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Breaking: Beyond Headlines!

Trump announces he will nominate Scott Bessent to head Treasury
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Trump announces he will nominate Scott Bessent to head Treasury

By FATIMA HUSSEIN, CHRIS RUGABER, JOSH BOAK and CHRIS MEGERIAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday that it would appoint hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, a advocate for deficit reductionto become his next Treasury Secretary.

Trump also said he would nominate Russell Vought to head the Office of Management and Budget, a position Vought held during Trump’s first presidency. Vought was closely involved in Project 2025a conservative project for Trump’s second term from which he tried to distance himself during the campaign.

These announcements showed how much Trump was beefing up the financial side of his new administration. Although Bessent is closely aligned with Wall Street and could gain bipartisan support, Vought is known as a die-hard Republican.

Trump said Bessent would “help me usher in a new golden age for the United States,” while Vought “knows exactly how to dismantle the deep state and end militarized government.”

Bessent and Vought are just two of several personnel decisions Trump disclosed Friday evening.

Trump said he had chosen Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican from Oregon, as labor secretary, and Scott Turner, a former football player who worked in Trump’s first administration, as housing secretary .

Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer
FILE – Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., joined by Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., left, and House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., right, speaks at a press conference. conference at the Capitol in Washington, January 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Additionally, Trump has completed his health team. He chose Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a general practitioner and Fox News contributor, as his general surgeon; Dr. Dave Weldon, former Republican congressman from Florida, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Johns Hopkins surgeon Dr. Marty Makary, head of the Food and Drug Administration. Trump previously said he would appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr.a longtime disseminator of vaccine conspiracy theories, as health secretary.

Alex Wong has been named deputy principal national security adviser, while Sebastian Gorka will be senior director for counterterrorism. Wong worked on issues involving Asia during Trump’s first term, and Gorka is a conservative commentator who spent less than a year in the Trump White House.

Bessent, 62, is the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, having worked intermittently for Soros Fund Management since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the nation’s first openly gay Treasury secretary.

He told Bloomberg in August that tackling the U.S. national debt should be a priority, which means slashing government programs and other spending.

“This electoral cycle is the last chance for the United States to get out of this mountain of debt without becoming a kind of European-style socialist democracy,” he said at the time.