Trump adds DHS secretary, China ambassador and EPA chief to team
WASHINGTON — 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 will also 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 himself, meanwhile, said he will continue to hold off on another key appointment, secretary of State.
“Next week will be the time I announce it,” Trump told NBC's Today show in an interview devoted to his selection as Time magazine's Person of the Year.
Donald Trump is Time's 'Person of the Year'
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 general 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 to tap retired general John Kelly for Homeland Security secretary
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 administration 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, Dodd-Frank 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."
Scott Pruitt, Trump's pick to head the EPA, has sued the EPA
Environmental groups are already lining up against Pruitt, noting that he is 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 get-out-the-vote rally Friday in Baton Rouge on behalf of Louisiana Senate candidate John Kennedy. The spokesman said that Trump wants "another Republican vote in the United States Senate."
Trump made his Wednesday plans a night after formally nominating retired Gen. James Mattis to be Defense secretary.
Who has Trump picked for his Cabinet so far?
While filling a series of jobs, Trump himself said he is considering a variety of candidates for secretary of State.
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 over his criticism of Trump during the campaign.
"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."
Trump declined to handicap the chances of Romney or others on the list, including former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker of Tennessee, retired general and ex-CIA director David Petraeus, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton and ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson.
One task for the new secretary of State: dealing with China, which protested Trump's phone call last week with Taiwan. Trump responded by criticizing Chinese trade and currency practices.
China did praise the reported pick of Branstad as ambassador, calling him an "old friend" who has been cooperative on agricultural trade involving China and Iowa. Branstad has described Xi as a "longtime friend" and hosted him during a 2012 visit to Iowa. As a low-level government official, Xi visited Iowa in 1985 to study agriculture methods.
China lauded the Branstad nomination. "We welcome him to play a greater role in advancing the development of China-U.S. relations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters.
In naming Trump its Person of the Year, Time magazine said his victory in the 2016 presidential election has shaken up the U.S. political system, for better or worse.
"For those who believe this is all for the better, Trump’s victory represents a long-overdue rebuke to an entrenched and arrogant governing class; for those who see it as for the worse, the destruction extends to cherished norms of civility and discourse, a politics poisoned by vile streams of racism, sexism, nativism," the magazine said.
Time added: "To his believers, he delivers change — broad, deep, historic change, not modest measures doled out in Dixie cups; to his detractors, he inspires fear both for what he may do and what may be done in his name."
Runner-up for Time's Person of the Year: Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who narrowly lost the 2016 presidential election to Trump.
In his phone interview with NBC's Today show, Trump said he is not the person who divided the nation, and "we're going to put it back together."
