Here’s who’s joining the Trump administration

Around 1,200 of those presidential appointments require U.S. Senate confirmation, which should be easier with the Senate now shifting to Republican control. Some of his most prominent supporters in Georgia are part of the conversation.

Here are the people Trump says will join his administration

James Blair

James Blair was political director for Trump’s 2024 campaign and for the Republican National Committee. He will be deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs and assistant to the president.

Blair was key to Trump’s economic messaging during his winning White House comeback campaign this year, a driving force behind the candidate’s “Trump can fix it” slogan and his query to audiences this fall if they were better off than four years ago.

Taylor Budowich

Taylor Budowich is a veteran Trump campaign aide who launched and directed Make America Great Again, Inc., a super PAC that supported Trump’s 2024 campaign. He will be deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel and assistant to the president.

Budowich also had served as a spokesman for Trump after his presidency.

Tulsi Gabbard

Trump picked Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress and presidential candidate, to serve as director of national intelligence.

Gabbard has served in the U.S. Army National Guard for more than two decades, deploying to Iraq and Kuwait, and would come to the role as somewhat of an outsider, compared to her predecessor. The current director, Avril Haines, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2021 following several years in a number of top national security and intelligence positions.

Gabbard hasn’t worked directly in the intelligence community, outside of U.S. House committees, including two years on the Homeland Security Committee. She has been among the president-elect’s most popular political surrogates, often drawing thunderous responses from crowds as she stumped for him in the campaign’s closing months.

Matt Gaetz

President-elect Trump said he will nominate U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz to serve as his attorney general, naming a loyalist in the role of the nation’s top prosecutor.

Gaetz represents much of the Florida Panhandle and became a conservative star when he joined Congress, appearing as a frequent staunch defender of Trump on cable news.

In selecting Gaetz, Trump passed over some of the more established lawyers whose names had been mentioned as being contenders for the job.

“Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and Restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department,” Trump said in a statement.

Pete Hegseth

Trump said that he is nominating Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary.

Hegseth is a co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” and has been a contributor with the network since 2014, where he developed a friendship with Trump, who made regular appearances on the show. He is also the author of “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.”

Hegseth was an infantry captain in the U.S. Army National Guard and served overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was formerly head of the Concerned Veterans for America, a group backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch.

Tom Homan

The former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director will serve as “border czar” in Trump’s incoming administration. The position is likely to play a key role in Trump’s campaign pledges to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and mount a massive deportation operation.

In addition to overseeing the southern and northern borders and “maritime, and aviation security,” Trump said Tom Homan “will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin,” a central part of his agenda.

Homan is a tough-talking former Border Patrol agent who worked his way up to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2017 and 2018 as the acting director. He was never confirmed by the Senate, and his new role does not require it.

Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee served as governor of Arkansas for more than a decade. Trump says he will nominate him as U.S. ambassador to Israel.

Huckabee is a staunch defender of Israel. His intended nomination comes as Trump has promised to align U.S. foreign policy more closely with Israel’s interests as it wages wars against the Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah.

He has led paid tour group visits to Israel for years, frequently advertising the trips on conservative-leaning news outlets.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy

Trump said that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would lead the proposed Department of Government Efficiency.

In a statement, Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy would help his administration “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies.”

Musk is the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and the owner of the social media platform X. Ramaswamy is biotech entrepreneur and former GOP presidential candidate.

Trump said their work would conclude no later than July 4, 2026.

Kristi Noem

Trump picked South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a well-known conservative who faced sharp criticism for telling a story in her memoir about shooting a rambunctious dog, as secretary of homeland security.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Noem did not order restrictions that other states had issued and instead declared her state “open for business.” Trump held a fireworks rally at Mount Rushmore in July 2020 in one of the first large gatherings of the pandemic.

Noem takes over a department with a sprawling mission. In addition to key immigration agencies, the Department of Homeland Security oversees natural disaster response, the U.S. Secret Service, and Transportation Security Administration agents who work at airports.

John Ratcliffe

The president-elect picked John Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman who served as director of national intelligence during his first administration, to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency in his next.

Ratcliffe was director of national intelligence during the final year and a half of Trump’s first term, leading the U.S. government’s spy agencies during the coronavirus pandemic.

Marco Rubio

Trump named U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio as his nominee for secretary of state, setting up a onetime critic who evolved into one of the president-elect’s fiercest defenders to become the nation’s top diplomat.

The conservative Florida lawmaker is a noted hawk on China, Cuba and Iran, and was a finalist to be Trump’s running mate this summer.

On Capitol Hill, Rubio is the vice chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He has pushed for taking a harder line against China and has targeted social media app TikTok because its parent company is Chinese. He and other lawmakers contend that Beijing could demand access to the data of users whenever it wants.

William McGinley

Trump says William McGinley, a lawyer who has served in Trump’s White House and in a key political role this year, will be his White House counsel.

McGinley was White House Cabinet secretary during Trump’s first administration, and was outside legal counsel for the Republican National Committee’s election integrity effort during the 2024 campaign.

Stephen Miller

The president-elect named longtime adviser Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner, to be the deputy chief of policy in his new administration.

Miller was a senior adviser in Trump’s first term and has been a central figure in many of the former president’s policy decisions, notably his move to separate thousands of immigrant families as a deterrence program in 2018. Miller helped craft many of Trump’s hardline speeches and plans on immigration.

Since Trump left office, Miller has served as the president of America First Legal, an organization of former Trump advisers fashioned as a conservative version of the American Civil Liberties Union, and is expected to take a leading role in Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and promised the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.

Dan Scavino

Dan Scavino, whom Trump’s transition referred to in a statement as one of “Trump’s longest serving and most trusted aides,” was a senior adviser to Trump’s 2024 campaign, as well as his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. He will be deputy chief of staff and assistant to the president.

Scavino had run Trump’s social media profile in the White House during his first administration. He was also held in contempt of Congress in 2022 after a month-long refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Elise Stefanik

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik was chosen to serve as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.

Stefanik has long been one of Trump’s most loyal allies in the U.S. House and was among those discussed as a potential vice presidential choice. She will be thrown into the world body’s deep divisions from the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine to reining in nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran.

She will also come face-to-face almost daily in the U.N. Security Council with the ambassadors of Russia and China whose countries are now strongly allied and looking warily at a second Trump presidency – and sometimes with their counterparts from North Korea and Iran.

Trump said that Stefanik also will be a member of his Cabinet.

Mike Waltz

Trump asked Mike Waltz, a retired U.S. Army National Guard officer and war veteran, to be his national security adviser.

Waltz is a three-term GOP congressman from east-central Florida. He served multiple tours in Afghanistan and also worked in the Pentagon as a policy adviser when Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates were defense chiefs.

He is considered hawkish on China, and called for a U.S. boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing due to its involvement in the origin of COVID-19 and its ongoing mistreatment of the minority Muslim Uighur population.

Susie Wiles

Susie Wiles, the veteran Florida political strategist, moves from a largely behind-the-scenes role of campaign co-chair to the high-profile position of the president’s closest adviser and counsel.

Wiles has been credited with being a steadfast and quiet power behind Trump’s third White House campaign, running a largely disciplined and ultimately winning operation. She was named his new chief of staff and is the first woman to hold the influential role.

The longtime Florida-based Republican strategist ran Trump’s campaign in the state in 2016 and 2020. Before that, she ran Rick Scott ‘s 2010 campaign for Florida governor and briefly served as the manager of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman ‘s 2012 presidential campaign.

Wiles is the daughter of the late NFL player-turned-broadcaster Pat Summerall.

Steven Witkoff

Trump named real estate investor Steven Witkoff to be special envoy to the Middle East.

The 67-year-old Witkoff is the president-elect’s golf partner and was golfing with him at Trump’s club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15, when the former president was the target of a second attempted assassination.

Trump also named Witkoff co-chair, with former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, of his inaugural committee.

Lee Zeldin

Former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin was chosen to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.

Zeldin left Congress in 2023 and was among the Republicans in Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election results. He did not serve on committees with oversight of environmental policy.

In 2016 he pushed to change the designation of about 150 square miles of federal waters in Long Island Sound to state jurisdiction for New York and Rhode Island. He wanted to open the area to striped bass fishing, which is allowed in state waters but banned in the federal area.

What about Georgia?

Nick Ayers

A former political wunderkind who is now a middle-aged Republican mover-and-shaker, Nick Ayers could return to Trump’s inner sanctum as a White House adviser or another staff position.

As a college student in the early 2000s, Ayers got swept up into politics and became Republican Sonny Perdue’s right-hand man during his run for governor. He served as Perdue’s 2006 campaign manager, then the youngest-ever head of the Republican Governors Association and later as a top aide to Vice President Mike Pence.

After declining to take the job as Trump’s chief of staff in 2018, he returned to Atlanta and co-founded Everylife Diapers, a conservative alternative to name-brand diapers.

Brandon Beach

State Sen. Brandon Beach, an Alpharetta Republican, was a fixture at just about every major Trump rally in the closing weeks of the race. A longtime economic development official, Beach recently stepped back from the Develop Fulton booster group to focus full time on helping Trump’s presidential bid.

He’s not seen as a pick for the Cabinet or another high-level position, but he is talked about possibly filling a position in the Department of Transportation or another federal agency.

Doug Collins

Doug Collins, a Gainesville lawyer, was one of Trump’s biggest defenders in the U.S. House during Democratic-led impeachment hearings, and tried to parlay that platform into an ultimately unsuccessful bid for Senate in 2020.

Trump’s campaign tapped him to serve as its go-to Georgia attorney after Joe Biden captured the state in 2020, and Collins has remained a staunch Trump advocate even as he decided against running as a MAGA candidate in the 2022 midterms.

Insiders say he’s viewed as a potential Justice Department appointee, though he could also seek a return to public office in 2026.

Marjorie Taylor Greene

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, first elected to Congress in 2020, is one of Trump’s most visible and loyal allies in the U.S. House. That may give the Rome Republican a leg up on an appointment to his Cabinet, although her controversial persona may make it difficult for her to get confirmed in the Senate.

Greene has said in the past that she would like to serve as Trump’s secretary of homeland security, which would give her oversight of immigration. However, now that Trump has announced that Homan will serve as his “border czar,” it remains to be seen whether Greene is still interested in the secretary role.

More recently, Greene has said only that she wants to help Trump move fast on implementing his agenda, which could mean she best serves the president by remaining in the House, where Republicans are expected to retain a thin majority.

Tyler Harper

Less than two years into his term as Georgia’s agriculture commissioner, Tyler Harper would be a darkhorse candidate for any federal post. Plus, the former state senator has a full plate fighting for disaster relief after Hurricane Helene.

But Trump allies say Harper has many fans in the president-elect’s inner circle and could be considered for a senior-level Agriculture Department job.

Bruce LeVell

Bruce LeVell, the former Gwinnett County GOP chair, was an early Trump enthusiast during the 2016 campaign who served as the head of the Republican’s diversity coalition. After a failed run for U.S. House in 2017, LeVell joined the Small Business Administration in 2018 in a regional role.

He said in an interview that he’s already in talks about joining the administration, but wouldn’t say what role.

“It’s going to be very significant. I can’t really say right now, but it’s going to be, it’s going to be very significant.”

Kelly Loeffler

Former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who is married to billionaire Jeff Sprecher, has lots of money. And they didn’t hesitate to spend it helping get Trump elected.

In addition to donating nearly $5 million to Trump’s campaign and affiliated groups, Loeffler also poured millions into her Greater Georgia organization that worked on turning out voters through targeted advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts. Trump has already announced that Loeffler will serve as one of the co-chairs of his inaugural committee.

She could be a contender for Commerce Secretary or leader of the Small Business Administration. Deep-pocketed donors are also usually among the first in line for coveted ambassadorships. The United Nations ambassadorship appears to be filled already, but the Vatican, anyone?

Josh McKoon

A former state senator from Columbus, Georgia Republican Party Chair Josh McKoon built a reputation at the state Capitol as a proponent of more stringent ethics rules and a champion of contentious “religious liberty” legislation. Unafraid to pick fights within his own party, he finished third in a bruising 2018 primary for secretary of state.

He won the Georgia GOP chairmanship in 2023 with a pledge to unite mainstream and hard-line conservatives. He’s credited with shifting Republican strategy toward an embrace of early voting and working to smooth over strained party ties with Gov. Brian Kemp.

With changes expected at the top tier of the Republican National Committee after Trump’s win, McKoon could be in line for a high-level position within the RNC.

Bill Pulte

The grandson of the founder of Atlanta-based homebuilder PulteGroup is rumored to be interested in serving as Housing and Urban Development secretary. Bill Pulte is a venture capitalist and philanthropist who has a huge following on the social media site X.

“We need to fix the housing crisis,” he wrote on the site. Many of his posts have focused on housing and related issues.

The New York Post reports that Pulte has been in contact with Trump’s transition team, where he enjoys a level of support for the job.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.