WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he is nominating Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary.
Hegseth deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and unsuccessfully ran for Senate in Minnesota in 2012 before joining Fox News.
“With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice — Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,” Trump said in a statement. “Nobody fights harder for the Troops, and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our ‘Peace through Strength’ policy.”
President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he is nominating former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. He also said he had chosen former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and his longtime friend Steven Witkoff to be a special envoy to the Middle East.
In a flurry of announcements, Trump also named Bill McGinley, his Cabinet secretary in his first administration, as his White House counsel.
Trump is rolling out a steady stream of appointees and nominees for his upcoming administration, working thus far at a faster pace and without as much drama as his first transition following his 2016 victory.
A former Republican congressman from Texas, Ratcliffe served as director of national intelligence for the final months of Trump’s first term, leading the US government’s spy agencies during the coronavirus pandemic. He is a more traditional pick for the role, which requires Senate confirmation, than some rumored loyalists pushed by some of Trump’s supporters.
Huckabee is a staunch defender of Israel, and his intended nomination comes as Trump has promised to align US foreign policy more closely with Israel’s interests as it wages wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Witkoff is a Florida real estate investor who is serving as a chair of Trump’s inaugural committee. He also spent time in the world of New York real estate, where Trump first made his mark as a public figure.
As intelligence director, Ratcliffe was criticized by Democrats for declassifying in the final days of the 2020 presidential election Russian intelligence alleging damaging information about Democrats during the 2016 race even though he acknowledged it might not be true.
Ratcliffe’s visibility rose as he emerged in 2019 as an ardent defender of Trump during the House’s first impeachment proceedings against him. He was a member of Trump’s impeachment advisory team and strenuously questioned witnesses during the impeachment hearings.
After the Democratic-controlled House voted to impeach Trump, Ratcliffe said, “This is the thinnest, fastest and weakest impeachment our country has ever seen.” He also forcefully questioned former special counsel Robert Mueller when he testified before the House Judiciary Committee about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“I look forward to John being the first person ever to serve in both of our Nation’s highest Intelligence positions,” Trump said in a statement. “He will be a fearless fighter for the Constitutional Rights of all Americans, while ensuring the Highest Levels of National Security, and PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”
Huckabee has led paid tour group visits to Israel for years, frequently advertising the trips on conservative-leaning news outlets.
“Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years,” Trump said in a statement. “He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!”
David Friedman, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Israel in his first term, said he was “thrilled” by Trump’s selection of Huckabee.
Witkoff is also the president-elect’s golf partner and was with him when he was the target of a second assassination attempt at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September.
Trump’s transition team did not offer details about the Middle East envoy role, but Trump said in a statement, “Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud.”
The selection of Witkoff follows a pattern for Trump in putting people close to him in pivotal roles on the Middle East portfolio. Eight years ago he appointed his former corporate attorney Jason Greenbaltt as his special representative for international negotiations and relied on his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as his personal envoy in talks in the region.
Trump nominates Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary
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Trump nominates Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary
- Trump is rolling out a steady stream of appointees and nominees for his upcoming administration, working thus far at a faster pace
Russia strikes power plant, kills four in Ukraine barrage
KHARKIV: Russia battered Ukraine with more than two dozen missiles and hundreds of drones early Tuesday, killing four people and pummelling another power plant, piling more pressure on Ukraine’s brittle energy system.
An AFP journalist in the eastern Kharkiv region, where four people were killed, saw firefighters battling a fire at a postal hub and rescue workers helping survivors by lamp light in freezing temperatures.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “several hundred thousand” households near Kyiv were without power after the strikes, and again called on allies to bolster his country’s air defense systems.
“The world can respond to this Russian terror with new assistance packages for Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media.
“Russia must come to learn that cold will not help it win the war,” he added.
Authorities in Kyiv and the surrounding region rolled out emergency power cuts in the hours after the attack, saying freezing temperatures were complicating their work.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy provider, said Russian forces had struck one of its power plants, saying it was the eighth such attack since October.
The operator did not reveal which of its plants was struck, but said Russia had attacked its power plants over 220 times since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Daily attacks
Moscow has pummelled Ukraine with daily drone and missile barrages in recent months, targeting energy infrastructure and cutting power and heating in the frigid height of winter.
The Ukrainian air force said that Tuesday’s bombardment included 25 missiles and 247 drones.
The Kharkiv governor gave the death toll and added that six people were wounded in the overnight hit outside the region’s main city, also called Kharkiv.
White helmeted emergency workers could be seen clambering through the still-smoking wreckage of a building occupied by postal company Nova Poshta, in a video posted by the regional prosecutor’s office.
Within Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said a Russian long-range drone struck a medical facility for children, causing a fire. No casualties were reported.
The overnight strikes hit other regions as well, including southern city Odesa.
Residential buildings, a hospital and a kindergarten were damaged, with at least five people wounded in two waves of attacks, regional governor Sergiy Lysak said.
Russia’s use last week of a nuclear-capable Oreshnik ballistic missile on Ukraine sparked condemnation from Kyiv’s allies, including Washington, which called it a “dangerous and inexplicable escalation of this war.”
Moscow on Monday said the missile hit an aviation repair factory in the Lviv region and that it was fired in response to Ukraine’s attempt to strike one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residences — a claim Kyiv denies and that Washington has said it does not believe happened.
