2024 US Election

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has selected North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum to run the Interior Department, as his new Cabinet continues to take shape. He also named two people to positions in the White House.

The transition team officially announced the choice of Burgum on Friday, though Trump first announced the selection late Thursday during a dinner at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.

Additionally, Trump announced Friday that Burgum also will lead a newly created National Energy Council that will be established to help the U.S. achieve "energy dominance" around the globe.

In this role, Burgum will direct a panel that crosses all executive branch agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation and transportation, Trump said in a statement. As chairman of the National Energy Council, Burgum will have a seat on the National Security Council, the president-elect said.

Burgum briefly ran against Trump as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2023 before dropping out and throwing his support behind the eventual president-elect.

The Trump-Vance transition team announced Steven Cheung will return to the Trump White House as communications director. He held the same position for the Trump-Vance 2024 presidential campaign and served in the White House during Trump’s first term as director of strategic response.

Friday evening, Trump announced that his campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, would be his White House press secretary. She had served as assistant press secretary in his previous term in office.

Trump has swiftly named an array of political loyalists to key Cabinet positions. They remained vocal supporters during his four years out of office, and most of them are likely to win quick Senate approval after confirmation hearings.

Having won majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, Republicans are set to take full control of the U.S. government by the third week in January.

"Republicans in the House and Senate have a mandate," newly reelected House Speaker Mike Johnson said earlier this week. "The American people want us to implement and deliver that 'America First' agenda" espoused by Trump.

Trump will be sworn in as the country's 47th president on January 20, two weeks after the new Congress has been seated.

The 78-year-old Trump campaigned on a sweeping agenda that Democrats will be largely powerless to stop unless joined by a handful of Republican defectors in Congress on any specific issue that would undercut the party's slim majorities in both chambers.

Republicans will have a 53-47 edge in the Senate, and the tie-breaking vote of Vice President-elect JD Vance in the event of a 50-50 stalemate on any legislative proposal. Republicans have secured at least 218 seats in the 435-member House, pending the outcome of seven undecided elections for two-year terms.

During his bid to win a second, nonconsecutive four-year term, Trump called for the massive deportation of millions of undocumented migrants living in the U.S. to their home countries, an extension and expansion of 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of 2025, further deregulation of businesses, a curb on climate controls, and prosecution of his political opponents, people he calls "the enemy within."

Senator John Thune of South Dakota, newly elected by his fellow Republicans as the Senate majority leader, said, "This Republican team is united. We are on one team. We are excited to reclaim the majority and to get to work with our colleagues in the House to enact President Trump's agenda."

Trump also has called on Senate Republican leaders to allow him to make "recess appointments," which could occur when the chamber is not in session and would erase the need for time-consuming and often contentious confirmation hearings.

Despite the likelihood that most of his nominees will be approved, Trump this week named four who immediately drew disparaging assessments from several Democrats and some Republicans for their perceived lack of credentials.

They are former Representative Matt Gaetz as attorney general; former Democratic congresswoman turned Republican Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence; former junior military officer and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary; and former presidential candidate and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

The blowback presages tough confirmation fights for the four in the Senate, which reviews the appointments of top-level officials and then votes to confirm them or, on occasion, reject them, forcing the White House to make another choice.

The appointment of Gaetz, 42, could prove particularly problematic, with some senators openly questioning whether he can win a 51-vote majority to assume the government's top law enforcement position.

A House ethics committee probe was in the final stages of investigating whether he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use when he announced his resignation from the chamber late Wednesday, ending the probe.

The Justice Department that Gaetz hopes to lead had decided not to pursue criminal charges. Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing.

Gabbard, 43, has been attacked for her lack of direct experience in intelligence and accused of disseminating pro-Russian disinformation. If confirmed, she would be tasked with overseeing 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. She won over Trump with her switch from being a one-time Democratic House member from Hawaii to changing parties and staunchly advocating for his election.

Critics have assailed Hegseth, a 44-year-old decorated former military officer, as someone who lacks managerial experience in the military or business world. A weekend anchor on Fox News, he has voiced his opinions on military operations, including his opposition to women serving in combat roles. He has lobbied Trump to pardon military service members accused of war crimes.

A descendant of the Kennedy family political dynasty, Kennedy, 70, for years has been one of the country's most prominent proponents of anti-vaccine views. He has also opposed water fluoridation and suggested the coronavirus could have been deliberately designed to affect some ethnic groups more than others.

On Thursday, Trump also selected former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton to be Manhattan's top federal prosecutor; and former Representative Doug Collins to be secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

He named one of his personal criminal defense attorneys, Todd Blanche, to be deputy attorney general, and another of his attorneys, D. John Sauer, to be solicitor general.

The Associated Press provided some information for this report.

In July, Keir Starmer became British prime minister just one day after his party swept parliamentary elections.

Donald Trump, who won the November 5 U.S. election, must wait 76 days to become president again.

What gives?

Britain’s opposition party, like its counterparts in some parliamentary democracies, runs a “shadow government" that is ready to seize power after winning an election.

The United States has no such system. America’s president-to-be starts from scratch, tasked with filling posts for a sprawling government bureaucracy with a nearly $7 trillion budget and 3.5 million civilian and military personnel, including thousands of presidential appointees.

“It is a mammoth task to get ready to govern,” said Valerie Smith Boyd, president of the Center for Presidential Transition.

The presidential transition — those critical 11 weeks between Election Day in November and Inauguration Day in January — is a cornerstone of American democracy. The period is designed to ensure a seamless and peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another.

“The idea is that they should come into their jobs and be ready to work on day one,” said Michael Shurkin, a director at consultancy 14 North Strategies who worked as a CIA analyst during the transition from George W. Bush to Barack Obama in 2008-09.

The transition period used to be even longer — four months — and a rather low-key event throughout most of America’s history, according to historian Russel Riley.

Riley has traced the earliest mention of the phrase “presidential transition” to 1948, arguing in The Washington Post that the process took on greater significance in the 1960s because of “the risks to a presidency — and indeed to the nation — of not having the newcomer and his team fully prepared from day one to meet the world’s challenges.”

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US prepares for presidential transition, a process that dates to 1797

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Tradition and law

Today, the transition is a highly elaborate, formalized process, governed as much by tradition and custom as by laws and regulations.

“It’s very much the customs and habits that candidates and the federal government do,” said Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor and expert on presidential transition.

Some of the traditions are largely symbolic.

For example, there's the post-election White House meeting between a sitting president and a president-elect.

President Harry Truman is credited with encouraging this tradition by inviting Dwight Eisenhower, a bitter political rival, to the White House after Eisenhower’s 1952 victory. The example was followed by every president since, except for Trump after his 2020 defeat.

Other practices are more consequential.

In a tradition that dates to 1968, the president shares a copy of his daily intelligence briefing document — the President’s Daily Brief — with the incoming commander-in-chief.

Neither practice is written into law, but much else about the transition is legally mandated. The Presidential Transition Act of 1963, updated over the years, formalizes some of the processes and mechanisms for a peaceful transfer of power.

Among other things:

Six months before the election, the president establishes a transition coordinating council, while each federal agency designates a transition director.

By September 15, agency heads must lock in succession plans for noncareer employees.

By October 1, the General Services Administration — the federal government’s landlord — enters into agreements with transition teams before providing them with office space and other resources.

Although these are recent additions to the law, an orderly presidential succession has been the norm through most of American history. Then came the rupture of 2020: Trump, then running for reelection, claimed voter fraud and refused to concede.

President Joe Biden was initially denied the daily intelligence briefing, and it took the GSA three weeks to “ascertain” him as the winner. Breaking with tradition, Trump didn’t invite Biden to the White House and left Washington without attending his inauguration.

With Trump swiftly declared the winner of this year’s election, the pendulum has swung back toward established protocol.

On Wednesday, Biden hosted Trump at the White House, where they posed for the cameras and pledged a smooth transition. The White House called their two-hour meeting “very cordial, very gracious and substantive."

Filling 4,000-plus jobs

A White House meet-and-greet isn’t the president-elect’s main mission.

Topping the list of priorities: staffing a new administration. The incoming administration must fill more than 4,000 positions, with 1,200 requiring Senate confirmation, according to the Center for Presidential Transition. Current political appointees typically resign before or on the day the incoming president is inaugurated.

This massive recruitment effort takes time and resources. Candidates for political positions must be interviewed, vetted and in some cases receive top-secret security clearances. While presidents-elect typically name a few dozen key players by Inauguration Day, most appointments come after they take office.

Trump has already picked key administration officials: chief of staff, national security adviser, CIA director, director of national intelligence, attorney general, secretary of defense and secretary of state. More top-level personnel announcements are expected in the coming days and weeks.

But while these announcements dominate the news cycle, the real work of presidential succession often takes place behind closed doors. Agency-level teams from both administrations work quietly to share information and orchestrate the complex handover.

“This is what’s happened time and time again, with the Republican exception of 2020-2021,” Shurkin said in an interview with VOA. “The intention is to make sure that certainly people in, let’s say, the more vital elements of the government, particularly, say, Defense or CIA … don’t show up looking around and asking, 'What is this? What’s your job? How does anything work?' ”

The extent of ongoing coordination between the Trump and Biden teams remains uncertain. Biden has ordered his administration to facilitate a smooth handover, but Trump's team has missed key deadlines for agreements with the White House and GSA, making it difficult for federal agencies to fully share information with it. Muller said that while Trump's team might have privacy concerns, these delays carry real risks.

“If you’re not able to access those federal agencies, you might come in a step slow about how you’re supposed to take over the apparatus of the federal government,” Muller said in an interview.

'Lame duck' period

The presidential transition is sometimes called the “lame duck” period because the outgoing president has diminished influence as he awaits the incoming president's inauguration. While the sitting president keeps full powers, including the pardon power, until January 20, the ability to implement major policies and decisions is limited.

This creates a high-stakes chess game in domestic and global affairs. Allies and rivals alike must thread the needle between current and future administrations. Foreign governments, especially those with critical ties with the U.S., must walk a diplomatic tightrope.

The diplomatic dance has already begun. While foreign governments maintain relations with U.S. embassies, Muller noted that foreign leaders are already reaching out to Trump “to feel him out in some of his positions, to think about how things might look under a new administration.”

Earlier this week, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto called Trump and suggested the two meet in person.

“You’re dealing with some significant changes about how the United States is going to govern, and so it’s a delicate balancing act for those foreign government leaders in the international context,” Muller said.

VOA Africa Division’s Salem Solomon contributed to this report.