(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump is tapping Cantor Fitzgerald LP chief executive officer Howard Lutnick and World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon to jointly chair his presidential transition team, the campaign announced Friday.
The campaign also named the Republican nominee’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, and two of Trump’s sons, Eric and Donald Jr., to serve as honorary co-chairs of the transition team to prepare for a second term should the former president win in November’s election.
“We will restore strength, competence and common sense to the Oval Office. I have absolute confidence the Trump-Vance Administration will be ready to govern effectively on Day One,” Trump said in a statement.
The transition team is in charge of planning for the new administration before votes are cast in the election. That includes vetting candidates for cabinet posts and the thousands of political appointee jobs throughout the federal government, and developing a policy agenda.
Trump has a history of chaotic transitions. In 2016, he fired former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whom he had appointed to run the transition just days after he won the election. In 2020, then President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team said that Trump’s staff did not cooperate with them, as the former president continued to insist he won the election.
McMahon, who also served as the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term, and Lutnick are both major donors to his reelection effort. The inclusion of Trump’s sons on the transition committee also hints at a role they could play in a second Trump White House. The pair have frequently campaigned with their father and both spoke at last month’s Republican National Convention.
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