Trump Nominates Scott Bessent to lead US Treasury
In a statement on Friday Donald Trump said:
Scott has long been a strong advocate of the America First Agenda…he will help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States, as we fortify our position as the World’s leading Economy…while always, and without question, maintaining the U.S. Dollar as the Reserve Currency of the World.
As a lifelong Champion of Main Street America and American Industry, Scott will support my Policies that will drive U.S. Competitiveness, and stop unfair Trade imbalances, work to create an Economy that places Growth at the forefront, especially through our coming World Energy Dominance.”
Key events
Russ Vought to be director of the Office of Management and Budget
Donald Trump has chosen Russ Vought, a key architect of Project 2025, to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, a powerful agency that helps decide the president’s policy priorities and how to pay for them.
Reuters reports that Vought, who was OMB chief during Trump’s 2017-2021 term, would play a major role in setting budget priorities and implementing Trump’s campaign promise to roll back government regulations.
Here’s more on Vought:
Since Trump left office, Vought has been deeply involved in Project 2025, a series of detailed policy proposals for Trump’s second term drawn up by hundreds of high-profile conservatives.
Among other measures, Project 2025 calls for a broad expansion in presidential power by boosting the number of political appointees and increasing the president’s authority over the Justice Department.
The project also proposes enforcing laws that make it illegal to mail abortion pills over state lines, criminalizing pornography and eliminating the Department of Education.
The project’s authors, Vought included, have also advocated for the reclassification of parts of the federal workforce that would give Trump the authority to fire tens of thousands of government employees.
During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly denied he had any links to Project 2025, even though many of its authors were former officials from his first administration. With Vought’s selection, the president-elect has now tapped several former aides with Project 2025 links for key administration roles.
Trump Nominates Scott Bessent to lead US Treasury
In a statement on Friday Donald Trump said:
Scott has long been a strong advocate of the America First Agenda…he will help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States, as we fortify our position as the World’s leading Economy…while always, and without question, maintaining the U.S. Dollar as the Reserve Currency of the World.
As a lifelong Champion of Main Street America and American Industry, Scott will support my Policies that will drive U.S. Competitiveness, and stop unfair Trade imbalances, work to create an Economy that places Growth at the forefront, especially through our coming World Energy Dominance.”
Here is some more on Scott Bessent, Donald Trump’s projected pick to lead the US treasury, from Reuters:
Bessent has advocated for tax reform and deregulation, particularly to spur more bank lending and energy production, as noted in a recent opinion piece he wrote for The Wall Street Journal. The market’s surge after Trump’s election victory, he wrote, signaled investor “expectations of higher growth, lower volatility and inflation, and a revitalized economy for all Americans.”
Bessent follows other financial luminaries who have taken the job, including former Goldman Sachs executives Robert Rubin, Hank Paulson and Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s first Treasury chief. Janet Yellen, the current secretary and first woman in the job.
While Bessent’s nomination is not official, he appears to have risen to the top of Trrump’s short list of treasury heads, a position that is being closely watched by Wall Street.
After resigning from congress and withdrawing from consideration to be the next US attorney general, Matt Gaetz is taking his talents to Cameo, an app that lets users pay for personalized video messages from celebrities and other notable figures like Gaetz and George Santos. The news website Semafor first reported the move on Friday.
As my colleague Martin Pengelly reports:
On Friday, Gaetz began by charging $250 a video but soon raised that price to $500…Other disgraced political figures who have turned to Cameo include Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor who was jailed for trying to sell Barack Obama’s US Senate seat, a sentence commuted by Trump, and Rudy Giuliani, the New York mayor turned Trump attorney now facing financial and legal ruin.
Read more from Martin here.
Scott Bessent expected to be named as Treasury secretary
Donald Trump’s cabinet is continuing to take shape with the expected nomination of Scott Bessent to lead the US treasury, reports from Bloomberg, the Washington Post and other outlets say. Bessent runs the hedge fund Key square group and was an economic adviser to Trump during his campaign.
If Bessent, 62, is confirmed, he will be assuming the role of the nation’s highest-ranking economic policy official and will be tasked with bringing to life Trump’s economic promises like extending his 2017 tax cuts.
The announcement is still not final but all signs are pointing to Bessent over other options that were floated like Apollo global management inc. executive Marc Rowan, former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh and Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty.
Trump plans to fire Jack Smith’s team – report
Donald Trump plans to fire the team of prosecutors who helped Jack Smith, the special counsel to the US department of justice, bring two federal cases against Trump for his alleged interference in the 2020 election, the Washington Post reports.
Smith announced his plan to resign and end his two-year-long prosecution of Trump before the president-elect takes office on 13 November.
In 2023, Smith indicted Trump for allegedly plotting to overturn his 2020 election defeat, and for conspiring to hide classified documents. Neither case made it to trial before Trump’s election victory last week, making it virtually impossible for Smith to continue his investigation. Justice department policy prohibits the prosecution of sitting presidents, and Trump has vowed to fire Smith within “two seconds” of becoming president again.
Now Trump is turning attention to the mid- and upper-level prosecutors who assisted Smith, calling them “SleazeBags” and “deranged” in social media posts.
Read the rest of the Post’s reporting on how Trump plans to go after these attorneys here.
A niche law from 1907 that made it illegal to cheat on your spouse in the state of New York has been repealed, the Associated Press reports.
The misdemeanor once could have landed adulterers in jail for three months. Kathy Hochul signed a bill on Friday repealing the statute. The New York governor said it was “silly” for the state to have such a rule in place. Adultery bans are law in several states, though charges are rare and convictions even rarer. Some states have also moved to repeal their adultery laws in recent years.
When asked for his response to cities refusing to assist in deportations, Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s pick for “border czar”, sent a message specifically to the Los Angeles city council: “If you don’t help, get the hell out of the way,” Homan said on Newsmax on Wednesday.
“If I gotta send twice as many officers to LA because we’re not getting any assistance, then that’s what we’re gonna do,” Homan continued.
The comments came hours after the LA city council unanimously voted to pass a “sanctuary city” ordinance that blocks any city resources or personnel from being used to assist in enforcing federal immigration laws.
The policy was introduced in 2023 but passed as the next Trump administration takes shape. And while the ordinance does not prevent deportations and other government actions from happening on LA’s soil, it’s meant to “build a firewall between federal immigration enforcement and city agencies,” the LA Times reports.
Vivek Ramaswamy appeared to confirm he and Elon Musk will try to stop the flow of funds that go to Planned Parenthood.
“The federal government shouldn’t be in the business of giving away free money to non-governmental organizations. That should be obvious,” a Thursday post on X by Ramaswamy read.
The post was a quoted reposting of a story from LifeNews, an anti-abortion digital news site, that bore the headline Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy Call for Defunding Planned Parenthood Via DOGE.
The pair will lead what they plan to call the “department of government efficiency” and have made prior comments about defunding organizations like the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education, Forbes reported.
Read more of the Guardian’s coverage about the concerted efforts to topple Planned Parenthood and deliver blows to women’s healthcare here.
Senate majority whip Dick Durbin calls for ‘customary FBI background check’ on Pam Bondi
Dick Durbin, the US Senate majority whip, has released a statement on Donald Trump’s nomination of Pam Bondi as the next attorney general, calling for the Senate judiciary committee to follow convention rules on customary FBI background checks.
Durbin said:
Serious questions have been raised about Ms Bondi’s conduct as Florida’s Attorney General and President-elect Trump’s personal attorney. The Trump transition team is moving forward with an Attorney General nominee without the customary FBI background check. After the controversial announcement and awkward withdrawal of Matt Gaetz, the Senate and the Senate Judiciary Committee should insist that President-elect Trump, like prior Presidents-elect of both parties, follow the rules.
The Committee must uphold its constitutional responsibility of advice and consent on this critical position.
