Tuesday Briefing: Trump Starts Building His Cabinet

Representative Elise Stefanik was asked to be the U.N. ambassador.Credit…Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Trump starts forming his administration

President-elect Donald Trump is making decisions about his administration.

Trump appointedElise Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman from New York, to the role of U.N. ambassador and is expected to name Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner, to be deputy chief of staff with a vast portfolio.

Thomas Homan, a senior immigration official in the last Trump administration, was named “border czar.” Trump last week picked his campaign manager, Susie Wiles, to be his chief of staff.

Stefanik has relatively little diplomatic or foreign policy experience. A staunch supporter of Israel, she has accused the U.N. of being plagued by “antisemitic rot” and proposed blocking funding for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

Many Israeli officials in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government have celebrated Trump’s victory. We talked to Patrick Kingsley, our Jerusalem bureau chief, about what may lie in store for the Middle East.

What changes might we see in the relationship between Israel and the U.S.?

Patrick: Many on the Israeli right hope that a Trump presidency will give them greater political cover to install Jewish settlers in Gaza, entrench Israeli control over the West Bank, overhaul the Israeli judicial system and launch bigger strikes on Iran.

But Trump is unpredictable, and his interests may not always align with Israel’s. For example, he suggested last month that he would not support regime change in Iran, a goal for some Israeli leaders.