U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said he would nominate Scott Bessent as secretary of the treasury, according to a statement released Friday night.
Bessent, 62, is the founder of Key Square Capital Management, a hedge fund, and has worked on and off for Soros Fund Managment since 1991. If confirmed, Bessent 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.
“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.
Trump followed the Bessent announcement with two more:
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 his statement.
He 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.
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 his alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
Gaetz, a four-term archconservative congressman from Florida, said in a social media statement that he felt he had strong momentum toward Senate confirmation as the country’s top law enforcement officer.
But, he said, “it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work” of Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance’s taking the reins of running the U.S. government at their inauguration on January 20.
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.
Bondi was born and raised in Florida. She received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Florida and a law degree from the Stetson University College of Law in DeLand, Florida.
Early in her law career, Bondi worked as prosecutor and spokeswoman 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 at most 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.
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