Trump also said he would nominate Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget, a position Vaught held during Trump’s first presidency. Vought was closely involved in Project 2025It is a conservative plan for Trump’s second term that he tried to distance himself from during the election campaign.
The ads Friday evening showed how Trump was embodying the financial side of his new administration. Although Bescent is closely tied to Wall Street and can command bipartisan support, Foote is known as a hard-line Republican.
Trump said Bescent “will help me usher in a new golden age for the United States,” while Vaught “knows exactly how to dismantle the deep state and end the armed government.”
In a separate announcement, Trump said he had chosen Republican Representative Lori Chavez de Rimer as Secretary of Labor.
“I look forward to working with her to create tremendous opportunity for American workers,” Trump said in a statement.
Pisant, 62, is the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, having worked intermittently at Soros Fund Management since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the country’s first openly gay Treasury secretary.
He told Bloomberg in August that he decided to join Trump’s campaign in part to attack the spiraling US national debt. This will include cutting government programs and other spending.
“This election cycle is the last chance for the United States to get out of this mountain of debt without transforming into some kind of European-style social democracy,” he said at the time.
As of November. 8, The national debt is $35.94 trillionwith both the Trump and Biden administrations added to it. Trump’s policies added $8.4 trillion to the national debt, while the Biden administration increased the national debt by $4.3 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a financial watchdog.
Even as he seeks to reduce the national debt by halting spending, Picent has supported extending provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed into law in his first year in office. Various economic analysis estimates of the costs of the various tax cuts range from approximately $6 trillion to $10 trillion over ten years. Almost all provisions of the law are scheduled to expire at the end of 2025.
Before becoming a Trump donor and advisor, Picent donated to various Democratic causes in the early 2000s, particularly Al Gore’s presidential campaign. He also worked for George Soros, a major Democratic supporter. Besant played an influential role in Soros’s London operations, including his famous 1992 bet against the pound, which paid huge profits on Black Wednesday, when the pound was delinked from European currencies.
Besant’s choice was not surprising; He was among the names being considered for the position of Treasury Secretary. in October event of the Economic Club of Detroit, Trump described Bescent as “one of the top analysts on Wall Street.”
Besant told Bloomberg in August that he viewed the tariffs as a “one-time price adjustment” and “not inflationary,” and that tariffs imposed during a second Trump administration would be primarily directed at China. He wrote in a Fox News op-ed this week that tariffs are “a useful tool for achieving the president’s foreign policy goals. Whether it is getting allies to spend more on their own defense, opening foreign markets to American exports, or securing cooperation in ending immigration,” he wrote in a Fox News op-ed this week. Illegal and preventing fentanyl smuggling, or deterring military aggression, tariffs could play a key role.
Pisant told Fox News earlier this month when asked if the tariffs would cover the costs of Trump’s large-scale deportation operation, and that he was working on a plan for what he called “financial deportations,” explaining that it would restrict the flow of financial remittances to countries. Native immigrants.
Bescent also floated ideas about how the Trump administration could pressure Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whose term ends in May 2026. Last month, Bescent suggested that Trump could appoint a replacement chair early, allowing that person to act as a “shadow.” “. The chair, essentially aiming to marginalize Powell.
But after the election, Besant reportedly backed away from that plan. For his part, Powell said: He said he would not step down If Trump asks him to do so, he added that Trump, as president, does not have the authority to dismiss him.
Trump repeatedly attacked Powell during his first term as chairman for raising the Fed’s key interest rate in 2017 and 2018. During the 2024 campaign, he said that as president he should have a “say” in the central bank’s interest rate decisions. Presidents typically avoid commenting on Fed policies.
Bessent and his husband, former New York City Attorney John Freeman, married in 2011 and have two children.
Vaught, 48, was head of the Office of Management and Budget from mid-2020 until the end of Trump’s first term in 2021, after previously serving as acting director and deputy director. A graduate of Wheaton College and George Washington University Law School, he had a deep knowledge of government finances combined with his Christian faith.
After Trump’s primary term ended, Vaught founded the Center for Renewing America, a think tank that describes its mission as renewing “the consensus on America as a nation under God.”
The Center for Renewing America released its 2023 budget proposal titled “Committing to Ending Labor and Armed Government.” The proposal envisions $11.3 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years and about $2 trillion in income tax cuts in order to achieve a budget surplus by 2032.
The immediate threat facing the nation is the fact that the people no longer rule the country; Instead, government itself is increasingly weaponized against the people it is supposed to serve.
Vaught also previously served as executive director and budget director of the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives. He also worked for Heritage Action, the policy group associated with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Foote’s proposed budget plan would reduce spending on food aid through the Agriculture Department. There will be $3.3 trillion in spending cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, largely through how Medicaid and Medicare funds are distributed. It also contains $642 billion in cuts to the Affordable Care Act. The budgets of the housing, urban development and education departments will also be reduced.
Vaught’s budget ideas were independent of Trump, who has not fully articulated the details of his economic plans, other than campaigning for an income tax cut and tariff hikes. __
Associated Press writer Josh Bock contributed to this report.