Joe Biden Cabinet picks: Running list of the president-elect’s Cabinet and top advisor nominees

Blinken served on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration before becoming staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Biden was chair of the panel. In the early years of the Obama administration, Blinken returned to the NSC and was then-Vice President Biden’s national security adviser before he moved to the State Department to serve as deputy to Kerry.

A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Law School, Blinken has aligned himself with numerous former senior national security officials who have called for a major reinvestment in American diplomacy and renewed emphasis on global engagement.

“Democracy is in retreat around the world, and unfortunately it’s also in retreat at home because of the president taking a two-by-four to its institutions, its values and its people every day,” Blinken told The Associated Press in September. “Our friends know that Joe Biden knows who they are. So do our adversaries. That difference would be felt on day one.”

Mayorkas has achieved some historic firsts. In 1998, he was the youngest U.S. attorney. He was the highest-ranking Cuban-American under Obama. And he helped negotiate the first homeland security memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Cuba, where he was born.

If confirmed by the Senate, Mayorkas, 61, would be the first Hispanic, and immigrant, to lead DHS. He noted the poignancy in a tweet after his nomination was announced.

“When I was very young, the United States provided my family and me a place of refuge,” he said. “Now, I have been nominated to be the DHS Secretary and oversee the protection of all Americans and those who flee persecution in search of a better life for themselves and their loved ones.”

Mayorkas ran the citizenship agency within DHS from 2008 to 2013, developing the program to shield from deportation people who had been brought to the U.S. illegally as minors, a program Trump has sought to end.

Afterward, as the second in command at DHS, he led its response to the Zika and Ebola outbreaks.

As a former federal prosecutor and a partner at the prominent law firm WilmerHale, Mayorkas is well-versed in the criminal cases involving transnational crime that are generated by the agencies under DHS purview.

The Meriden, Connecticut, native took the top job overseeing the state’s K-12 schools last summer after being nominated by Gov. Ned Lamont. Before that, he was a teacher, principal and administrator in Meriden’s public schools. Biden said previously he wanted an educator in the post.

During his confirmation hearing before the legislature in February, Cardona described himself as a “goofy, little Puerto Rican kid” born in the Yale Acres public housing complex in Meriden.

“The passion I have for public education stems from my belief that it is the best lever for economic success and prosperity in Connecticut,” he told lawmakers. “And the belief that public education is still the great equalizer. It was for me.”

A trained physicist, Haines also helped oversee a number of covert programs at the National Security Council beginning in 2010 and then as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2013-15, including the controversial targeted killing program involving precision drone strikes, some of which killed civilians.

While Haines has received criticism from some progressives over her involvement in the drone program, her work to increase oversight of those operations, as well as her strong credentials in intelligence work, are expected to satisfy enough senators to pave the way for her to be confirmed in what has traditionally been a nonpartisan role.

Sullivan has built a lengthy résumé including a clerkship for Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer and work as chief counsel to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom he worked for as the department’s head of policy planning, has described him as a “once-in-a-generation talent.”

Sullivan has also worked closely with other members of Biden’s planned Cabinet, succeeding Blinken as then-Vice President Biden’s national security adviser in 2013. Sullivan and Blinken maintain a close friendship and a shared philosophy about the United States’ role in the world that is expected to shape Biden’s approach in international affairs.

If confirmed, Yellen would be the first woman to lead the Treasury in its 231-year history.

During her stint as Fed chair from 2014 to 2018, Yellen oversaw a record economic expansion that would go on to drive unemployment down to its lowest rate in 50 years and which helped produce a thriving economy that was upended by the coronavirus pandemic.

In selecting Yellen, Biden appeared to have opted for a safe and proven name, and a candidate who is expected to survive the confirmation process with some ease, unlike other economists proposed by the Democratic Party’s progressive wing who may have been less acceptable to Republicans in the Senate.

Biden selected Austin over the longtime front-runner candidate, Michele Flournoy, a former senior Pentagon official and Biden supporter who would have been the first woman to serve as defense secretary. Biden also had considered Jeh Johnson, a former Pentagon general counsel and former secretary of homeland defense.

“We are ready to combat this virus with science and facts,” she wrote on Twitter.

Biden’s selection of infectious disease expert Dr. Rochelle Walensky to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the elevation of Dr. Anthony Fauci to medical adviser, and the return of Dr. Vivek Murthy as surgeon general are being read in the medical community as a restoration of the traditionally important role of science in public health emergencies.

“It means that the response plan will be grounded in health science,” said Dr. Nadine Gracia, executive vice president of the Trust for America’s Health, a nonprofit that works to promote public health.

Walensky, a widely recognized HIV/AIDS expert, got her coronavirus experience first hand as chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston during the first wave this spring.

“She was a real leader when it came to COVID,” said Dr. Rajesh Gandhi, an infectious disease physician at Mass General. “She organized infection control policies within the hospital, she organized treatment studies, she was organizing testing and leading testing.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, would be neither the first African American nor the first woman, nor even the first African American woman, to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. But she’s a groundbreaking diplomat nonetheless. Thomas-Greenfield joined the State Department more than three decades ago, when Black women were even more of a rarity in the U.S. diplomatic corps than they are today.

That makes her the most experienced diplomat of the six people named by Biden for top national security positions on Monday. Her tenure at the State Department rivals that of previous U.N. ambassadors like Richard Holbrooke, John Negroponte and Thomas Pickering, all of them white men.

Thomas-Greenfield’s background positions her well to carry out Biden’s goal of returning the United States to a role as a leading force at the world body, after four years of an administration that has had little use for multilateralism or international organizations.

“My mother taught me to lead with the power of kindness and compassion to make the world a better place,” she said in a tweet Monday. “I’ve carried that lesson with me throughout my career in Foreign Service – and, if confirmed, will do the same as Ambassador to the United Nations.”

Biden’s office announced on Monday his intent to Thomas-Greenfield, who currently heads his transition team for the State Department, and for the job to retain its Cabinet-level rank.

She is a 35-year veteran of the State Department who served as ambassador to Liberia, director general of the foreign service and top diplomat for Africa before being forced out during the early months of the Trump administration.

While she won’t be the first African American to serve as America’s U.N. envoy — Andrew Young, who held the job during President Jimmy Carter’s administration, holds that distinction — Thomas-Greenfield’s selection is a signal to Biden supporters that his diversity message and plan to elevate career diplomats is not just lip service.

“She’s a good lady,” said retired United Auto Workers local president Pat Sweeney, who remembers Granholm for helping to broker the Detroit auto bailout during the 2008-09 financial crisis. “She’ll do a good job.”

Tribal leaders and activists around the country, along with many Democratic figures, have urged Biden for weeks to choose Haaland. They stood behind her candidacy even when concerns that Democrats might risk their majority in the House if Haaland yielded her seat in Congress appeared to threaten her nomination.

Haaland, 60, is a member of the Laguna Pueblo and, as she likes to say, a 35th-generation resident of New Mexico. The role as interior secretary would put her in charge of an agency that not only has tremendous sway over the nearly 600 federally recognized tribes but also over much of the nation’s vast public lands, waterways, wildlife, national parks and mineral wealth.

The pick breaks a 245-year record of non-Native officials, mostly male, serving as the very top federal official over American Indian affairs. The federal government often worked to dispossess them of their land and, until recently, to assimilate them into white culture.

Biden’s team gave little immediate detail on Monday about how he envisioned Kerry shaping the new job, which many on social media and on all sides of the climate-action spectrum were quick to dub “climate czar.” But the transition team made clear that it will be a prominent role, with Kerry becoming the first member of the National Security Council to focus exclusively on climate change.

It was one of Biden’s first steps making good on campaign pledges to confront climate-damage from fossil fuel emissions more broadly and forcefully than any previous U.S. administration. And it’s a sign of how the incoming administration is heeding warnings that natural disasters from global warming will weaken U.S. defense and spur conflicts around the globe.

“America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat it is,” Kerry tweeted. “I’m proud to partner with the President-elect, our allies, and the young leaders of the climate movement to take on this crisis as the President’s Climate Envoy.”

At 76, Kerry has the stature to help him make deals with foreign governments on global climate efforts. But he’s up to a half-century or more older than the activists who pushed climate change to the forefront of national politics over the past four years.

Regan, who is head of North Carolina’s environmental agency, was one of several contenders whose name emerged only in recent days. Biden’s pick was confirmed Thursday by a person familiar with the selection process who was not authorized the discuss the matter publicly before the official announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.

California clean-air regulator Mary Nichols had faced increasing objections from progressive groups, who said Nichols had not done enough to address the disproportionate harm low-income and minority communities face from living next to oil and gas installations, factories and freeways.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who hired Regan for the state job, said Wednesday that Regan was “a consensus builder and a fierce protector of the environment. He’s been part of a strong, diverse cabinet in North Carolina. And if he is selected by the president-elect, I have no doubt that he will do the same kind of job for our country.”

Regan became environmental chief in North Carolina in 2017. State officials there are grappling with contamination from PFAS industrial compounds and other industrial polluters.

Regan points to his efforts to hold accountable Chemours, which is the main business blamed for the toxic PFAS pollution, and other work ranging from improving regulation of the state’s giant hog farms to releasing a plan to cut climate-damaging fossil fuel pollution from power plants by 70 percent within 10 years.

He previously spent almost a decade at the federal EPA, including managing a national program for air-pollution issues.

His past jobs included serving as an associate vice president for climate and energy issues at the Environmental Defense Fund advocacy group and as head of his own environmental and energy consulting firm.

Regan, who is Black, has a bachelor’s degree from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, which is a historical black university, and a master’s from George Washington University.

“Mayor Pete Buttigieg is a leader, patriot, and problem-solver. He speaks to the best of who we are as a nation,” Biden said in a tweet Tuesday night. “I am nominating him for Secretary of Transportation because he’s equipped to take on the challenges at the intersection of jobs, infrastructure, equity and climate.”

The historic choice of Buttigieg, however, dealt a blow to former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, whose behind-the-scenes pursuit of the transportation post was met with vocal opposition from top progressives and African Americans within the Democratic Party over his City Hall response to the 2014 police murder of Black teenager Laquan McDonald.

Emanuel, however, still could be tapped for another role in the administration. Biden is said to like the former mayor, and the two worked together closely as White House chief of staff and vice president in President Barack Obama’s administration. Emanuel also informally advised Biden and his senior aides during the 2020 campaign.

Fudge, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, was just elected to a seventh term representing a majority Black district that includes parts of Cleveland and Akron. Vilsack spent eight years as head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the Obama administration and served two terms as Iowa governor.

Biden sees Fudge as a leading voice for working families and a longtime champion of affordable housing, infrastructure and other priorities, according to one of the people familiar with the president-elect’s decision. Vilsack was selected in part because of the heightened hunger crisis facing the nation and the need to ensure someone was ready to run the department on day one, the person said.

As news outlets started reporting Fudge’s selection as HUD secretary, she said on Capitol Hill that it would be “an honor and a privilege” to be asked to join Biden’s Cabinet, though she didn’t confirm she had been picked.

“It is something in probably my wildest dreams I would have never thought about. So if I can help this president in any way possible, I am more than happy to do it,” she said Tuesday evening.

A longtime member of the House Agriculture Committee and a fierce advocate for food stamps, Fudge was originally discussed to become agriculture secretary. South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat who gave Biden a key nod of support in the primaries, had strongly backed her, saying, “It’s one thing to grow food, but another to dispense it, and nobody would be better at that than Marcia Fudge.″

She also had the strong backing of progressive groups who touted her support for food aid and worker protections at meatpacking plants.

But her name was later floated for HUD as Biden’s team focused on other candidates for USDA, including Vilsack and former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp.

Biden’s relationship with Vilsack goes back decades. He was an early supporter of Biden’s first campaign for president in 1988 while Vilsack was the mayor of Mount Pleasant, Iowa. He endorsed Biden a year before the 2020 election and campaigned tirelessly for him in Iowa, the nation’s first caucus state. Biden adopted aspects of Vilsack’s rural policy agenda as Democrats look to make up ground they’ve lost to Republicans in rural areas over the past decade,

Having run the giant department for eight years under Obama and sat at the table with Biden, there’s little mystery to Vilsack’s expertise. Their 34-year friendship and longtime professional connection make the choice one offering little risk.

Vilsack entered politics in large part because of tragedy, when the mayor of Mount Pleasant was gunned down at a city council meeting in 1986. Vilsack, then a young lawyer, had grown up in Pittsburgh and moved with his wife, Christie, to her Iowa hometown. He was recruited to seek the mayor’s office, then served two terms in the Iowa Senate before being the first Democrat to win the governorship in 30 years.

After two terms, Vilsack ran a 10-week campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination before withdrawing and throwing his support to Hillary Clinton, even as Biden was among the field. Vilsack was a finalist for Clinton’s running mate that year.

McDonough, the VA nominee, is an experienced manager who was chief of staff throughout Obama’s second term. McDonough was previously Obama’s deputy national security adviser, including during the Navy SEAL raid in 2011 that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, and was a longtime congressional staffer.

McDonough was credited with helping Obama try to bridge divides on Capitol Hill, including around one of his most substantial second-term legislative achievements: the Veterans Choice Act. The legislation, for which President Donald Trump tries to take credit, gave former service members more options to seek care and the VA secretary more authority to fire underperforming staffers.

The bill came about following exposes during the Obama administration into mismanagement at some VA hospitals and mounting complaints by advocacy groups. As chief of staff, McDonough was also deeply involved in an overhaul of VA leadership after the scandals, which led to the ouster of the department’s secretary.

The move marks a surprising shift for Rice, a longtime Democratic foreign policy expert who served as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser and U.N. ambassador. She worked closely with then-Vice President Biden in those roles and was on his short list to become his running mate during the 2020 campaign.