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      Who Are the Next Leaders of the Democratic Party?

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      Democrats will soon have a leadership vacuum, and there will be no shortage of highly ambitious governors, senators and transportation secretaries looking to fill it.American presidential elections tend to be a zero-sum game for the parties and their voters. Win, and everything is great. Lose, and your party is rudderless, leaderless and powerless.So it goes for the Democrats after Vice President Kamala Harris’s defeat to former President Donald J. Trump. Questions about who will lead the party, and in what direction, will be hotly debated as officials explore what went wrong and forge plans to oppose the next Trump administration.Jockeying has already begun, and not all ambition may be rewarded. Appearing too eager to seize the opportunity presented by Ms. Harris’s defeat could backfire if Democrats are not ready to move forward. But if the period after the 2016 election is any guide, scores of Democratic figures and groups will try to fill the leadership void created as President Biden leaves office.Four years is a very long time in politics. In that time, Barack Obama went from a state senator to a presidential nominee. In even less time than that, Mr. Trump transformed from being a reality show figure pushing a racist lie about Mr. Obama to president himself. It is not out of the question that the Democrats’ next leader is not someone on the nation’s radar today.With those caveats, here’s a look at six groups of people who could determine which direction Democrats take as the second Trump administration unfolds.Kamala Harris and Tim WalzMs. Harris and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota campaigning in August in Philadelphia. In his own concession speech last week, Mr. Walz signaled that he was eager to remain relevant in the party.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s FDA Wish List: Raw Milk, Stem Cells, Heavy Metals

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s advisers on health, is taking aim at the agency’s oversight on many fronts.Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been unflinching in his attacks on the Food and Drug Administration in recent weeks, saying he wants to fire agency experts who have taken action against treatments that have sometimes harmed people or that teeter on the fringe of accepted health care practice.How much influence Mr. Kennedy will have in President-elect Donald J. Trump’s next administration remains unclear, with some suggesting that he could act as a White House czar for policy over several federal health agencies. Mr. Trump has voiced support for Mr. Kennedy in recent weeks, saying he will let him “go wild on health.” In his acceptance speech, Mr. Trump reiterated his support for Mr. Kennedy’s involvement on health matters.Some of Mr. Kennedy’s priorities are relatively standard, such as focusing on the health effects associated with ultraprocessed foods. Yet others threaten to undermine F.D.A. authority to rein in inappropriate medical treatments or to warn about products that can damage the public health.A spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy did not respond to interview requests.Days before the election, in a post on X that has received 6.4 million views, Mr. Kennedy threatened to fire F.D.A. employees who have waged a “war on public health.” He listed some of the products that he claimed the F.D.A. had subjected to “aggressive suppression,” including ivermectin, raw milk, vitamins as well as therapies involving stem cells, and hyperbaric oxygen.Some items that he singled out had become flash points for conservative voters during the coronavirus pandemic, including ivermectin, which was found to be an ineffective treatment against Covid.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Exxon Chief to Trump: Don’t Withdraw From Paris Climate Deal

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      Darren Woods was one of only a few Western oil executives attending a global climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.Darren Woods, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, cautioned President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday against withdrawing from the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions, saying Mr. Trump risked leaving a void at the negotiating table.Mr. Woods, speaking at an annual U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, described climate negotiations as opportunities for Mr. Trump to pursue common-sense policymaking.“We need a global system for managing global emissions,” Mr. Woods said in an interview with The New York Times in Baku. “Trump and his administrations have talked about coming back into government and bringing common sense back into government. I think he could take the same approach in this space.”Mr. Woods also urged government officials to create incentives for companies to transition to cleaner forms of energy in a profitable way.“The government role is extremely important and one that they haven’t been successfully fulfilling, quite frankly,” he said.Mr. Woods’s presence in a stadium teeming with diplomats is all the more noteworthy because of who is not here in Azerbaijan, a petrostate on the Caspian Sea that was once part of the Soviet Union. Many heads of state, including President Biden, have taken a pass, as have the leaders of several big oil companies like Shell and Chevron.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Expected to Name Marco Rubio as Secretary of State

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      The president-elect appears to have settled on the Florida senator to be the nation’s top diplomat.President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to name Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as his secretary of state, three people familiar with his thinking said on Monday, as Mr. Trump moves rapidly to fill out his foreign policy and national security team.Mr. Trump could still change his mind at the last minute, the people said, but appeared to have settled on Mr. Rubio, whom he also considered when choosing his running mate this year.Mr. Rubio was elected to the Senate in 2010, and has staked out a position as a foreign policy hawk, taking hard lines on China and Iran in particular.He initially found himself at odds with those Republicans who were more skeptical about interventions abroad, but he has also echoed Mr. Trump more recently on issues like Russia’s war against Ukraine, saying that the conflict has reached a stalemate and “needs to be brought to a conclusion.”Mr. Rubio was a loyal surrogate for Mr. Trump during the campaign even after being passed over as the vice-presidential pick.A spokesman for Mr. Rubio declined to comment, and a spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Mr. Trump has made his choice for a number of other national security roles. He has selected Representative Michael Waltz, Republican of Florida, to be his national security adviser, and Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, to be ambassador to the United Nations.Mr. Rubio was he was first elected to the Senate in 2010 as part of a new generation of conservative Tea Party leaders. But some conservatives considered him wobbly on immigration, an issue that caused him political problems when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 against Mr. Trump and others.During that campaign, Mr. Trump belittled him as “Little Marco,” and Mr. Rubio responded with acerbic attacks.But after Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory, Mr. Rubio went on to patch things up with him, serving as an informal foreign policy adviser and helping to prepare him for his first debate against President Biden in 2020.Under Florida law, Gov. Ron DeSantis can temporarily appoint a replacement to Mr. Rubio’s seat who will serve in the Senate until the next regularly scheduled general election is held. After last week’s elections, Republicans are set to hold at least 52 seats in the chamber.Catie Edmondson More

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      Donald Trump Jr. Joining a Venture Capital Firm

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      The firm, 1789 Capital, invests in products and companies aimed at conservative audiences.The eldest son of President-elect Donald J. Trump will not be a member of his father’s administration — he is joining a venture capital firm.Donald Trump Jr. told a crowd of a few hundred donors on Sunday that he was joining 1789 Capital, a firm whose investments include Tucker Carlson’s media company. Mr. Trump was speaking at a conference held by the Rockbridge Network, a network, co-founded by Vice President-elect JD Vance, of tech-friendly Republican donors who are supportive of Mr. Trump.Chris Buskirk, the leader of Rockbridge, asked the younger Mr. Trump on Sunday evening if he had plans to join his father’s administration. He responded that he would be joining as a partner at 1789 Capital, according to two people with knowledge of his remarks.The firm focuses on investing in companies and products popular with conservative audiences. Its other partners and backers, in addition to Mr. Buskirk, include the investor Omeed Malik, along with Rebekah Mercer, a prominent Republican donor, both of whom were at Rockbridge’s event in Las Vegas this week.Mr. Buskirk was interviewing Mr. Trump as part of a fireside chat at the fall meeting of the Rockbridge group — the session was titled “Inaugurating the Next American Golden Age.”Mr. Trump has a business background as a longtime real estate executive at the Trump Organization. He has recently also displayed an interest in the crypto industry, and he has emerged as a liaison between his father and the tech community. He also was an investor in PublicSquare, an online marketplace for conservatives.Mr. Trump will most likely still play some role in his father’s political operation. He has said he wants to make sure that his father is surrounded by true loyalists during his second administration. More

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      Trump Allies Push Him to Block Thune From Becoming Senate G.O.P. Leader

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      Advisers to the president-elect, who already has a strong hold on congressional Republicans, want him to tighten his grip by torpedoing the bid of the establishment front-runner for the post.Some of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s closest allies are privately counseling him to try to block a onetime Republican nemesis from becoming the Senate majority leader, pushing him to impose his will more forcefully on an already compliant G.O.P. Congress.Mr. Trump has been considering the counsel of advisers who believe he should join an effort on the right to stop Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, from winning the top post, according to people familiar with the talks who insisted on anonymity to discuss them, though one person close to the president-elect noted that he had not weighed in on the race.Doing so would be an extraordinary move even for Mr. Trump, who during his first term and since he has left office has had an iron grip on congressional Republicans, demanding and almost always receiving loyalty from them on matters of policy and personnel.Intervening in an internal leadership struggle in the Senate, which has at times been more resistant to the former president’s dictates and where members are fiercely protective of their independence, would signal Mr. Trump’s determination to dominate the legislative branch in his second term. The majority leader controls the Senate floor, including what proposals and nominees receive votes — and when.Mr. Trump has already indicated his desire to hold a tighter rein on the Senate in the days since he was elected. He posted an ultimatum on social media on Sunday in which he demanded that any new Senate leader cooperate in his efforts to circumvent the confirmation process by calling recesses during which he could appoint personnel without winning Senate approval. All three candidates vying to lead the Senate next year quickly promised to speed through his choices.Republican senators and senators-elect are set to vote by secret ballot on Wednesday on who should serve as majority leader in the next Congress. Mr. Thune, an establishment Republican who like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the current leader, is reviled by some on the MAGA right, is competing against Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump to Name Michael Waltz as His National Security Adviser

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      The president-elect has chosen a Republican member of Congress from Florida to oversee national security policy in the White House.President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen Representative Michael Waltz of Florida to be his national security adviser, two people familiar with the decision said on Monday, turning to a former Green Beret who has taken a tough line on China to oversee foreign and national security policy in the White House.Mr. Waltz is the second Republican House member to be selected by Mr. Trump for a high-level job in his next administration, after his choice of Representative Elise Stefanik of New York for ambassador to the United Nations.Mr. Waltz, 50, has been a member of the Armed Services, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees in the House and would join the Trump administration as it addresses Russia’s war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East and confronts an increasingly aggressive China. His wife, Julia Nesheiwat, was homeland security adviser in the first Trump administration.Even as a congressional freshman, Mr. Waltz caught the eye of the Trump White House with his national security credentials. In 2020, in the days after Mr. Trump authorized the drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran, Mr. Waltz was included in a small group of Republicans invited to the White House who received a briefing on the strike.The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the move.Mr. Waltz, who became a fixture on Fox News on matters of foreign policy, is widely regarded on Capitol Hill as a hawk on both China and Iran. He served multiple combat tours in Afghanistan and vociferously opposed President Biden’s withdrawal of troops from there. “What no one can ever do for me, including this administration right now, is articulate a counterterrorism plan that’s realistic without us there,” Mr. Waltz, who also served as a counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, said in an interview in the days after the withdrawal.Mr. Waltz had also opposed withdrawing large numbers of troops from Afghanistan during the Trump administration without stringent conditions, and he introduced legislation to prevent a significant troop drawdown from Afghanistan unless the director of national intelligence could certify that the Taliban would not associate with Al Qaeda.The pick would also whittle down even further what is expected to be a slender Republican majority in the House in the early days of the next congressional session.House Republicans appear on track to win a narrow majority in the next Congress. Special elections would need to be held to replace both Mr. Waltz and Ms. Stefanik, who currently represent safe districts for the party. More

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      Trump Offers Elise Stefanik Role as U.N. Ambassador

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      In one of his first cabinet-level personnel decisions, the president-elect has chosen the Republican member of Congress from New York to represent the United States at the United Nations.President-elect Donald J. Trump has offered Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, the role of U.N. ambassador in his upcoming administration.Ms. Stefanik, who represents an upstate New York district in the House and is a member of the Republican leadership in the chamber, has been a vocal supporter of Mr. Trump. His decision to name her to the post was reported earlier by CNN.Ms. Stefanik has accepted the offer, her office said.Ms. Stefanik, 40, emerged as a key ally to Mr. Trump during his first impeachment proceeding. She has been chair of the House Republican conference, but has minimal experience in foreign policy and national security. She has served on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She has been an outspoken supporter of Israel, and had a high-profile role in the congressional hearings that led to the resignations of several university presidents over their handling of campus unrest following the terror attack by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.She also impressed Mr. Trump years ago with an outspoken defense of him during his first impeachment trial in the House. In a statement, Mr. Trump called her a “strong, tough and smart America First fighter.”House Republicans appear on track to win a narrow majority in the incoming Congress. Ms. Stefanik’s departure could make their margin even thinner until an election to replace her is held in what is considered a safe district for the party.It’s not yet clear whether Mr. Trump will be able to raid the House for his loyalists who serve there. Republicans are currently on track to keep their majority, but only by the similar razor-thin margin they have now, which has made it difficult to control the floor. Next year, they will be expected to produce major legislative results as a result of the party’s unified power in Washington.Ms. Stefanik, the first Trump ally from the House who has been announced as a cabinet pick, has long been positioning herself to rise in a Trump administration. But her situation may be particularly difficult. In New York State, Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, would most likely wait as long as possible to call a special election to fill her seat.Elon Musk, the billionaire and major Trump supporter, made clear on X that he had reservations about her appointment, based on the tight margin of control he is expecting in the House.“Elise is awesome, but it might be too dicey to lose her from the House, at least for now,” Mr. Musk wrote on the social media platform.Her selection comes after Mr. Trump last week named Susie Wiles, a longtime political operative who helped lead his campaign, as his White House chief of staff. On Sunday evening, Mr. Trump named Thomas D. Homan, an immigration hard-liner, to be his “border czar.”Annie Karni More