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Now that Trump is president-elect, who could serve in his administration?

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From The Center Square

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Former President Donald Trump has secured the White House, now raising the question: who will serve in his administration?

Trump admitted on the Joe Rogan podcast just before the election that one of his biggest mistakes in his first term was putting the wrong people around him, a critique that has been widely shared by Trump’s own supporters.

Now, Trump has another chance to stock his administration.

Trump announced Thursday that his campaign co-chair Susie Wiles would serve as White House chief of staff, a powerful, wide-ranging position where she will help form the new administration and steer its policies.

A range of Republican establishment picks are jockeying to lead the U.S. Treasury Department, State Department, Department of Defense and others, but here are a few of the highest profile potential picks to serve in Trump’s administration.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Lifelong Democrat RFK Jr. ran for president as a Democrat and then became an Independent before finally backing the Trump campaign. Trump repeatedly touted Kennedy’s endorsement, saying that Kennedy would be kept far from energy policy because of his liberal views but would be allowed to work on health issues.

Kennedy has declared a war on junk food and speaks passionately about chronic health issues and how the American food industry and the Food and Drug Administration policies have helped create the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S.

RFK is considered a likely leader in the administration, probably in a health role. RFK has recently publicly said that “entire departments” at the FDA need to go because they are failing or even doing harm.

“They’re not protecting our kids,” he told MSNBC in a recent interview. “Why do we have Fruit Loops in this country that have 18 or 19 ingredients and you go to Canada and it’s got two or three?”

Elon Musk

Musk gave Trump a full-throated endorsement and helped propel him to victory with his posts on X and his financial backing. WHile Musk is more than busy running several successful companies, Trump publicly said he would pick Musk to improve government efficiency.

Musk gained a reputation in that department when he bought Twitter, fired much of the staff, and still kept the company running. Musk expressed surprise at just how inefficient and wasteful Twitter was when he took over.

“I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government,” Trump said in September.

Tulsi Gabbard

Gabbard served as a Democrat in Congress but later backed Trump on the campaign trail. Gabbard is known for her foreign policy chops and military service, potentially positioning her for an ambassadorship or State Department position.

Gabbard told Fox News in September that she would be “honored” to serve in Trump’s administration. The same month, she also told a crowd at the Georgia Faith and Freedom Coalition that she could help Trump prevent WWIII and deal with the military industrial complex.

“I feel I can make the most impact in these areas of national security and foreign policy, and work to bring about the changes that President Trump talks about,” she said in her speech.

Vivek Ramaswamy

During the Republican presidential primary, billionaire and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy quickly built his popularity and reputation as an erudite speaker and younger mouthpiece for many of Trump’s ideas.

He also refrained from attacking the President-elect and called for abolishing the Department of Education. He could oversee the dismantling of that agency or be placed somewhere in the Commerce Department or elsewhere, where his business background would serve him well.

Notably, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, will now need to appoint a U.S. senator to replace Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance. Ramaswamy lives in Ohio and could make the cut.

Scott Jennings

Scott Jennings has gone viral online in recent days for his commentary on CNN where he clearly defined Trump’s victory as a coalition of working class people as the mostly liberal panelists fretted over Trump’s victory.

Several viral clips have led to preliminary calls for Jennings to serve as press secretary.

“Scott Jennings = strong candidate for White House press secretary or communications director,” Real Clear Investigations senior reporter and New York Post columnist Paul Sperry wrote on X, one of several to make the same point. “He has been excellent throughout this campaign, arguing effectively as the lone GOP voice on a hostile, biased CNN panel, while keeping his cool and class.”

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

Sen. Marco Rubio was considered on the short list for vice president. While Trump will need the support in the Senate, Rubio could be repurposed in a position that utilizes his focus on national defense.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum

Burgum was also considered a vice president contender. His wealth and business background could put him on the short list for the Small Business Administration or another economic-related role in the new Trump administration.

John Ratcliffe

Former lawmaker and congressman Ratcliffe served as director of National Intelligence and is considered a potential pick to serve as attorney general.

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Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Resets The Energy Policy Playing Field

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

Make no mistake about it, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) signed into law on Friday by President Donald Trump falls neatly in line with the Trump energy and climate agenda. Despite complaints by critics of the deal that Majority Leader John Thune struck with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski to soften the bill’s effort to end wind and solar subsidies from the Orwellian 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the OBBBA continues – indeed, accelerates – the Trumpian energy revolution.

Leaders in the oil and gas industry, hamstrung at every opportunity by the Biden presidency, hailed the bill as a chance to move back into some semblance of boom times. Tim Stewart, President of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, told his members in a memo that, “For the oil and gas industry, the bill…signals a transformative opportunity to enhance domestic production.”

API CEO Mike Sommers also praised the OBBBA as a positive step for his members: “This historic legislation will help usher in a new era of energy dominance by unlocking opportunities for investment, opening lease sales and expanding access to oil and natural gas development.

While leaders of organizations like those must curb their enthusiasm to some extent in their public statements, they and their peers must be somewhat amazed at how much real substantive change the thin GOP majorities shepherded by Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson managed to stuff into this bill. This industry, historically an easily demonized bogeyman for Democrats and too often ignored by previous Republican presidents, does not experience days as encouraging as July 3 was in the nation’s capital.

Even so, many Republicans, especially in the House, remained unsatisfied by amendments the Senate made to the bill related to IRA subsidy rollbacks. To help Speaker Johnson hold the party’s narrow House majority together, President Trump committed the executive branch to strict enforcement of the new limitations, and promised the White House will work with congressional allies to move a major deregulation package ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

But the OBBBA as passed is chock full of energy and environment-related provisions. FTI Consulting, a business consultancy with a major presence in Washington, DC, published a quick analysis Thursday that projects natural gas and nuclear as the biggest winners as the OBBBA’s impacts begin to take hold across the United States. Interestingly, the analysis also projects battery storage to expand more rapidly over the next five years even as wind and solar suffer from the phasing-out of their IRA subsidies.

The side deal struck by Thune and Murkowski is likely to result in significant new investment into wind and solar facilities as developers strive to get as many projects on the books as possible to meet the “commenced construction” requirement by the July 4, 2026 deadline. The bill’s previous language would have required projects to be placed into service by that time. But even that softer requirement will almost certainly cause a flow of capital investment out of wind and solar once that deadline passes, given the reality that many of their projects are not sustainable without constant flows of government subsidies.

What it all means is that the OBBBA, combined with all the administration’s prior moves to radically shift the direction of federal energy and climate policy away from intermittent energy and electric vehicles back to traditional forms of power generation and internal combustion cars, effectively reset the policy playing field back to 2019, prior to the COVID pandemic. That was a time when America had become as energy independent as it had been in well over half a century and was approaching the “Energy Dominance” position so dear to President Trump’s heart.

Trump’s signing of the OBBBA gives the oil and gas, nuclear, and even the coal industry a chance at a do over. It is an opportunity that comes with great pressure, both from government and the public, to perform. That means rapid expansion in gas power generation unseen in 20 years, rapid development of next generation nuclear, and even a probable chance to permit and build new coal capacity in the near future.

Second chances like this do not come around often. If these great industries fail to grab this brass ring and run with it, it may never come around again. Let’s go, folks.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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‘They Don’t Know What The F*ck They’re Doing’: Trump Unloads On Iran, Israel

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Harold Hutchison

President Donald Trump expressed frustration Tuesday after Iran broke a ceasefire, prompting retaliation from Israel during a gaggle with reporters on the White House lawn.

Trump announced the ceasefire Monday, saying it was supposed to take effect at 1 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, but Iran fired missiles at Israel Tuesday. Trump vented, saying the countries had been “fighting so long” they couldn’t make peace.

WATCH:

“You know, when I say okay, now you have 12 hours, you don’t go out in the first hour just drop everything you have on them,” Trump said. “So I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either. But I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning because the one rocket that didn’t land, that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn’t land, I’m not happy about that.”

“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard, that they don’t know what the fuck they are doing,” Trump added.

The United States struck facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan related to Iran’s effort to develop nuclear weapons early Sunday morning local time, using as many as 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators in the operation, which involved a 37-hour flight by seven B-2A Spirit bombers.

The American strikes came ten days after Israel launched a military operation targeting the Iranian nuclear program. Iran has responded with repeated missile attacks on Israeli cities and a refusal to resume negotiations over its efforts to pursue nuclear weapons.

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