Thread: Trump Appointees

Vaccine skeptic Robert Kennedy Jr. says Trump asked him to lead commission on vaccine

Updated to add David Shulkin.

Trump Taps Obama Undersecretary to Lead Troubled VA

David Shulkin leaves Trump Tower / AP

BY: Morgan Chalfant
January 11, 2017 12:48 pm

Donald Trump revealed Wednesday that he will nominate President Obama’s undersecretary for health at the Department of Veterans Affairs to lead the agency, after weeks of meeting with several candidates for the job.
Trump said he will nominate David Shulkin, a physician and the current undersecretary for health at the Department of Veterans Affairs, to serve as VA secretary, Politico first reported late Wednesday morning.
Shulkin, the chief executive at the VA’s nationwide network of hospitals, was nominated by Obama to serve in the post in 2015. He met with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York City on Monday.
As of last week, Trump was still searching for a candidate to lead the VA, meeting with Leo Mackay Jr., senior vice president of Lockheed Martin Corporation, and Nancy Schlichting, a former CEO of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit and chairwoman of the VA Commission on Care.
Two individuals rumored to be leading choices for the job–Toby Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, and Luis Quinonez, president of MAQ Diversified–recently withdrew their names from consideration.
Last year, Trump met with former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R.) and Pete Hegseth, an Army veteran and former CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, about the position. Former Florida Congressman Jeff Miller, a Republican chair of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs who just retired, was also said to be under consideration to head the VA.
Veterans service organizations have put pressure on Trump to keep on Obama’s current VA secretary, Robert McDonald, who was installed at the top post following the 2014 wait list controversy.
“I have no doubt Dr. Shulkin will be able to lead the turnaround our Department of Veterans Affairs needs. His sole mandate will be to serve our veterans and restore the level of care we owe to our brave men and women in the military,” Trump said in a statement.
“Sadly our great veterans have not gotten the level of care they deserve, but Dr. Shulkin has the experience and the vision to ensure we will meet the healthcare needs of every veteran,” Trump continued. “Dr. Shulkin is an incredibly gifted doctor who is using his elite talents for medicine to care for our heroes, and Americans can have faith he will get the job done right.”
Shulkin said he will be honored to serve as VA secretary in the Trump administration.
“President-elect Trump’s commitment to caring for our veterans is unquestionable, and he is eager to support the best practices for care and provide our Veterans Affairs’ teams with the resources they need to improve health outcomes,” Shulkin said. “We are both eager to begin reforming the areas in our Veterans Affairs system that need critical attention, and do it in a swift, thoughtful, and responsible way.”
Trump has unveiled a 10-point plan to reform the VA, drawing on a number of proposals put forth by Republican lawmakers who have been critical of the Obama administration’s handling of persisting shortfalls at the agency’s hospital network.
Rep. Phil Roe (R., Tenn.), the new chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, expressed approval of Trump’s choice in a brief statement.
“I am pleased President-elect Trump has chosen a physician to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, especially one familiar with the integrating of private practitioners into the VA’s network of health care providers,” Roe, who served two years in the United States Army Medical Corps, said.
“I’ve long said I would be happy to work with anyone committed to ensuring our heroes have access to the services they have earned, especially quality health care, and I look forward to working with Dr. Shulkin to bring wholesale reform to the Department.”

http://freebeacon.com/issues/trump-t...d-troubled-va/




DONALD J. TRUMP’S VISION

• Ensure our veterans get the care they need wherever and whenever they need it. No more long drives. No more waiting backlogs. No more excessive red tape. Just the care and support they earned with their service to our country.

• Support the whole veteran, not just their physical health care, but also by addressing their invisible wounds, investing in our service members' post-active duty success, transforming the VA to meet the needs of 21st century service members, and better meeting the needs of our female veterans.

• Make the VA great again by firing the corrupt and incompetent VA executives who let our veterans down, by modernizing the VA, and by empowering the doctors and nurses to ensure our veterans receive the best care available in a timely manner.

Donald J. Trump's 10 Point Plan to Reform The Department of Veterans Affairs

1. Appoint a VA Secretary whose sole purpose will be to serve veterans. Under a Trump Administration, the needs of D.C. bureaucrats will no longer be placed above those of our veterans.
2. Use the powers of the presidency to remove and discipline the federal employees and managers who have violated the public's trust and failed to carry out the duties on behalf of our veterans.
3. Ask that Congress pass legislation that empowers the Secretary of the VA to discipline or terminate any employee who has jeopardized the health, safety or well-being of a veteran.
4. Create a commission to investigate all the fraud, cover-ups, and wrong-doing that has taken place in the VA, and present these findings to Congress to spur legislative reform.
5. Protect and promote honest employees at the VA who highlight wrongdoing, and guarantee their jobs will be protected.
6. Create a private White House hotline, which will be active 24 hours a day answered by a real person. It will be devoted to answering veteran's complaints of wrongdoing at the VA and ensure no complaints fall through the cracks.
7. Stop giving bonuses to any VA employees who are wasting money, and start rewarding employees who seek to improve the VA's service, cut waste, and save lives.
8. Reform the visa system to ensure veterans are at the front of the line for health services, not the back.
9. Increase the number of mental health care professionals, and allow veteran's to be able to seek mental health care outside of the VA.
10. Ensure every veteran has the choice to seek care at the VA or at a private service provider of their own choice. Under a Trump Administration, no veteran will die waiting for service.
Read More on Donald J. Trump’s 10 Point Plan to Reform The Department of Veterans Affairs, here.
Read Mr. Trump's Remarks in Virginia Beach, at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention, and to the American Legion.

KEY ISSUES

• IG Report: 300,000 Vets Died While Waiting For Health Care At VA. [Fox News, Sept. 3, 2015]

• Wait Lists Grow as Many More Veterans Seek Care and Funding Falls Far Short. [The New York Times, June 20, 2015]

• Hundreds Of Appointment Wait Times Manipulated At Texas VA Facilities. [Associated Press, June 21, 2016]

• A Fatal Wait: Veterans Languish And Die On A VA Hospital's Secret List. [CNN, April 23, 2014]

• Report Finds Sharp Increase In Veterans Denied V.A. Benefits. [The New York Times, March 20, 2016]

• Veterans Affairs Improperly Spent $6 Billion Annually, Senior Official Says. [The Washington Post, May 14, 2015]

• U.S. Veterans Commit Suicide At Rate Of 20 A Day, VA Says. [The Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2016]

• White House Review Of Veterans Administration Finds 'Corrosive Culture.' [Reuters, June 27, 2014]

• Few People Lost Jobs With V.A. in Scandal. [The New York Times, April 22, 2015]

• Veterans Affairs Pays $142 Million In Bonuses Amid Scandals. [USA Today, May 22, 2014]

• VA Hasn't Fixed Wait-time Problems, GAO Finds. [USA Today, April 18, 2016]

CONTRAST WITH HILLARY CLINTON

• Hillary Clinton Praised the Obama Administration for Its Handling of the VA Scandal. [Donald J. Trump Press Release, Sept. 7, 2016]

• Hillary Clinton Offensively Downplayed VA’s Problems. [Donald J. Trump Press Release, Sept. 7, 2016]

• Hillary Clinton Refused to Apologize for Insulting Our Veterans Through Her Defense of the Corrupt VA. [The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 28, 2015]

• The Chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Recently Said Hillary Clinton Would Abandon VA Reforms. [Military Times, July 20, 2016]
• https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policie...affairs-reform

Thank you Newmexican for making my thread a "sticky"! Much easier to find and update now.

Trump Taps Rudy Giuliani To ‘Lend Expertise To Cyber Security’

Updated to add Rudy Guiliani.

1/12/2017
KAITLAN COLLINS

Donald Trump will be sworn in as president in seven days. Here’s who the president-elect has named to his cabinet so far.




Jeff Sessions, Attorney General

Photo: Getty Images)


Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State

Photo: Reuters)


John F. Kelly, Homeland Security Secretary

(Photo: JOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP/Getty Images)


Elaine Cho, Transportation Secretary

(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)


James N. Mattis, Defense Secretary

(Photo: Reuters)


Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

(Photo: Reuters)


Mike Pompeo, C.I.A. Director

(Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)


Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff

(Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)


Sean Spicer, Press Secretary

(Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)


Stephen K. Bannon, Chief Strategist

(Photo: Reuters)


Steven Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary

(Photo: Reuters)


Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary

(Photo: Reuters)


Betsy DeVos, Education Secretary

(Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)


Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence

(Photo: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)


Michael T. Flynn, National Security Adviser

(Photo: Reuters)


Linda McMahon, Small Business Administration

(Photo: Getty Images)


Scott Pruitt, E.P.A. Administrator

(Photo: Reuters)


Nikki R. Haley, U.N. Ambassador

(Photo: Reuters)


Andrew F. Puzder, Labor Secretary

(Photo: Getty Images)


Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative

(Photo: YouTube screen grab)


David J. Shulkin, Secretary of Veterans Affairs

(Photo: DOMINICK REUTER/AFP/Getty Images)


Rick Perry, Energy Secretary

(Photo: Reuters)


Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management and Budget

(Photo: YouTube screen grab)


Tom Price, Health and Human Services Secretary

(Photo: Allison Shelley/Getty Images)


Ryan Zinke, Interior Secretary

(Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)


Jared Kushner, Senior adviser to the president

(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)


Thomas P. Bossert, Homeland Security Adviser

(Photo: CNN screen grab)


Kellyanne Conway, Counselor

(Photo: YouTube screen grab)


Carl Icahn, Special Adviser on Regulatory Reform

(Photo: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for New York Times)


Donald F. McGahn II, White House Counsel

(Photo: Reuters)


Peter Navarro, Director of Trade and Industrial Policy

(Photo: CNBC screen grab)


Trump has not selected someone for Agriculture Secretary or Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers yet.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/12/a-...abinet-so-far/

Oh wow, thank you so much Jean for those beautiful pictures of our new team to make Amerca great again. I can not wait! These people are all activists, in the real sense of the word, in that they are doers who set goals, meet objectives, deliver the numbers, and GET R DONE. Good things are going to happen so fast, our heads will be spinning.

Rick Dearborn, longtime Sessions chief of staff, lands powerful post in Trump White House

• WRITTEN BY JORDAN LAPORTA
• ON JANUARY 4, 2017 AT 2:57 PM CST

Rick Dearborn, seated on the couch with his left hand raised, will serve as Deputy Chief of Staff in President-elect Donald Trump’s White House.

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team announced Wednesday that Rick Dearborn, longtime chief of staff to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), will serve as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Trump White House, one of the administration’s most senior positions.

In his new role, Dearborn, who is currently executive director of the Presidential Transition Team, will lead the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Cabinet affairs.

Dearborn has worked for six U.S. Senators, including two members of Senate leadership, and spent more than 25 years working on Capitol Hill. He was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate to become the Assistant Secretary of Energy for Congressional Affairs, where he worked with the Senate, House and Tribal Governments on the President’s Energy agenda.

Incoming White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon said Dearborn has “been instrumental in our victory and transition efforts,” and added that he will be relied upon to “guide critical White House operations as we aggressively follow through on President-elect Trump’s promise to put America First.”

Dearborn is the second top Sessions staffer to land a senior role in the Trump White House.

Sessions’ former communications director, Stephen Miller, was previously announced as Trump’s senior policy advisor.

“Stephen played a central and wide-ranging role in our primary and general election campaign,” President-Elect Trump said. “He is deeply committed to the America First agenda, and understands the policies and actions necessary to put that agenda into effect. He is a strong advocate for protecting American workers, and will fulfill a crucial role in my Administration as my senior advisor on matters of policy.”

Miller has been Trump National Policy Director since January of 2016. In addition to that role, he also served as Trump’s top speechwriter before filling the same roles on the President-Elect’s transition team.

Other Alabamians are expected to land senior roles in the Trump administration in the coming days.
http://yellowhammernews.com/politics...p-white-house/

Updated to add Rick Dearborn.