President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday his selection of finance professor Michael Faulkender to be deputy Treasury secretary, where he will play a key role in running the department.

Faulkender, who served as chief economist for Treasury during Trump’s first term, now teaches at the University of Maryland’s business school and also serves as chief economist at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute.

If confirmed, he would be the No. 2 to hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, who has been tapped for the top job at Treasury.

In his previous stint at the department under then-Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Faulkender was responsible for running the Paycheck Protection Program, a massive lending plan rolled out in 2020 to help small businesses weather the pandemic.

“Mike is a distinguished Economist and Policy practitioner who will drive our America First Agenda,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “He will help Treasury Secretary Nominee Scott Bessent usher in a new Golden Age for the United States by delivering a Great Economic Boom for all Americans.”

President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday he will nominate former Wall Street regulator Paul Atkins to run the Securities and Exchange Commission, turning to one of Washington’s most influential voices on financial policy to lead the U.S. markets watchdog.

Atkins, if confirmed, would be tasked with steering the SEC as it embarks on what is expected to be a new deregulatory age for Wall Street after nearly four years of aggressive rulemaking by the current chair, Gary Gensler. He would also be thrust into a series of policy fights over the $3 trillion cryptocurrency market, artificial intelligence and the cost of raising capital in the U.S.

Atkins previously served as an SEC commissioner in the early-to-mid 2000s before launching his consultancy firm, Patomak Global Partners.

He played a critical role in the first Trump transition, helping to lead the charge on financial regulation. He has been an outspoken critic of everything from the reform measures enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to corporate penalties to climate-related disclosures.

The SEC chair has been one of the most highly anticipated appointments for Wall Street since the election. For the last four years, the financial world and the crypto lobby have clashed with Gensler over new rules from the agency and its sweeping enforcement campaigns. The Trump administration is likely to take a lighter-touch approach to both policing the markets and crafting new rules.

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday tapped his once-imprisoned former adviser Peter Navarro to be senior counselor for trade and manufacturing in his next administration.

Navarro, 75, who served as director of the White House National Trade Council in Trump’s first administration, spent four months in federal prison earlier this year after being held in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 riot.

“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,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

“During my First Term, few were more effective or tenacious than Peter in enforcing my two sacred rules, Buy American, Hire American,” Trump said.

Navarro was convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide documents and testimony to congressional investigators probing the root causes of the attack on the Capitol in 2021. The committee subpoenaed Navarro in February 2022, and he quickly indicated he would refuse to comply, citing executive privilege.

The House held Navarro in contempt two months later, and the Justice Department soon followed suit with criminal charges.

Trump said that Navarro’s mission would be to “help successfully advance and communicate the Trump Manufacturing, Tariff, and Trade Agendas,” in a separate post on his social media platform. He said the position would leverage Navarro’s “broad range of White House experience, while harnessing his extensive Policy analytic and Media skills.”

The role does not require Senate confirmation.

During Trump’s first term, Navarro played a role in the re-negotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement that became the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in 2018, as well as the revised version of the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement, known as KORUS. Trump said Navarro had helped move “every one of my Tariff and Trade actions FAST” in his social media post.

“Peter is not just a superb, Harvard-trained Economist, he is a noted author of more than a dozen bestselling books on strategic business management and unfair Trade,” Trump wrote. “He did a superb job for the American People in my First Term. Peter will do even better as Senior Counselor to protect American Workers, and truly Make American Manufacturing Great Again.”

Navarro, an economist, holds a PhD from Harvard University, and formerly taught economics and public policy at the University of California, Irvine.

Navarro was the second former Trump aide convicted for refusing to cooperate with the Jan. 6 panel.

Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.

President-elect Donald Trump selected leaders for the Army and NASA on Wednesday.

Army vet: Daniel Driscoll, an investor and close friend of Vice President-elect JD Vance from Yale Law School, has been tapped to become the next secretary of the Army, Trump announced on social media.

Driscoll, an Army veteran with a combat deployment to Iraq under his belt, became close to Vance at Yale before moving back to North Carolina where he has worked as an investor and ran for Congress in an unsuccessful bid in 2020 in which he focused on national security issues.

Driscoll joins Pentagon nominees John Phelan, tapped to run the Navy, and Pete Hegseth, whose bid is in trouble due to sexual assault allegations.

Space explorer: Trump also picked Jared Isaacman, a billionaire and space explorer, to be the head of NASA.

Isaacman, who made his fortune founding a payment processing company, has devoted his life to space exploration, including by becoming the first private citizen to complete a spacewalk in September.

The choice of Isaacman’s may signal the influence of Trump backer and SpaceX founder Elon Musk — Isaacman has praised Musk’s government cost-cutting advisory group, and completed his spacewalk in partnership with SpaceX.

Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday shot down the Biden administration’s request to include $24 billion in Ukraine-related aid as part of an expected short-term spending bill Congress needs to pass by Dec. 20.

The Office of Management and Budget included the funding request in a list sent to Congress late last month. The new tranche of emergency Pentagon funding would go toward furnishing weapons and equipment for Ukraine and refilling U.S. inventories.

But Johnson, asked if he would attach the Ukraine-related money to what is expected to be a spending stopgap into early next year, told reporters: “I’m not planning to do that.”

“There are developments by the hour in Ukraine. … It is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now. We have a newly elected president and we’re going to wait and take the new commander-in-chief’s direction on all of that so I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now,” Johnson said.

Congress has until Dec. 20 to fund the government and avoid a holiday shutdown. Though some Republicans are holding out hope that they can get a year-end agreement on a sweeping spending bill that would fund the government through the end of September, both House and Senate Republicans increasingly acknowledge that they will need a stopgap.

Johnson told reporters this week that he expects that bill will go into March, though other Republicans want it to go into January, which they argue will help them quickly turn to Trump’s larger legislative agenda.

Johnson is expected to need Democratic help to fund the government given a handful of House Republicans who tend to oppose any short-term funding bills. Johnson met with members of the Freedom Caucus on Tuesday night about the spending bill, with conservatives raising concerns about attaching disaster relief money unless it is paid for.

New York GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito is making a play for a job in the incoming Trump administration: the next head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

After losing a reelection bid for his competitive Long Island district, D’Esposito is working to consolidate support from regional law enforcement unions, in addition to calling key players in Trump’s orbit, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

“President Trump has a mandate from the people of this country to Make America Safe Again, and I would be honored to lend my experience as a decorated NYPD Detective and member of the House Homeland Security Committee to assist President Trump in that mission,” D’Esposito said in a statement.

News of the effort comes just a day after Trump’s initial pick to lead the DEA, Chad Chronister, announced he was withdrawing from consideration, just days after being named as the nominee. He said he chose to step back from the process “as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in,” while noting that he wished to continue his present work as a sheriff in Florida. Trump, for his part, posted on Truth Social that he pulled Chronister out of the running, citing remarks he made to supporters.

Allies of D’Esposito are now pushing him as the next best alternative, leaning on his New York Police Department detective credentials to make the case that he is the right person to help address the flow of illegal drugs coming into the U.S.

“@realDonaldTrump should nominate @RepDesposito a highly decorated @NYPDDetectives & proven crime fighter as @DEAHQ Administrator. As a respected member of Congress, D’Esposito has demonstrated leadership & commitment needed to help DJT in his goal of Making America Safe Again,” the Nassau County Detectives Association posted on X on Wednesday.

The centrist New Yorker had flipped a blue seat last cycle, and often carefully tried to toe the line between juggling the demands of a swing district while not alienating Trump and his supporters. But he ultimately lost his Long Island seat to Democratic challenger Laura Gillen.

D’Esposito was among the House Republicans who led the ultimately successful push to expel George Santos from Congress over various ethics violations. Santos has since pleaded guilty to committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. But D’Esposito later faced controversies of his own, with The New York Times releasing a report weeks before Election Day that detailed allegations of an affair and that D’Esposito was employing his mistress and his fiancee’s daughter. He has denied he violated House ethics rules.

D’Esposito is also one of several Republicans who aren’t returning to the House next year now seeking jobs in the administration.

In 2019, then-President Donald Trump took $155 million from the federal government’s main disaster fund and used it to build immigration facilities near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Now senior officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency are expressing concern that Trump could again redirect disaster resources after he takes office, but on a much larger scale. That could limit FEMA’s ability to help people and communities after major disasters, they say.

“But I am concerned that could happen, or that FEMA is given tasks to do things that are in support of immigration programs, whether it’s deportation or other aspects of immigration,” the agency’s chief of staff, Michael Coen, said in a rare interview.

“It could divert DRF funding from what members of Congress and the American people believe is its intended purpose,” Coen said, referring to FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, which helps households and communities survive and rebuild.

“It would be demoralizing to the staff, who believe they’re there to support disaster survivors and mitigate against natural disasters,” he added.

Coen, who was appointed to his post in 2021 by President Joe Biden, spoke as he prepares to leave the agency, where he has worked under every Democratic president since Bill Clinton.

Other Biden appointees told POLITICO’s E&E News they fear that Trump will use FEMA’s disaster money and staff to fulfill his vows to deport millions of undocumented migrants. Although FEMA aid is supposed to be spent on natural disasters such as floods, wildfires and storms, previous presidents have used some of the money to help the nation recover from terrorist attacks.

President Jimmy Carter gave disaster aid to four South Florida counties in 1980 after a mass emigration of Cubans to the U.S. known as the Mariel boatlift.

FEMA has faced budget shortfalls for two years, forcing the agency to restrict disaster spending and to seek additional funding from a reluctant Congress. The agency was financially sound when Trump diverted FEMA funds for building the border facility. It had $26 billion in disaster reserves at the time.

Coen said his concerns are “general” and based on how the Trump administration had sought to use money from FEMA and other agencies for border activities.

“I don’t have anything specific. I haven’t heard anything,” Coen said.

Trump has not named a future FEMA administrator or said anything publicly about diverting disaster funds for immigration and border security. As a candidate this year, Trump inaccurately accused FEMA of diverting disaster funds to help secure the Southwest border.

He selected South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, to be secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA and immigration agencies such as Customs and Border Protection. Noem gained national attention in 2021 for sending South Dakota National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

As part of Homeland Security, FEMA has handled a growing range of events unrelated to natural disasters. Biden put FEMA in charge of setting up coronavirus vaccination clinics nationwide. Congress directed FEMA to help set up shelters along the Southwest border with a special allotment of $650 million.

“I’m always concerned about mission creep and FEMA being given more problems to solve than what I think the American people think FEMA really should be doing,” Coen said. “The average person believes FEMA is there to help the country on its worst day and help disaster victims when they’re having their worst day.”

“But because FEMA is a problem-solver, FEMA was given the task at the beginning of this administration to set up the mass-vaccination clinics across the country, which vaccinated millions of people,” Coen said.

FEMA could ease its growing workload by responding to fewer routine natural disasters, Coen said.

“States probably need to take on more of the share of the response,” he said, noting that he supports increasing the cost threshold that FEMA uses to determine if an event has caused enough damage to merit disaster aid.

“Something needs to change, because it’s not sustainable the way it is,” Coen said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin is quickly locking down support to take the top Democratic spot on Judiciary and could beat current ranking member Rep. Jerry Nadler.

“I just don’t see how Jerry pulls it out,” said one lawmaker on the House Judiciary Committee, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Three additional people familiar with Raskin’s (D-Md.) support believe he will beat Nadler (D-N.Y.), though the senior Democrat is staying in the race.

“We’ll see what happens,” Nadler said Wednesday morning.

Raskin officially entered the race Monday, and said Tuesday evening that he was “working to get the votes.”

The mother of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s embattled pick for Defense secretary, took to Fox News Wednesday morning to defend her son in her first public comments since it was reported that she once harshly confronted him in an email about his treatment of women.

“We really believe that he is not that man he was seven years ago. I’m not that mother and I hope people will hear that story today and the truth of that story,” Penelope Hegseth told “Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy. “I am here to tell the truth. To tell the truth to the American people and tell the truth to senators on the hill, especially female senators. I really hope that you will not listen to the media and you will listen to Pete.”

Her plea also comes as Trump is considering nominating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as Defense secretary instead, should Hegseth’s nomination not pan out, POLITICO reported late Tuesday night, though no decision has been made. Hegseth told reporters Wednesday morning that the president-elect told him to “keep fighting.”

Since being named Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, Hegseth’s treatment of women has been at the forefront. A police report from 2017 made public last month detailed allegations of sexual assault against Hegseth, which he denied. He has also faced criticism for saying women should not serve in active combat.

On Tuesday, NBC News reported that some of Hegseth’s colleagues at Fox News were concerned about his drinking habits, which a spokesperson for the Trump transition team told the outlet were “completely unfounded and false.”

A New Yorker article published Sunday detailed Pete Hegseth’s time at two nonprofit advocacy groups, where he ultimately stepped down “in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.” A lawyer for Hegseth said in response that the claims were “outlandish” and were “laundered through The New Yorker by a petty and jealous disgruntled former associate of Mr. Hegseth’s.”

The New York Times published last week an email Penelope Hegseth sent her son in 2018 saying that he had “abused in some way” many women and telling him to take “an honest look at yourself.”

“I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego,” she wrote in the email, according to the Times. “You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”

On Wednesday, she backtracked from her remarks in the email, saying that her son had been going through a “difficult” divorce at the time and that she wrote the email “in haste” and apologized for sending it within two hours.

When Doocy asked if the allegations against her son were hard to hear as a parent, she said she didn’t believe the accusations.

“I don’t believe any of that is true. Any of it,” she said, after mentioning her role as a parent is to “correct.” “I wouldn’t be sitting in this chair today if I didn’t believe that about my son.”

When pressed again on what specifically in her email was not true, Hegseth’s mother said “he doesn’t misuse women.”

“He’s been through difficult things, I’m not going to list them by name,” she said.

Penelope Hegseth added that her son is “a changed man,” and was adamant that “Trump knows Pete. And he knows the Pete of today.”

“Listen with your heart to the truth of Pete,” she said.