WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday that he will nominate billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, a proponent of deficit reduction, as his next Treasury secretary, one of several personnel decisions he announced as he concluded the working week.
Trump also said he would nominate Russell Vought to head the Office of Management and Budget, the same position he held during Trump’s first presidency. Vought was closely involved in Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term that the Republican candidate tried to distance himself from during the campaign.
The announcements showed Trump trying to balance competing perspectives as he pursues an aggressive and sometimes contradictory economic agenda that includes tax cuts, reducing government spending, imposing tariffs on foreign imports and lowering prices for American consumers.
Although Bessent has close ties to Wall Street and could win bipartisan support, Vought is seen as a Republican hardliner on budget and cultural issues.
Trump said Bessent “will help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States,” while Vought “knows exactly how to dismantle the deep state and end the gun government.”
After Trump announced his decisions on key financial items, he maintained the pace of the breakneck transition process.
Trump chose Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon, a scarce Republican seen as a staunch union ally, as his labor secretary. He also said he would nominate Scott Turner, a former football player who worked in Trump’s first administration, as his housing secretary.
Additional selections were identified for health and national security positions. In less than three weeks since the election, Trump has announced decisions for almost his entire Cabinet.
Bessent, 62, is the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, having worked for Soros Fund Management on and off since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the country’s first openly gay treasury secretary.
He told Bloomberg in August that attacking the U.S. national debt should be a priority, including cutting government programs and other spending.
“This election cycle is the last chance for the United States to grow out of this mountain of debt without becoming some kind of European-style socialist democracy,” he said at the time.
As of November 8, the national debt stands at $35.94 trillion, with both the Trump and Biden administrations having increased it. Trump’s policies added $8.4 trillion to the national debt, while the Biden administration added $4.3 trillion to the national debt, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a financial watchdog.
Even as he pushes to reduce the national debt through a spending freeze, Bessent has supported expanding provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed into law during his first year in office. Estimates from various economic analyzes of the cost of the various tax cuts range from nearly $6 trillion to $10 trillion over ten years. Almost all provisions of the law expire at the end of 2025.
Before becoming a Trump donor and adviser, Bessent donated to various Democratic causes in the early 2000s, most notably to Al Gore’s presidential candidacy. He also worked for George Soros, a major Democratic supporter. Bessent played an influential role in Soros’ London dealings, including his renowned bet against the pound in 1992, which reaped huge profits on “Black Wednesday,” when the pound was delinked from European currencies.
Bessent previously told Bloomberg that he viewed the tariffs as a “one-time price adjustment” and “not inflationary,” and he said tariffs imposed during a second Trump administration would be aimed primarily at China. And he wrote in a Fox News editorial this week that tariffs are “a useful tool for achieving the president’s foreign policy goals,” such as encouraging allies to spend more on defense or deterring military aggression.
In addition, Bessent has expressed ideas about how Trump could put pressure on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whose term expires in May 2026. Last month, Bessent suggested that Trump could name a replacement chairman early and have that person serve as a “shadow.” Chairman, with the aim of effectively eliminating Powell.
But after the election, Bessent is said to have deviated from this plan. Powell, for his part, said he would not resign if Trump asked him to do so, adding that as president, Trump would not have the authority to fire him.
Trump repeatedly attacked Powell during his first term as president for raising the Fed’s key interest rate in 2017 and 2018. During the 2024 election campaign, he said that as president he should have a “say” in the central bank’s interest rate decisions. Presidents traditionally avoid commenting on Fed policy.
Vought, 48, served as head of the Office of Management and Budget from mid-2020 until the end of Trump’s first term in 2021, after previously serving as acting director and deputy director. He has paired a deep knowledge of public finances with his own Christian faith.
After Trump’s first term ended, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America, a think tank whose mission is to “renew a consensus about America as a nation under God.”
The Center for Renewing America has released its own 2023 budget proposal titled “A Commitment to End Woke and Weaponized Government.” The proposal called for $11.3 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years and about $2 trillion in income tax cuts to bring the budget into surplus by 2032.
“The immediate threat to the nation is that the people will no longer govern the country; Instead, government itself is increasingly being used as a weapon against the people it is supposed to serve,” Vought wrote in the introduction.
Vought’s proposed budget would cut spending on food aid by the Agriculture Department. There would be $3.3 trillion in spending cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, driven in vast part by the way Medicaid and Medicare funds are distributed. It also includes about $642 billion in cuts to the Affordable Care Act. The budgets for the housing, urban development and education departments would also be cut.
Vought’s budget ideas were independent of Trump, who has not fully laid out the details of his economic plans.
Trump’s chosen Labor Secretary Chavez-DeRemer (56) narrowly lost her re-election at the beginning of the month. She received sturdy support from union members in her district.
Chavez-DeRemer is one of the few Republicans in the House to support the Protecting the Right to Organize, or PRO, Act, which would allow more workers to conduct organizing campaigns and impose penalties on companies that violate workers’ rights. The bill would also weaken “right to work” laws that allow workers in more than half of states to avoid participating in or paying dues to unions that represent workers at their workplaces.
Trump said in a statement that she would assist “ensure the Department of Labor can unite Americans of all backgrounds behind our agenda for unprecedented national success.”
In addition, Trump added to his health team on Friday evening. He chose Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a general practitioner and Fox News contributor, as surgeon general; Dr. Dave Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Florida, will lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Dr. Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon, as head of the Food and Drug Administration.
Trump had previously said he would nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime spreader of conspiracy theories about vaccines, to be secretary of health and human services.
Alex Wong has been named principal deputy national security adviser, while Sebastian Gorka will serve as senior director for counterterrorism. Wong covered Asian issues during Trump’s first term, and Gorka is a conservative commentator who spent less than a year in Trump’s first White House.
