Trump picks DHS secretary, China envoy and EPA chief
He also chooses Linda McMahon to lead SBA
President- elect Donald Trump nominated Iowa’s governor to be ambassador to China, picked a retired general to be his secretary of Homeland Security, and tapped Oklahoma’s attorney general for the Environmental Protection Agency, officials said Wednesday.
Trump also said Wednesday he will nominate Linda McMahon — co- founder of the WWE pro wrestling empire — to be the leader of his Small Business Administration.
Trump will return to the campaign trail, aides said, weighing in on the Louisiana U. S. Senate race by appearing at a campaign rally Friday in Baton Rouge.
Trump said Wednesday he will hold off before filling the secretary of State slot.
“Next week will be the time I an- nounce it,” Trump told Today.
Trump later confirmed plans to nominate Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad as the U. S. ambassador to China, a nation Trump has been feuding with in recent days. In a statement, Trump said Branstad “successfully developed close trade ties with China while serving as chief executive of the Hawkeye State.”
Branstad, who called Chinese President Xi Jinping “an old friend,” said in a statement that he looks forward to “building on our long friendship to cultivate and strengthen the relationship between our two countries and to benefit our economy.”
Another major appointment in the offing: retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly for the department of Homeland Security, according to a person close to the transition speaking on condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement.
Trump’s job interviews Wednesday included a second round with Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who will be nominated to administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency — an agency he has sued. As a state official, Pruitt has taken the Obama administra- tion to court over a variety of environmental and other regulations.
“Mr. Pruitt led Oklahoma’s legal challenges to the EPA, Obamacare, executive actions on illegal immigration, DoddFrank and President Obama’s repeated attempts to bypass Congress,” transition spokesman Jason Miller said. “Attorney General Pruitt has a strong conservative record as a state prosecutor and has demonstrated a familiarity with laws and regulations impacting a large energy resource state.”
Environmental groups already are lining up against Pruitt, noting that he is a supporter of fracking despite its link to a rise of earthquakes in Oklahoma. Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, said that “Scott Pruitt running the EPA is like the fox guarding the henhouse. Time and again, he has fought to pad the profits of big polluters at the expense of public health.”
Miller also said Trump will attend a rally Friday in Louisiana on behalf of Senate candidate John Kennedy. The spokesman said that Trump wants “another Republican vote in the United States Senate.”
The president- elect said he continues to consider 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for secretary of State, and he rejected suggestions that he is stringing out the process in order to mock Romney.
“No, it’s not about revenge,” Trump told NBC. “It’s about what’s good for the country. And I’m able to put this stuff behind us.”