Donald Trump will have to wait a few more weeks before sitting in the Oval Office again, but he is already preparing his big return to the head of the American executive power, by meticulously building his next team.
Barely having digested the results of the polls, the populist made his first appointments to his future government known this week, bringing in predictable figures of Trumpism who already suggest the radical tone of the billionaire’s second term.
Moderation is certainly not to the taste of the future 47e President of the United States, who on Tuesday assigned the post of secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to South Dakota Governor Kristi L. Noem. This stalwart of her MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement finds herself in a crucial seat since Donald Trump campaigned on promising to strengthen border security and threatening to unleash the country’s army and national guard against his political opponents , whom he described as “enemies from within”.
Kristi L. Noem also masters this type of attack very well. In 2021, in the wake of the insurrection by Donald Trump’s supporters against the Capitol, she tried to divert attention from the worrying crowd movement by bringing them to another source of concern, more serious, according to her: the arrival in Washington of the two new Democratic senators from Georgia, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, due to their connections with the American Communist Party. The accusations had no basis, of course, a simple fact-check conducted by The Associated Press at the time found.
The future head of internal security therefore also has an ambiguous relationship with the truth. But not only that. The governor defended in 2022 on the airwaves of CNN her uncompromising posture regarding abortion, prohibited in her state, including in cases of rape or incest. In these cases, an abortion would add “a tragedy to an already tragic situation”, she explained, thus believing that pregnancies should be carried to term, including by victims of minor age. She even threatened to imprison doctors and pharmacists supplying abortion drugs.
Elise Stefanik, figure forte du Trumpism
Elsewhere, Donald Trump has just revealed some measures of the score he wishes to play on the diplomatic scene by appointing the representative of northern New York State, Elise Stefanik, to the post of American ambassador to the United Nations. The position was held by Nikki Haley during her first term.
“She is an ambitious person who, as early as 2014, registered domain names like “stefanikforpresident”, which indicates what her objective is in politics,” summarizes Ken Tingley, political columnist and former director of the Post Star in Glens Falls, southern Quebec. He worked closely with the politician. “I’ve never talked about foreign policy with her, but my guess is that she’s going to do what Trump asks her to do and that’s going to be a problem for Ukraine and the Palestinians. »
Entering politics as a moderate Republican, Elise Stefanik very quickly succumbed to the sirens of Trumpism, of which she became a strong figure. As proof, in 2022, she harshly condemned the Russian invasion war launched against Ukraine by calling Vladimir Putin an “authoritarian, bloodthirsty and ballsless dictator” and calling on the United States to “stand alongside democracies attacked.” But, two years later, the rifle changed shoulders. As number 3 of the Republican camp in the House of Representatives, she voted against military and security aid from the United States to the former Soviet republic.
The 40-year-old politician also stood out for having voted against the first attempt to impeach Donald Trump and affirmed her unconditional support for Israel in its war against Hamas, the cause of an unprecedented health crisis in the Gaza Strip for over a year. In a speech in Jerusalem last May, she said: “As long as I serve the American people, I will uphold George Washington’s vision of religious pluralism and freedom. Today, that means crushing anti-Semitism at home and providing the State of Israel with what it needs, when it needs it, unconditionally, to achieve total victory against evil. »
The bar is high on immigration
Ironically, Donald Trump was brought back to power by the Americans by strengthening his support in Michigan, including in the city of Dearborn, whose largest Muslim community in the country turned in part to him, disappointed by the position of the Biden government on the conflict in the Middle East.
When it comes to immigration, the populist set the bar very high during his campaign by promising a massive expulsion campaign of 20 million illegals. The figure is higher than estimates. And he just entrusted this mission on Sunday to his former director of the Immigration and Customs Control Service, Tom Homan.
During the Republican convention in Milwaukee, the man set the table by sending a blunt message to “the millions of illegal immigrants that Joe Biden has authorized to enter the country: start packing your bags, because you go home,” he said.
Tom Homan has the petticoat of extremism sticking out. Last year, in front of a conservative gathering, he said he “did not care” about the separation of migrant families at the borders, after having largely contributed to these separations between 2017 and 2018. To justify himself, he said he had not done “what to apply the law”.
The man is also a member of the Heritage Foundation and one of the authors of the Project 2025a 900-page document which details the content of a future republican government. Since the start of the year, Democrats have sought to portray this document as the manual for establishing an authoritarian government, capable of “destroying American democracy”. Their message did not have the expected reach.
Donald Trump will continue his appointments in the coming days by preparing on Tuesday to make Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida, the head of American diplomacy. The man has never hidden his animosity towards China and his desire to end the war in Ukraine, regardless of the cost and unfavorable conditions for the Ukrainians.
The populist is currently in the process of giving shape to his next government by bypassing the process of approving several of his appointments by the US Senate, which the country’s Constitution allows him to do when the upper house is not in session. A gesture which also sets the tone for the second Trump presidency to come, he who has never hidden his intention to reduce the influence of the American legislative power.
