.

The America First Policy Institute is a right-leaning think tank whose personnel have worked closely with Trump’s campaign to help shape policy for his incoming administration. She chaired the Domestic Policy Council during Trump’s first term.

As agriculture secretary, Rollins would advise the administration on how and whether to implement clean fuel tax credits for biofuels at a time when the sector is hoping to grow through the production of sustainable aviation fuel.

The nominee would also guide next year’s renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal, in the shadow of disputes over Mexico’s attempt to bar imports of genetically modified corn and Canada’s dairy import quotas.

Trump has said he again plans to institute sweeping tariffs that are likely to affect the farm sector.

He was considering offering the role to former U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler, a staunch ally whom he chose to co-chair his inaugural committee, CNN reported on Friday.
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What to know about Scott Turner, Trump’s pick for housing secretary

Scott Turner, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is a former NFL player who ran the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump’s first term.

Turner, 52, is the first Black person selected to be a member of the Republican’s Cabinet. Here are some things to know about him:

From professional football to politics

Turner grew up in a Dallas suburb, Richardson, and graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He was a defensive back and spent nine seasons in the NFL beginning in 1995, playing for the Washington Redskins, San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos.

During offseasons, he worked as an intern for then-Representative Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California. After Turner retired in 2004, he worked full time for the congressman. In 2006, Turner ran unsuccessfully as a Republican in California’s 50th Congressional District.

Turner joined the Texas House in 2013 as part of a large crop of tea party-supported lawmakers. He tried unsuccessfully to become speaker before he finished his second term in 2016. He did not seek a third term.

Motivational speaker and pastor

Turner also worked for a software company in a position called “chief inspiration officer” and said he acted as a professional mentor, pastor and councilor for the employees and executive team. He has also been a motivational speaker.

He and his wife, Robin Turner, founded a nonprofit promoting initiatives to improve childhood literacy. His church, Prestonwood Baptist Church, lists him as an associate pastor. He is also chair of the center for education opportunity at America First Policy Institute, a think tank set up by former Trump administration staffers to lay the groundwork if he won a second term.

Headed council in Trump’s first term

Trump introduced Turner in April 2019 as the head of the new White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council. Trump credited Turner with “helping to lead an Unprecedented Effort that Transformed our Country’s most distressed communities.”

The mission of the council was to coordinate with various federal agencies to attract investment to so-called “Opportunity Zones,” which were economically depressed areas eligible to be used for the federal tax incentives.

Role of HUD

The Housing and Urban Development Department is responsible for addressing the nation’s housing needs. It also is charged with fair housing laws and oversees housing for the poorest Americans, sheltering more than 4.3 million low-income families through public housing, rental subsidy and voucher programs.

The agency, with a budget of tens of billions of dollars, runs a multitude of programs that cover a range of responsibilities, from reducing homelessness to promoting homeownership. It also finances the construction of affordable housing and provides vouchers that allow low-income families to pay for housing in the private market.

During the campaign, Trump focused mostly on the prices of housing, not public housing. He railed against the high cost of housing and said he could make it more affordable by cracking down on illegal immigration and reducing inflation. Trump also said he would work to reduce regulations on home construction and make some federal land available for residential construction.
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Trump picks hedge fund manager for treasury secretary

President-elect Donald Trump said he will nominate hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as secretary of the Treasury, in a statement Friday night.

Bessent, 62, is the founder of the Key Square Capital Management hedge fund and has worked on and off for Soros Fund Management since 1991. If confirmed, he will be the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary. He is a deficit hawk and has said he would work to lower the U.S. national debt.

Bessent, a billionaire, is a past supporter of Democrats, but has become a strong supporter of Trump.

“This election cycle is the last chance for the U.S. to grow our way out of this mountain of debt without becoming a sort of European-style socialist democracy,” he told Bloomberg in August.

He supports Trump’s plan to extend tax cuts and said tariffs during a second Trump administration would be directed primarily at China.

In a statement, Trump said “Scott is widely respected as one of the World’s foremost International Investors and Geopolitical and Economic Strategists.”

Trump also announced his intention Friday night to nominate several other candidates to top posts.

The president-elect said he would nominate Russell Thurlow Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought served in the same role in the first Trump administration.

“Russ has spent many years working in Public Policy in Washington, D.C., and is an aggressive cost cutter and deregulator who will help us implement our America First Agenda across all Agencies,” Trump said in a statement.

Vought was closely involved in a conservative blueprint for a second Trump administration, called Project 2025, which Trump distanced himself from during the campaign.

Trump also chose Oregon Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who lost her re-election bid in the state’s 5th Congressional District, to become secretary of labor.

In a statement, he said “Lori’s strong support from both the Business and Labor communities will ensure that the Labor Department can unite Americans of all backgrounds behind our Agenda for unprecedented National Success – Making America Richer, Wealthier, Stronger and more Prosperous than ever before!”

His final Cabinet pick Friday night was Scott Turner to serve as housing secretary. Turner is a former football player who worked in Trump’s first administration as the executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council.

Trump said Turner helped in that role to “to lead an Unprecedented Effort that Transformed our Country’s most distressed communities.”

The president-elect also made several health picks on Friday night, choosing family medicine doctor and Fox News contributor Janette Nesheiwat to be surgeon general, former congressman and medical doctor Dave Weldon to direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and surgeon Martin Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration.

Trump called Nesheiwat a “fierce advocate and strong communicator for preventive medicine and public health.”

On the national security front, Trump announced late Friday that he has chosen former State Department official Alex Wong to serve as deputy national security adviser. In a statement, Trump said Wong, who served as deputy special representative for North Korea during his first administration, “helped negotiate my Summit with North Korean Leader, Kim Jong Un.”

Trump also chose conservative commentator Sebastian Gorka to serve as White House senior director for counterterrorism, saying he had more than 30 years of national security experience.

On Thursday, Trump said he would nominate Pam Bondi, as attorney general. Bondi was Trump’s second choice after former U.S. Republican Representative Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration in the face of widespread scrutiny of alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

Bondi, 59, has established herself as a staunch conservative, Trump loyalist and outspoken defender of the president-elect, both personally and professionally.

She was one of the lawyers on Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment trial, and she played a leading role in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Early in her law career, Bondi worked as prosecutor and spokesperson in Hillsborough County, where she was assistant state’s attorney. In 2010, she became the first female attorney general elected to the state of Florida.

Several other Trump appointees also are facing intense scrutiny, including defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth, a Fox News talk show host and decorated military veteran; Health and Human Services chief pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic; and director of national intelligence pick Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic-congresswoman-turned-Republican supporter of Trump.

With Republicans holding a 53-47 edge in the Senate next year, and unified Democratic opposition to any candidate, it would have taken only four Republicans to doom a nomination.

But recent U.S. political history stands in their favor. The Senate has not voted against a presidential Cabinet nominee since 1989, with members of both political parties giving wide deference to new presidents to fill top-level jobs with appointees of their choosing.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Trump’s choice for top diplomat tough on China, Cuba, softer on Ukraine

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to serve as the next U.S. secretary of state is Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who has been in the Senate since 2011 and serves on the chamber’s foreign relations and intelligence committees. VOA’s Chief National Correspondent Steve Herman has more.
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