Donald Trump welcomes Representative Elise Stefanik during a campaign rally in Concord, New Hampshire, January 19, 2024 (AFP / TIMOTHY A. CLARY)
Donald Trump is making progress in forming his future administration, with the president-elect appointing loyalists to key positions and demanding that they can assume their duties while avoiding a laborious Senate confirmation process.
The 78-year-old Republican chose Elise Stefanik, a 40-year-old New York state representative, for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
“Elise is a fighter for America first, incredibly strong, tenacious and intelligent,” said the man who is preparing to return to the White House in January.
Elected to Congress in 2014 at just 30 years old, Elise Stefanik initially posed as a moderate voice. Her constituency anchored in the Republican camp, she gradually asserted herself as pro-Donald Trump.
She made national headlines for her brash defense of the president during his first impeachment proceedings in 2019, then refused to certify the presidential election won in 2020 by Joe Biden.
More recently, in December 2023, she was the protagonist of a sequence that went viral on social networks, where we see her questioning in an extremely tense manner Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University, about pro-Palestinian slogans heard on campus. Ms. Gay then resigned.
Elise Stefanik, an ardent supporter of Israel, accused the UN in mid-October of “languishing in anti-Semitism”.
– Strong support for Israel –
Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, congratulated Stefanik on Monday. “At a time when hatred and lies fill the halls of the UN, your resolute moral clarity is more necessary than ever,” he wrote.
In American political life, the post of United States Ambassador to the United Nations often serves as a springboard towards higher functions, as evidenced by the careers of Madeleine Albright, who was then Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, Susan Rice, who was National Security Advisor under Barack Obama, or George Bush Sr., who became president.
Donald Trump had appointed Nikki Haley to this position in 2017, but on Saturday he ruled out recalling her, she who ran against him in the Republican primaries at the start of the year.
The Republican also announced Sunday evening that he would entrust the burning issue of immigration control at the borders to Tom Homan, a hard-liner.
Former director of the agency responsible for border control and immigration (ICE), Mr. Homan will be responsible for implementing the president-elect's promise to carry out the largest expulsion operation of illegal migrants in the history of the United States.
– Bypass the Senate –
Donald Trump has also demonstrated his desire to bypass the laborious confirmation processes, by senators, of the people he plans to appoint to key positions, despite the fact that the Republicans have regained control of the upper house of the Congress.
To do this, he plans to use a clause that allows the president to make temporary appointments when the Senate is not in session.
“Any Republican senator interested in the coveted position of majority leader in the United States Senate must agree to (this clause), without which we will not be able to have people confirmed on time,” he said. writes Mr. Trump, who will be received at the White House on Wednesday by Joe Biden.
The 45th and soon 47th American president made his first major appointment on Thursday by choosing a woman, Susie Wiles, to head his cabinet.
Ms. Wiles was the architect of the victorious electoral campaign of the Republican, who won the seven key states, 312 voters to 226 for Kamala Harris, and appears on the way to having the majority of the popular vote.
The Republicans are also favorites to win the House of Representatives by a narrow margin, but in certain constituencies, notably in California, the count is still not completed.
