Over the last few weeks, US President-elect Donald Trump has made several appointments to his cabinet before officially taking charge of the White House on January 20, 2025. The appointments, mostly comprising new faces, underpin a strong focus on defense, immigration and economic efficiency. Notably, Trump has picked a handful of Indian-Americans for key roles in the incoming administration, highlighting the increasing influence of the community in US politics.
The US cabinet comprises at least 16 positions — the vice president and the heads of the 15 executive departments. Here are the Indian-Americans who will be part of Trump 2.0:
Jay Bhattacharya, Director of the National Institutes of Health: Dr Jay Bhattacharya is a Stanford physician and economist and serves as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He co-authored an anti-lockdown treatise during the Covid-19 pandemic, making him a central figure in a bitter public health debate. Bhattacharya was born in Kolkata in 1968. His parents migrated to the US in the 1970s.
Harmeet K. Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights: A California lawyer who has long championed Trump in public, in court cases and on social media, is an American attorney and notable figure within the Republican Party. She was born in 1969 in Chandigarh, India, into a Punjabi Sikh family. Dhillon's family relocated to the United States during her childhood to enable her father, Tejpal Singh Dhillon, to pursue a career as an orthopaedic surgeon.
Vivek Ramaswamy, co-lead of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): Ramaswamy, a 39-year-old political outsider and an American biotech entrepreneur, initially contested for the Republican nomination against Trump. However, he eventually withdrew and became a staunch Trump supporter. Over the final year of Trump’s campaign, Ramaswamy frequently served as a surrogate, publicly praising Trump and advocating for the conspiracy theories that Trump had long championed, reports The New York Times.
Ramaswamy’s campaign centred around advancing Trump’s agenda to shrink the government. He proposed using executive orders to dismantle the Department of Education, the FBI, and the IRS. He also called for a 75% reduction in the federal workforce through mass layoffs and vowed to slash foreign aid to nations like Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Ramaswamy was born in 1985 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His parents moved to the US from Kerela's Palakkad in the 1970s. He will be in charge of ensuring efficiency in the new administration along with his co-lead Elon Musk.
Kash Patel, FBI director: Patel, a staunch Trump supporter, is a lawyer who served as federal prosecutor at the US Department of Justice. He held significant positions during Trump's first term, including overseeing the counterterrorism division at the National Security Council and later serving as chief of staff for the Department of Defense.
Born in 1980 to Indian immigrant parents who had moved from East Africa to Canada in the 1970s before settling in the US, Patel began his professional journey as a public defender in Florida. He later transitioned to the US Justice Department, where he worked as a prosecutor specializing in counter-terrorism cases. He is the highest-ranking Indian-American in the Trump cabinet.
Sriram Krishnan, Senior White House policy advisor on artificial intelligence (AI): Krishnan will collaborate with David O. Sacks, the former Chief Operating Officer (COO) of PayPal, who has been appointed as the "White House AI and Crypto Czar."
Originally from Chennai, Krishnan completed his BTech in Information Technology at SRM Engineering College in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. In 2005, at the age of 21, he moved to the United States.
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