Washington’s highest-ranking Republican has said that President-elect Donald Trump is tapping “disruptors” to lead his incoming administration.
“They are persons who will shake up the status quo,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “I think that’s by design.”
Trump continues to announce officials who he wants to fill high-ranking positions in his administration, seeming to favour close allies over those with related policy experience.
Some of those picks have sent shockwaves through Washington and caused bipartisan concern. But those close to Trump say there are back-up plans in place if these nominees can’t muster the support needed to be approved.
Trump’s defence secretary pick Pete Hegseth has denied a sexual assault allegation and his potential attorney general Matt Gaetz is at the centre of an ethics scandal. His health secretary nominee, Robert F Kennedy Jr, is under scrutiny for his vaccine scepticism.
The president-elect’s son, Donald Trump Jr, defended his father’s nominees on Sunday, saying on Fox News that “we know who the good guys and bad guys are”.
“It’s about surrounding my father with people who are competent and loyal. They will deliver on his promises,” he said. “They are not people who think they know better as unelected bureaucrats.”
He noted some of the nominees are “controversial” and appeared to acknowledge some could face problems in the Senate, which is tasked with vetting thousands of presidential nominees and voting on their appointments.
“We do have back-up plans, but we’re obviously going with the strongest candidates first,” the president-elect’s son said. “You know some of them are going to be controversial because they’ll actually get things done.”
Donald Trump’s pick for energy secretary, oil executive Chris Wright, has no government experience but is an enthusiastic supporter of fossil fuels.
Wright, the founder and CEO of fracking company Liberty Energy, is expected to work toward fulfilling Trump’s campaign promise to increase fossil fuel production – an aim summed by the campaign slogan “drill, baby, drill”.
He is a climate change sceptic who previously said he does not care where energy comes from, “as long as it is secure, reliable, affordable and betters human lives”.
The Trump campaign cited Wright’s work with Pinnacle Technologies, a company he founded before Liberty Energy, as being critical to the US’s fracking boom, which has made the country the largest oil producer in the world.
Wright’s appointment is a win for the fossil fuel industry, which expects a boom under the next administration. Trump has pledged to increase production of US fossil fuels rather than investing in renewable energy sources such as wind power – a goal Wright will be instrumental in driving.
His appointment came as Joe Biden became the first sitting US president to visit the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, on Sunday, as he touted his climate legacy.
AFPBiden took take an aerial tour over part of the Amazon and met with local and Indigenous leaders working to preserve the region’s ecosystem before making a brief appearance in Manaus, a large city nestled in the centre of the rainforest.
There, Biden described the battle against climate change as “a defining cause of my presidency” and touted the landmark climate legislation passed under his administration.
The Democrat also pledged new financial assistance to protect the Amazon, including an additional $50m (£40m)contribution to the Amazon Conservation Fund bringing the US commitment to $100m.
And while he did not mention Trump by name, Biden seemed to make reference to his successor, saying that while “some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that is underway in America… nobody, nobody can reverse it”.
“The question now,” he said, “is which government will stand in the way and which will seize the enormous economic opportunity.”
