US President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he is appointing two maverick entrepreneurs -- Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency
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John Ratcliffe is Trump's pick to head CIA
NEW YORK — US President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he is appointing two maverick entrepreneurs -- Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE) that will be charged with drastically changing government while cutting waste.
Announcing the appointments on Truth Social on Tuesday night, Trump said that DoGE "will become, potentially the 'Manhattan Project' of our time" -- a reference to the US effort during World War II to develop atomic weapons in record time and profoundly affect the world.
Also read: Trump appoints first-ever woman Chief of Staff
Musk said, "This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!"
He wrote on X: "All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency. Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know! We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining (with a smiley emoji)."
Ramaswamy posted his reaction on X, "We will not go gently, @elonmusk."
The structure of the department and its leadership is vague because Trump said, "The Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency."
Since it is a new department, it is not clear if the leaders would be in the Cabinet, have to be confirmed by the Senate, and what their titles would be.
"Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies," Trump said.
About its role, he said, "To drive this kind of drastic change, the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large-scale structural reform and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before."
Musk said during the campaign that he could cut $2 trillion from the federal budget of $6.5 trillion.
Both Ramaswamy and Musk campaigned for Trump, and Musk ran a parallel campaign for Trump in Pennsylvania to turn out the vote in the state that he won.
The world's richest person, Musk heads the electric car company, Tesla, and the rocket company Space X, and owns X, which was known as Twitter before he bought it.
He is an immigrant from South Africa.
Ramaswamy, whose parents are from India, is a multimillionaire pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, but dropped out and endorsed him. While they can be expected to bring their business expertise to make government, there are questions about conflict of interest, especially in the case of Musk, whose SpaceX has government contracts. He also has extensive business in China, where he makes Tesla vehicles and sells and exports them.
Trump names South Dakota governor to head Homeland Security with immigration mandate
US President-elect Donald Trump has nominated South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as his secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which controls immigration-related agencies.
Announcing her nomination on the social media platform 'Truth Social' on Tuesday night, Trump said, "Kristi has been very strong on Border Security."
With Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, her nomination would complete the trio of positions impacting Trump's high-priority immigration agenda, which includes mass deportations.
She was reported to have been on Trump's shortlist of Vice President candidates.
Noem said, "With Donald Trump, we will secure the border, and restore safety to American communities."
She shares Trump's hardline stand on immigration and sent South Dakota's National Guard to Texas in support of Republican Governor Greg Abbott's border control action in defiance of President Joe Biden's administration.
Noem also offered to send razor wires to reinforce Abbott's barriers along the border, which the Supreme Court ordered to be removed.
Her sprawling department has a broad reach over internal security.
It includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is in charge of deportations; Customs and Border Protection, which deploys border agents, and Citizenship and Immigration Service, which processes applications for immigration and citizenship.
She will also have charge of the Secret Service, which provides VIP security and has been criticised for failing to stop the shooter in the first assassination attempt against Trump.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency are also under the department.
Noem held the state's lone House of Representatives seat before she was elected Governor.
She describes herself as a rancher and farmer and tries to present a picture of her as a down-to-earth frontiersperson.
In her pugnacious memoir, "No Going Back," she talked about shooting her dog during a hunt because it was very aggressive and could not be trained and cited it as an example of her firmness in carrying out necessary "difficult, messy, and ugly" actions.
John Ratcliffe is Trump's pick to head CIA
WASHUNGTON — US President-elect Donald Trump has named John Ratcliffe, a former congressman and Director of National Intelligence, as his Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, contrary to feverish speculation that the job was going to Kash Patel, an Indian-American.
Trump had pushed for Patel as acting director of the CIA in the dying months of this first term as President.
The Indian-American lawyer had made news for driving congressional opposition to investigation of Trump’s links to Russia as an aide to a top Republican lawmaker.
He was widely expected to get the CIA directorship, given his unstinting loyalty to the former president. He did not get it, but he might still be in the running for a stop position in the Trump administration. The position of the Director of National Intelligence is still open.
John Ratcliffe was the Director of Intelligence in the last Trump administration.
The Trump-Vance transition team said in an announcement, “I am pleased to announce that former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe will serve as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
“From exposing fake Russian collusion to be a Clinton campaign operation, to catching the FBI’s abuse of Civil Liberties at the FISA Court, John Ratcliffe has always been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public. When 51 Intelligence officials were lying about Hunter Biden’s laptop, there was one, John Ratcliffe, telling the truth to the American People.
“For these and many other reasons, it was my great honour in 2020 to award John the National Security Medal, the Nation’s highest honour for distinguished achievement in the field of Intelligence and National Security.
“I look forward to John being the first person ever to serve in both of our Nation’s highest Intelligence positions. He will be a fearless fighter for the Constitutional Rights of all Americans, while ensuring the Highest Levels of National Security, and PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”