Trump nominates Adam Boehler for an ambassador-level position after naming Jared Isaacman to lead Nasa; Pete Hegseth vows to remain as nominee
Donald Trump nominated healthcare executive Adam Boehler as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, “with the personal rank of Ambassador”.
“Adam worked for me as a Lead Negotiator on the Abraham Accords team. He has negotiated with some of the toughest people in the World, including the Taliban, but Adam knows that NO ONE is tougher than the United States of America, at least when President Trump is its Leader. Adam will work tirelessly to bring our Great American Citizens HOME,” Trump said in a statement.
“Adam was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the first CEO of the United States Development Finance Corporation. He went to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
“Congratulations to Adam, his wife, Shira, and their four beautiful children, Ruth, Abraham, Esther, and Rachel!”
Pete Hegseth is back on Capitol Hill as he seeks to reassure Republican senators of his ability to lead the defense department despite by steady trickle of troubling reports about his personal conduct.
Over the weekend, the New Yorker reported that Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was known to drink excessively. It quoted a former staffer at a veterans non-profit that he led saying: “I’ve seen him drunk so many times. I’ve seen him dragged away not a few times but multiple times. To have him at the Pentagon would be scary.”
The Hill reports that Hegseth told Roger Wicker, a Republican senator who will chair the armed services committee, that he will stay sober if he gets the defense secretary job. Speaking to reporters, Wicker said: “I think that’s probably a good idea.”
Donald Trump has nominated cryptocurrency lobbyist Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, a sign that his administration will take a friendlier approach to the digital assets that have boomed in value in recent years despite concerns about their financial risks.
In a post on Truth Social announcing the appointment, Trump wrote:
Paul is a proven leader for common sense regulations. He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of Investors, & that provide capital to make our Economy the best in the World. He also recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before.
Atkins served as an SEC commissioner during George W Bush’s presidency, and currently co-chairs the Token Alliance, an initiative of the Chamber of Digital Commerce intended to inform policymakers about digital assets. He also runs Patomak Global Partners, a risk management firm.
Under Joe Biden, the SEC has been chaired by Gary Gensler, a critic of cryptocurrencies who will step down when Trump is inaugurated – a day the digital asset industry is very much looking forward to.
Donald Trump announced Bill McGinley as White House counsel only three weeks ago, but today assigned him the new position in the “department of government efficiency”, swapping him for David Warrington instead. No reason was given for the switch-up.
Warrington, a partner at Dhillon Law Group, represented Trump on cases such as those involving the effort to remove him from the ballot due to the role he played in the 6 Jananuary 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Warrington is the latest of Trump’s personal attorneys to take up a role in the administration. The veteran marine also led the Republican National Lawyers Association and worked on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“He is an esteemed lawyer and Conservative leader,” Trump said.
Trump appointed William “Bill” Joseph McGinley as counsel to a newly created non-government agency, the “department of government efficiency” (“Doge”), headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Doge, named after the Dogecoin meme cryptocurrency, is meant to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies”, according to Trump.
McGinley was White House cabinet secretary during Trump’s first term, a role meant for coordinating policy and communications strategy.
“Bill will play a crucial role in liberating our Economy from burdensome Regulations, excess spending, and Government waste,” Trump said in a statement announcing the new appointment. “He will partner with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget to provide advice and guidance to end the bloated Federal Bureaucracy. Bill is a great addition to a stellar team that is focused on making life better for all Americans. He will be at the forefront of my Administration’s efforts to make our Government more efficient and more accountable.”
Adam Boheler will serve as lead hostage negotiator for the administration, a role which will come into focus during future conversations with Israel and Hamas.
Trump said yesterday on Truth Social there will be “HELL TO PAY” if the hostages in Gaza are not released by the time of his inauguration.
Negotiations over a ceasefire in Gaza have not been met with success. At least 44,466 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces, according to the Gaza health ministry, many of whom are women, children and elderly people.
Donald Trump nominated healthcare executive Adam Boehler as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, “with the personal rank of Ambassador”.
“Adam worked for me as a Lead Negotiator on the Abraham Accords team. He has negotiated with some of the toughest people in the World, including the Taliban, but Adam knows that NO ONE is tougher than the United States of America, at least when President Trump is its Leader. Adam will work tirelessly to bring our Great American Citizens HOME,” Trump said in a statement.
“Adam was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the first CEO of the United States Development Finance Corporation. He went to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
“Congratulations to Adam, his wife, Shira, and their four beautiful children, Ruth, Abraham, Esther, and Rachel!”
The supreme court spent two and a half hours hearing oral arguments over Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care, which members of the court’s six-justice supermajority appear inclined to uphold. An attorney for the state argued that the law protects “minors from risky, unproven medical interventions”, while the Biden administration’s top lawyer said: “Tennessee made no attempt to tailor its law to its stated health concerns.” The American Civil Liberties Union also spoke against the law, with its lawyer Chase Strangio making history as the first openly transgender person to argue before the supreme court. A decision is expected in the coming months.
Here’s what else has gone on today so far:
Pete Hegseth’s nomination as defense secretary is reportedly teetering amid reports of excessive drinking, financial mismanagement and a sexual assault allegation. Donald Trump is said to be considering Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, to replace him for the job of leading the Pentagon, but has announced no decision yet.
Hegseth’s mother, Penelope Hegseth, defended her son in an interview with his former employer Fox News, saying: “He doesn’t misuse women.”
Trump announced a slew of new appointments to top administration jobs, including army secretary and Nasa administrator. Among those picked was former federal inmate Peter Navarro, who will be a top White House trade adviser.
Members of the supreme court’s conservative supermajority appeared willing to uphold Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors in just-concluded oral arguments.
Biden administration solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar as well as American Civil Liberties Union attorney Chase Strangio argued that the Tennessee law, known as SB 1, ran afoul of constitutional protections against sex discrimination, and that it jeopardizes the mental health of minors by forcing them to go through puberty before they can access gender-affirming care once they turn 18.
But conservative justices questioned whether by rejecting the law, they would create a situation whereby a young person would use the care to transition genders, then regret it later on. They also questioned whether the constitution addressed the sort of situation that the Tennessee law deals with.
“You say there are benefits from allowing these treatments, but there are also harms, right, from allowing these treatments, at least the state says so, including lost fertility, the physical and psychological effects on those who later change their mind and want to detransition, which I don’t think we can ignore,” said Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative justice.
Other members of the six-justice conservative bloc made similar points, which is more than enough to issue a ruling upholding Tennessee’s law, and likely those of the more than two dozen other states with similar measures on the books.
As the arguments wrapped up, conservative supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Tennessee solicitor general Matthew Rice about how the state’s law should be viewed in the context of state’s rights.
“You are not arguing that the constitution take sides on this question … you are arguing that each state can make its own choice on this question. So, from your perspective, as I understand it, it’s perfectly fine for a state to make a different choice, as many states have, than Tennessee did and to allow these treatments,” Kavanaugh asked.
“That’s correct,” Rice replied, arguing that the question of how to regulate such care is one best left to legislatures to determine, not the courts.
“We think that’s because of what your honor has pointed out, that no matter how you draw these lines, there are risk and benefit, potential benefits and harms to people on both sides, and the question of how to balance those harms is not a question for the judiciary, it’s a question for the legislature,” he said.
Liberal supreme court justices were openly skeptical of the Tennessee law.
The state’s solicitor general Matthew Rice began by arguing that there are risks to gender-affirming care, leading justice Sonia Sotomayor to cut in: “I’m sorry, councilor, every medical treatment has a risk, even taking aspirin. There is always going to be a percentage of the population under any medical treatment that’s going to suffer a harm.”
Sotomayor argued that the law creates a “sex-based difference” in who can receive medical care, but Rice said he disagreed, arguing that the law is instead regulating different medical procedures.
“We do not think that giving puberty blockers to a six-year-old that has started precocious puberty is the same medical treatment as giving it to a minor who wants to transition. Those are not the same medical treatment,” he said.
Currently before the court is Tennessee’s solicitor general, Matthew Rice, who is arguing in favor of the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
“Tennessee lawmakers enacted SB 1 to protect minors from risky, unproven medical interventions. The law imposes an across-the-board rule that allows the use of drugs and surgeries for some medical purposes, but not for others. Its application turns entirely on medical purpose, not a patient’s sex. That is not sex discrimination,” he began.
“The challengers try to make the law seem sex-based this morning by using terms like masculinizing and feminizing, but their arguments can … conflate fundamentally different treatments, just as using morphine to manage pain differs from using it to assist suicide, using hormones and puberty blockers to address a physical condition is far different from using it to address psychological distress associated with one’s body.”
Back at the supreme court, liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she was concerned that if the court upheld the Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care, it would undermine decisions that outlawed forms of racial discrimination.
She specifically cited the landmark Loving v Virginia decision of 1967, which found laws against interracial marriage were unconstitutional.
“We’re just sort of doing what the state is encouraging here in Loving, where you just sort of say, well, there are lots of good reasons for this policy, and who are we, as the court, to say otherwise? I’m worried that we’re undermining the foundations of some of our bedrock equal protection cases,” Jackson said.
“I share your concerns,” ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio replied. “If Tennessee can have an end run around heightened scrutiny by asserting at the outset that biology justifies the sex-based differential in the law, that would undermine decades of this court’s precedent.”
Donald Trump has announced nominees for several top administration roles, including army secretary, Nasa administrator and advisers dealing with trade and hostages held overseas.
Among those selected was Peter Navarro, who served four months in prison earlier this year after being convicted of contempt of Congress. Trump appointed Navarro as senior counsel for trade and manufacturing, a role similar to one he held during the first Trump administration. Here’s what the president-elect said in making the appointment:
I am pleased to announce that Peter Navarro, a man who was treated horribly by the Deep State, or whatever else you would like to call it, will serve as my Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing. During my First Term, few were more effective or tenacious than Peter in enforcing my two sacred rules, Buy American, Hire American. He helped me renegotiate unfair Trade Deals like NAFTA and the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), and moved every one of my Tariff and Trade actions FAST …
The Senior Counselor position leverages Peter’s broad range of White House experience, while harnessing his extensive Policy analytic and Media skills. His mission will be to help successfully advance and communicate the Trump Manufacturing, Tariff, and Trade Agendas.
The president-elect announced three other appointments:
Daniel Driscoll to serve as army secretary. An Iraq war veteran, Driscoll was most recently serving as an adviser to vice-president-elect JD Vance.
Adam Boehler as special envoy for hostage affairs. Boehler was involved in negotiating the Abraham accords that normalized relations between Israel and some Arab states, and Trump said he “will work tirelessly to bring our Great American Citizens HOME”.
Jared Isaacman as Nasa administrator. The billionaire was earlier this year the first private citizen to perform a spacewalk from a capsule from Elon Musk’s firm SpaceX.
The justices are now hearing from Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union, who is also the first openly transgender attorney to argue before the supreme court.
Strangio said that the court should rule against the Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Here’s his opening statement:
On its face, SB 1 bans medical care only when it is inconsistent with a person’s birth sex. An adolescent can receive medical treatment to live and identify as a boy if his birth sex is male, but not female, and an adolescent can receive medical treatment to live and identify as a girl if her birth sex is female, but not male.
Tennessee claims the sex-based line drawing is justified to protect children, but SB 1 has taken away the only treatment that relieved years of suffering for each of the … plaintiffs, and, critically, Tennessee’s arguments that SB 1 is sex-neutral would apply if the state banned this care for adults too, by banning treatment only when it allows an adolescent to live, identify or appear inconsistent with their birth sex. SB 1 warrants heightened scrutiny under decades of precedent because the sixth circuit failed to apply that standard, this court should vacate and remand.
