‘I want to make sure now that we know who the real players are,’ the president-elect’s son says.
Donald Trump Jr. said on Thursday he is helping put together a Cabinet for his father, President-elect Donald Trump, and the administration is looking for people who will “actually deliver” on the president’s message.
Trump’s transition team includes the president-elect’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, running mate JD Vance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and former Democratic presidential candidate and Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Transition co-chairs are Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term.
Speaking to Fox News, Trump Jr. said he is looking for people who “don’t think they know better” than the president-elect to be a part of the administration.
“I’m going to be heavily involved in the transition. I want to make sure now that we know who the real players are, the people who will actually deliver on the president’s message, the people who don’t think that they know better than the duly elected president of the United States,” he said.
“I want to make sure that those people are in his Cabinet. I want to make sure that those people are in this administration.”
Coming off his victory against Vice President Kamala Harris, the president-elect on Wednesday floated several names who might join his administration starting Jan. 20, 2025.
Former presidential hopeful Kennedy will be tapped to “help make America healthy again,” Trump said, adding that “we’re going to let him go to it.”
Ahead of the election, Trump didn’t reject Kennedy’s calls to end fluoridated water, which came after a federal judge ruled in September that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must address concerns that fluoride may reduce children’s IQ.
Trump has also pledged to make Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a vocal supporter of the Trump campaign, a secretary of federal “cost-cutting,” as Musk has suggested he can find trillions of dollars in government spending to wipe out.
Lutnick said this year’s transition operation is “about as different as possible” from the 2016 effort, which was first led by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. After he won eight years ago, Trump fired Christie, tossed out the plans he had made and gave the job of running the transition to Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
In July, Trump Jr. said he would like “veto power” over personnel issues in his father’s second term in office.
“I don’t want to pick a single person for a position of power. All I want to do is block the guys that would be a disaster,” he said during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Trump Jr. went on to say, “I want to block the guys that are, you know, pretending they’re with you. I just want to block the bad actors. I just want to be a block. That’s it.”
On Thursday, President Joe Biden said in a speech that his administration will guarantee a “peaceful transition of power” on Jan. 20, 2025, his last day in office. The president added that he spoke with Trump to congratulate him on his election win.
“We accept the choice the country made,” Biden said as he called for unity after the election.
“I’ve said many times [that] you can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t love your neighbor only when you agree.”
In the speech, Biden also touched on the final weeks of his presidency, saying that there is “much we can get done” and that “things are changing rapidly.”
“Now we have 74 days to finish the term—our term. Let’s make every day count. That’s the responsibility we have to the American people,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.