那些在特朗普选择内阁时具有巨大影响力的内部人士
【中美创新时报2024 年 11 月 12 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译） 众所周知，当选总统唐纳德·特朗普在寻求招聘决策建议时会广泛征求意见。随着他的团队加快总统过渡进程，特朗普正在打电话给朋友和同事，征求谁应该成为他政府的一部分的意见，他说这将彻底重塑联邦政府。《纽约时报》记者Zolan Kanno-Youngs对此作了下述报道。
然而，当他开始选择内阁并制定政府议程时，一群助手和顾问具有特殊的影响力，其中一些曾在第一届特朗普政府工作，另一些是新人。
当然，这个团体包括他的当选副总统 JD Vance。不太为人所知的是其他有影响力的企业高管和共和党特工为特朗普提供建议。上周末，该组织开始处理党内意识形态分歧和特朗普的冲动，他们开始确定任命，包括任命众议员埃利斯·斯特凡尼克 (Elise Stefanik) 为联合国大使，任命托马斯·霍曼 (Thomas Homan) 为边境“沙皇”。
“当选总统特朗普将很快开始决定谁将在他的第二届政府任职，”总统过渡发言人卡罗琳·莱维特 (Karoline Leavitt) 周日表示。“这些决定将在做出后公布。”
以下是一些值得关注的关键人物，他们将发挥影响力指导下一届政府：
埃隆·马斯克 (Elon Musk)
在为特朗普的竞选活动投资超过 1 亿美元后，这位亿万富翁获得了与当选总统的密切接触。上周，当选总统开始举行首次正式过渡会议时，马斯克出现在特朗普位于佛罗里达州的俱乐部和住所海湖庄园 (Mar-a-Lago) 附近。
周三，特朗普在与乌克兰总统泽连斯基 (Volodymyr Zelensky) 通话时将电话递给了马斯克。特朗普还表示，他希望马斯克担任削减政府开支的职务。
马斯克周日在社交媒体上发帖，表示愿意参与一场关键的国会领导权之争。他支持佛罗里达州参议员里克·斯科特担任多数党领袖，同时抨击南达科他州参议员约翰·图恩是“民主党的首选”。
马斯克还能从特朗普那里获得一些好处：特朗普是政府的主要承包商，国防部严重依赖他的公司 SpaceX。马斯克一直试图让自己的一些员工从事政府工作。
苏西·威尔斯（Susie Wiles）
特朗普赢得大选后的第一份工作公告就是任命他核心圈子的忠实成员威尔斯担任幕僚长。威尔斯将是第一位担任这一职位的女性，也是唯一一位为特朗普工作完成竞选周期的竞选经理。
威尔斯是佛罗里达州的政治战略家，赢得了“让美国再次伟大”运动领导人的尊重，同时与老派共和党建制派保持着良好的关系。她曾参与罗纳德·里根的总统竞选活动，也曾在白宫任职。近年来，她帮助斯科特赢得了佛罗里达州的参议院席位，并在罗恩·德桑蒂斯赢得 2018 年佛罗里达州州长竞选时与他合作。
作为特朗普的幕僚长，威尔斯将带头推动他的议程。
霍华德·卢特尼克（Howard Lutnick）
华尔街公司 Cantor Fitzgerald 的亿万富翁首席执行官是下一任财政部长人选之一。但作为特朗普过渡团队的联合主席，卢特尼克已经承担了为新政府确定 4,000 名员工的重任。
卢特尼克在选举后的第二天也在海湖庄园待了一段时间，他一直在收集共和党捐助者和高管的意见，以寻找潜在的员工。他已经向主要金融领袖寻求建议，包括黑石集团亿万富翁首席执行官史蒂芬·A·施瓦茨曼和经纪公司创始人查尔斯·施瓦布。
“我们有很多候选人，”卢特尼克在 10 月 31 日接受 CNN 采访时谈到特朗普政府的推荐时说。“我们安排得这么好——我感觉很棒。”
卢特尼克是长期登记的民主党人，但他说该党已经远离了他的利益，他现在是共和党人。
他在新政府人事安排中的作用引起了道德监督机构的担忧。卢特尼克继续经营为全球企业客户、交易员、加密货币平台和房地产企业提供服务的公司，这些公司受到他正在帮助确定的任命机构的监管。
斯蒂芬·米勒（Stephen Miller）
特朗普第一届政府移民议程的设计者仍然与当选总统关系密切，并于周一被任命为副幕僚长。
米勒计划对移民采取更为严厉的打击措施。米勒曾担任政策助理和演讲撰稿人，他正在策划特朗普所说的“美国历史上最大的驱逐计划”，利用军队和地方执法部门协助联邦移民官员。米勒将在选择与移民政策相关的职位人选方面发挥关键作用。
他将与特朗普前移民和海关执法局代理局长霍曼密切合作。霍曼是支持特朗普边境“零容忍政策”的官员之一，该政策导致数千个移民家庭被拆散。他上个月告诉《60分钟》，新特朗普政府将开始大规模的工作场所突袭，这可能会导致非法入境的工人被捕。
在特朗普的第一个任期内，米勒帮助领导了一场清洗高级国土安全官员的行动，他和特朗普都认为这些官员没有有效地执行政府的移民政策。米勒现在是特朗普的助手之一，负责评估能够实施特朗普政策的保守派律师。
史蒂夫·维特科夫（Steve Witkoff）
这位房地产开发商是候任总统的高尔夫球友，也是特朗普政治行动委员会的捐助者。他还在今年前总统的民事欺诈案审判中作证，并在特朗普总统竞选期间第二次遇刺时与他在海湖庄园打高尔夫球。
维特科夫帮助特朗普与领导他最新加密货币事业的企业家建立了联系。候任总统周六宣布，维特科夫将与前佐治亚州参议员凯利·洛夫勒一起担任他的就职委员会主席。
特朗普的第一个就职委员会因其支出而受到审查。特朗普家族企业和他的 2017 年就职委员会共同同意支付 75 万美元，以和解哥伦比亚特区司法部长提起的诉讼，后者声称华盛顿的特朗普国际酒店非法从委员会收取了过多的款项。
本文最初发表在《纽约时报》上。
题图：埃隆·马斯克为特朗普竞选团队提供了资金和后勤支持。图片来源：Hiroko Masuike/纽约时报
附原英文报道：
The Trump insiders who have outsize influence as he chooses his Cabinet
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs New York Times,Updated November 11, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump has been known to cast a wide net when seeking advice for hiring decisions. As his team ramps up the presidential transition process, Trump is calling friends and associates for input on who should be part of his administration, which he says will radically reshape the federal government.
Yet a group of aides and advisers, some of whom worked in the first Trump administration and others who are newcomers, have particular influence as he starts choosing his Cabinet and setting his administration’s agenda.
The group of course includes his vice president-elect, JD Vance. Less known are other influential business executives and Republican operatives advising Trump. Over the weekend, the group began to navigate the ideological differences of the party — and Trump’s impulses — as they began setting on appointments, including Representative Elise Stefanik as UN ambassador and Thomas Homan as border “czar.”
“President-elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second administration soon,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for his presidential transition, said Sunday. “Those decisions will be announced when they are made.”
Here are some of the key people to watch as they bring their influence to bear on steering the next administration:
Elon Musk
After investing more than $100 million in Trump’s campaign, the billionaire has gained tremendous access to the president-elect. Musk was around Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s club and residence in Florida, last week as the president-elect began his first formal transition meetings.
On Wednesday, Trump handed the phone to Musk while speaking to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Trump has also said he wants Musk in a role focused on slashing government spending.
In a social media post on Sunday suggesting a willingness to weigh in on a key congressional leadership fight, Musk backed Senator Rick Scott of Florida for majority leader while knocking Senator John Thune of South Dakota as a “top choice for Democrats.”
Musk also has something to gain from Trump: He is a major government contractor, and the Defense Department relies heavily on his company, SpaceX. Musk has sought to have some of his employees placed in government jobs.
Susie Wiles
Trump’s first job announcement after winning the election was naming Wiles, a loyal member of his inner circle, as his chief of staff. Wiles will be the first woman to hold the job and is the only campaign manager to complete a campaign cycle working for Trump.
Wiles, a political strategist from Florida, gained the respect of leaders in the Make America Great Again movement while maintaining relationships in the old-guard Republican establishment. She worked on one of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns and in his White House. In recent years, she helped Scott win his Senate seat in Florida and worked with Ron DeSantis when he won the Florida governor’s race in 2018.
As Trump’s chief of staff, Wiles will take the lead on driving his agenda.
Howard Lutnick
The billionaire chief executive of the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald is one of the names being floated as the next Treasury secretary. But as a cochair of Trump’s transition team, Lutnick has already taken on the high-profile assignment of identifying 4,000 hires for the new administration.
Lutnick, who also spent time at Mar-a-Lago the day after the election, has been fielding input from Republican donors and executives for potential hires. He has sought advice from major financial leaders including Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire chief executive of the Blackstone Group, and brokerage firm founder Charles Schwab.
“We’ve got so many candidates,” Lutnick said of referrals for the Trump administration during a CNN interview on Oct. 31. “We are so set up — I feel great.”
Lutnick was a longtime registered Democrat, but he said the party had moved away from his interests and he was now a Republican.
His role in staffing the new administration has generated concern among ethics watchdogs. Lutnick continues to run firms that serve corporate clients, traders, cryptocurrency platforms and real estate ventures around the world, which are regulated by agencies whose appointees he is helping to identify.
Stephen Miller
The architect of Trump’s immigration agenda during his first administration remains close to the president-elect and was named deputy chief of staff on Monday.
Miller has plans for an even more extreme crackdown on immigration. A former policy aide and speechwriter, Miller is planning what Trump calls “the largest deportation program in American history” by using the military and local law enforcement to assist federal immigration officers. Miller will play a key role in choosing those who will fill roles relating to immigration policy.
He will work closely with Homan, Trump’s former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Homan was one of the officials who endorsed Trump’s “zero-tolerance policy” at the border that led to the separation of thousands of migrant families. He told “60 Minutes” last month the new Trump administration would begin large-scale worksite raids that could lead to the arrest of workers in the country illegally.
During Trump’s first term, Miller helped lead a purge of senior homeland security officials whom he and Trump did not view as effectively carrying out the administration’s immigration policies. Miller is now one of Trump’s aides evaluating conservative lawyers who could implement Trump’s policies.
Steve Witkoff
The real estate developer is a golf partner to the president-elect and donor to Trump’s political action committee. He also testified at the former president’s civil fraud trial this year and was playing golf with Trump at Mar-a-Lago during the second assassination attempt of the presidential campaign.
Witkoff helped connect Trump to the entrepreneurs leading his latest cryptocurrency venture. The president-elect announced Saturday that Witkoff would be the chair of his inaugural committee alongside Kelly Loeffler, the former Georgia senator.
Trump’s first inaugural committee received scrutiny over its spending. The Trump family business and his 2017 inauguration committee jointly agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the attorney general for the District of Columbia, who claimed the Trump International Hotel in Washington had illegally received excessive payments from the committee.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
