Trump names Bessent as Treasury secretary, Vought to lead OMB

President-elect Donald Trump filled two key spots to help carry out his economic agenda with the selection of financier Scott Bessent as the next Treasury secretary and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon to serve as Labor secretary. 

In addition, Mr. Trump announced Friday that he picked Russell Vought, who served as budget chief during the first Trump administration, to again lead the Office of Management and Budget. Also, multiple news outlets reported that Mr. Trump is expected to name former Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia to serve as Agriculture secretary. 

Mr. Bessent, 62, founded the investment firm Key Square Group, which managed over $4.5 billion in capital. He was also the chief investment officer for George Soros, who has drawn ire from Mr. Trump and his allies for his funding of progressive causes. Mr. Bessent started his own fund, Key Square, with a $2 billion investment from Mr. Soros.

“On the eve of our great country’s 250th anniversary, he will help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States as we fortify our position as the world’s leading economy, center of innovation and entrepreneurialism, destination for capital, while always maintaining the U.S. Dollar as the reserve currency for the world, ” Mr. Trump said Friday of Mr. Bessent. “Unlike in past administrations, we will ensure that no Americans will be left behind in the next and greatest economic boom and Scott will lead that effort for me, and the great people of the United States. 

Multiple outlets also reported Mr. Trump’s choice of former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler to serve as Agriculture secretary.

If he’s confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Bessent will oversee international trade, taxes, financial regulation and U.S. sanctions on overseas companies. 

Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, said the choice of Mr. Bessent suggests an administration intent on serving “the ultra-wealthy.”

“Donald Trump pretends to be an economic populist, but it wouldn’t be a Trump Treasury Department without a rich political donor running the show,” Mr. Wyden said in a statement. “I’m going to have a lot of questions for Mr. Bessent about the merit of a Trump policy that will intentionally inflict economic pain on families who are already getting clobbered by the cost of living.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, called Mr. Bessent “academically gifted and real world tested.” 

“I look forward to working closely with Scott and President Trump to lower inflation and create the golden age of prosperity for the American people. Well done, Mr. President and congratulations Scott,” Mr. Graham said. 

Mr. Bessent, who is openly gay and married to former New York City prosecutor John Freeman, would be the highest-ranking LGBTQ government official in history. 

The Log Cabin Republicans, a group of conservative members of the LBGTQ community, called Mr. Bessent a “terrific choice.”

“Bessent will be a strong asset to help President Trump put America back on the path to financial security and economic prosperity,” the group said in a statement. 

In the position, Mr. Bessent will help Mr. Trump enact the tax cuts he promised on the campaign trail. as well as imposing tariffs as high as 20% on foreign countries. 

Mr. Bessent quickly became a critical economic adviser of the Trump campaign and even hosted an early fundraiser for the president-elect in his home state of South Carolina, where Mr. Bessent spends most of his time. The fundraiser was credited with helping Mr. Trump beat GOP primary rival Nikki Haley in her home state. 

He soon began appearing alongside Mr. Trump at campaign events.

“I have one of the most brilliant men in Wall Street, I think, here,” Mr. Trump said during an August rally in North Carolina. “Is he central casting? He’s central casting.” 

After Mr. Trump’s speech at the Economic Club of New York, Mr. Bessent hailed the president-elect’s economic vision as a “master class” and called Vice President Kamala Harris an “economic illiterate.” 

There was tough competition for the Treasury secretary position, one of the three big slots in any administration. Howard Lutnick, a vocal Trump supporter, was under consideration for the role, but he reportedly fell out of favor with the president-elect amid tension with Mr. Bessent.

Earlier this week, Mr. Trump named Mr. Lutnick as Commerce secretary.

Other candidates under consideration included Robert Lighthizer, who served as the U.S. trade representative during Mr. Trump’s first term. 

Not everyone on Mr. Trump’s team was on board with Mr. Bessent. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, a close Trump confidante, had endorsed Mr. Lutnick for the position. He dismissed Mr. Bessent as a “business-as-usual choice.” 

Ms. Chavez-DeRemer, Oregon Republican, was backed by the Teamsters Union, who did not endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 election after an internal survey revealed a high percentage of their members preferred Mr. Trump. 

She is also the third current House Republican whom Mr. Trump has picked for his administration, following Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Mike Waltz of Florida. Mr. Trump had also chosen ex Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to be his attorney general, but he resigned from Congress and then withdrew his nomination amid a sexual misconduct scandal. 

Mr. Trump praised Ms. Chavez-DeRemer, saying she’ll “support the hardworking men and women of America.”

“I look forward to working with her to create tremendous opportunity for American Workers, to expand training and apprenticeships, to grow wages and improve working conditions to bring back our manufacturing jobs,” he said in a statement. 

The National Right to Work Committee, which advocates against union organizing, blasted Ms. Chavez-DeRemer as a tool of big labor. She has been a big supporter of the PRO-ACT, which organized labor has lobbied Congress to pass for years because it would make it easier for workers to organize as union. 

“Chavez-DeRemer supports policies that go so far in the opposite direction that she would not be out of place in the Biden-Harris Department of Labor, which completely sold out to Big Labor from the start,” the group wrote in a letter to Mr. Trump. 

In his position, Mr. Vought would oversee the White House budget and determine whether federal agencies are complying with the president’s policies. 

During his earlier role as Mr. Trump’s budget chief, he came up with the idea of using emergency powers to sidestep congressional decisions about how much to spend on a border wall. 

Mr. Vought was a leading figure in developing Project 2025, a blueprint for conservative government by the Heritage Foundation. Democrats sought to tie Mr. Trump to Project 2025, but it was not an official campaign product and he repeatedly distanced himself from it. 

In a statement, Mr. Trump called Mr. Vought an “aggressive cost-cutter and deregulator.” 

Ms. Loeffler is the co-chair of Mr. Trump’s inauguration committee ahead of the Jan. 20 ceremony. She had fundraised for Mr. Trump during the 2024 election, raising several million dollars for his campaign during a July debate watch party with Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley. 

Ms. Loeffler briefly represented George in the Senate after being appointed in 2019, following the resignation of former Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican. In 2020, she lost an election bid to keep her seat, losing to Democrat Raphael Warnock.

Before serving in the Senate, Ms. Loeffler was co-owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream and served as CEO of Bakkt, a final services company. 

While in the Senate, Ms. Loeffler was a vocal advocate for Mr. Trump. She had planned to vote against certifying her state’s election results in 2020, to support Mr. Trump’s efforts to dispute President Biden’s victory. She changed her stance after the pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

She condemned the Capitol attack as “abhorrent,” and said she could no longer “in good conscience object to the certification of these electors.” 

Ms. Loeffler was among the witnesses to testify before the grand jury as part of Mr. Trump’s 2020 election subversion case in Georgia.