TRUMP REGIME

Meet our new Education Secretary

Independent, UK - President-elect Donald Trump has chosen financial services CEO and transition co-chair Howard Lutnick to be his commerce secretary.  Trump announced the news on Tuesday afternoon, saying that the billionaire and Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive “will lead our Tariff and Trade agenda.”

The office is currently separate from the Commerce Department and has in the past usually been a cabinet-level position reporting to the president. Lutnick has been active in the media defending Trump’s agenda and personnel choices in his role as co-chair of the transition, including explaining how Trump is set to use tariff.

 LA Times -  President-elect Donald Trump has promised to arrest thousands of homeless people sleeping in American streets and move them to large tent cities on “inexpensive land,” one of several planks of his agenda that would upend a national strategy that focuses on finding people housing on a voluntary basis. “We will use every tool, lever and authority to get the homeless off our streets,” Trump said in a video announcing his policy last year. “There is nothing compassionate about letting these individuals live in filth and squalor, rather than getting them the help that they need.”

Homeless advocates, who have fought for decades to remove the stigma around people who lack a place to live, are bracing for a multi-pronged battle against policies they deem inhumane.

But Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who is trying to combat one of the nation’s largest homelessness crises, said she is eager to work with the incoming administration, and believes she and Trump can find common ground in housing the city’s estimated 46,000 homeless people.

NBC News -  Women and racial diversity are vital to the strength of the U.S. armed forces, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in an exclusive interview, as he prepares to exit the top military post after four years. “They do impact readiness. They make us better. They make us stronger,” Austin said of women serving in the military. Pete Hegseth, a former Army National Guard major, is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to take over Austin’s post but his past comments about women in combat have raised concerns.

Guardian -  Donald Trump has chosen Mehmet Oz, best known for starring in his eponymous daytime talkshow for more than a decade and leaning heavily into Trumpism during his failed 2022 run for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The cardiothoracic surgeon, who faced immense backlash from the medical and scientific communities for pushing misinformation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, will oversee the agency that operates on a $2.6tn annual budget and provides healthcare to more than 100 million people. 

NBC - Trump named Linda McMahon as his pick to lead the Education Department. McMahon, a former World Wrestling Entertainment executive, would oversee a department that Trump has said he plans to “get rid” of as it currently exists