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Tracking President Trump’s second-term Cabinet and appointees

Diversity and pace of Senate-confirmed positions

April 30, 2025


  • In the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, individuals appointed were largely white and male.
  • The administration appointed 45 individuals, outpacing former President W. Bush,  former President Biden, and the first Trump administration.
U.S. President Donald Trump signs documents as he issues executive orders and pardons for January 6 defendants in the Oval Office at the White House on Inauguration Day in Washington, U.S., January 20, 2025.
U.S. President Donald Trump signs documents as he issues executive orders and pardons for January 6 defendants in the Oval Office at the White House on Inauguration Day in Washington, U.S., January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Editor's note:

This tracker will be updated after the first 200 days and 300 days of the second Trump administration. 

This page tracks the pace of confirmations at the 100-day mark, and eventually will include data at the 200- and 300-day mark within the first year of President Trump’s second term. The first 100 days of President Trump’s second term span January 20, 2025 to April 29, 2025. An unusual feature of the American political system is the practice of replacing the most senior leadership across the executive branch after a new president is inaugurated. Executive agencies in other similarly situated democracies typically have a much higher percentage of civil servants in top offices and therefore less opportunity for the chief executive to appoint a large number of individuals at the start of a new presidency. Presidency scholar David Lewis of Vanderbilt University has found that there are roughly 1,340 Senate-confirmed positions for which a new president needs to select, vet, and formally nominate. During the first 300 days of the Biden administration, the Senate confirmed only 140 of them. The trendline shows that the process has grown slower with each new president, suggesting that the first 300 days of President Trump’s second term may see an even lower yield.

Monitoring this “shared” constitutional power—presidents nominating and the Senate confirming—offers insight into the separation of powers, checks and balances, and the overall health of U.S. democracy. The data below and inferences drawn from them continue a long-standing effort to monitor presidents’ ability to staff the executive branch by identifying nominees and persuading the Senate to confirm them. This tracker helps us understand the functional capabilities of these two branches to fulfill a key responsibility at the start of a new administration. View the Notes section at the end of this page to learn more details about the data.

Pace of Senate confirmations

The data below show the pace of confirmations and the total number of confirmations during the first 100 days of a new president’s term.

Figure 1
Diversity of Senate confirmations

In then-Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, he pledged to appoint diverse candidates to the many political appointments afforded a new president. In the analysis below, we continue to monitor the diversity of the Senate-confirmed candidates. The analysis below examines gender and race/ethnicity breakdown, based on categories in the 2020 U.S. census

Figure 2
Figure 3
FIGURE 4
Senate confirmations

Pace of Senate confirmations by department

Department of Agriculture

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

2

4

1

1

1

Total

13

13

4

7

1

Department of Commerce

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

1

3

1

1

2

Total

18

11

10

6

2

Department of Defense

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

2

7

1

3

5

Total

41

29

26

22

5

Department of Education

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

1

6

1

1

1

Total

12

12

2

7

1

Department of Energy

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

1

1

1

2

1

Total

11

14

6

8

1

Department of Health & Human Services

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

1

1

2

3

4

Total

11

11

7

8

4

Department of Homeland Security

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

-

2

2

2

2

Total

-

13

8

7

2

Department of Housing & Urban Development

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

1

4

1

1

1

Total

9

9

4

3

1

Department of Interior

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

1

2

1

1

1

Total

8

14

4

8

1

Department of Justice

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

1

9

1

3

7

Total

22

12

9

13

7

Department of Labor

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

3

3

1

1

2

Total

12

10

2

6

2

Department of State

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

11

10

3

5

12

Total

133

92

55

27

12

Department of Transportation

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

1

6

1

2

2

Total

12

15

6

4

2

Department of Treasury

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

3

2

1

2

2

Total

15

11

9

7

2

Department of Veterans Affairs

Timeframe

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

Donald Trump Term I

Joe Biden

Donald Trump Term II

1-100 days

2

3

1

2

2

Total

9

8

6

7

2

List of Senate confirmations

Set out below are the individuals whom the Senate has confirmed during the first 100 days of President Trump’s second term in office.

Table 1
Senate-confirmed appointees, days 1-100

Count

Name

Position

Race/ethnicity

Gender

Date confirmed

1

Marco Rubio

Secretary of State

Hispanic

M

1/20/2025

2

Pete Hegseth

Secretary of Defense

White

M

1/24/2025

3

Kristi Noem

Secretary of Homeland Security

White

F

1/25/2025

4

Scott Bessent

Secretary of the Treasury

White

M

1/27/2025

5

Sean Duffy

Secretary of Transportation

White

M

1/28/2025

6

Doug Burgum

Secretary of the Interior

White

M

1/30/2025

7

Chris Wright

Secretary of Energy

White

M

2/3/2025

8

Pam Bondi

Attorney General

White

F

2/4/2025

9

Doug Collins

Department of Veterans Affairs

White

M

2/4/2025

10

Scott Turner

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

Black

M

2/5/2025

11

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Secretary of Health and Human Services

White

M

2/13/2025

12

Brooke Rollins

Secretary of Agriculture

White

F

2/13/2025

13

Howard Lutnick

Secretary of Commerce

White

M

2/18/2025

14

Kashyap Patel

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Asian

M

2/20/2025

15

Daniel Driscoll

Secretary of the Army

White

M

2/25/2025

16

Linda McMahon

Secretary of Education

White

F

3/3/2025

17

Todd Blanche

Deputy Attorney General

White

M

3/5/2025

18

Troy Edgar

Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security

White

M

3/6/2025

19

Lori Chavez-DeRemer

Secretary of Labor

Hispanic

F

3/10/2025

20

Abigail Slater

Assistant Attorney General

White

F

3/11/2025

21

Steven Bradbury

Deputy Secretary of Transportation

White

M

3/11/2025

22

Keith Sonderling

Deputy Secretary of Labor

White

M

3/12/2025

23

Jeffrey Kessler

Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security

White

M

3/13/2025

24

Stephen Feinberg

Deputy Secretary of Defense

White

M

3/14/2025

25

Christopher Landau

Deputy Secretary of State

White

M

3/24/2025

26

John Phelan

Secretary of the Navy

White

M

3/24/2025

27

Jayanta Bhattacharya

Director of the National Institutes of Health

Asian

M

3/25/2025

28

Martin Makary

Commissioner of Food and Drugs

White

M

3/25/2025

29

Michael Faulkender

Deputy Secretary of the Treasury

White

M

3/26/2025

30

Aaron Reitz

Assistant Attorney General

White

M

3/26/2025

31

Paul Lawrence

Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs

White

M

3/27/2025

32

Matthew Whitaker

U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO

White

M

4/1/2025

33

Dean Sauer

Solicitor General

White

M

4/3/2025

34

Mehmet Oz

Administrator of CMS

White

M

4/3/2025

35

Harmeet Dhillon

Assistant Attorney General

Asian

F

4/3/2025

36

Elbridge Colby

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

White

M

4/8/2025

37

George Glass

Ambassador to Japan

White

M

4/8/2025

38

Kevin Cabrera

Ambassador to Panama

Hispanic

M

4/9/2025

39

Peter Hoekstra

Ambassador to Canada

White

M

4/9/2025

40

Mike Huckabee

Ambassador to Israel

White

M

4/9/2025

41

Ronald Johnson

Ambassador to Mexico

White

M

4/9/2025

42

David Perdue

Ambassador to China

White

M

4/29/2025

43

Tilman Fertitta

Ambassador to Italy

White

M

4/29/2025

44

Thomas Barrack

Ambassador to Turkey

White

M

4/29/2025

45

Warren Stephens

Ambassador to the United Kingdom

White

M

4/29/2025

Source: Data from Congress.gov.

Note: The data include confirmed nominees from the 15 major departments in the line of presidential succession. In cases where individuals have more than one race/ethnicity, we count both, such that the total number shown above may exceed the number of nominees. This data abides by the categorization of the 2020 census. 

  1. Limiting the sample to the 15 executive departments in the presidential line of succession excludes military and judicial offices, as well as U.S. attorneys, seats on commissions and appointments to agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, high-level positions like the White House chief of staff and White House counsel, among other top roles, do not require Senate confirmation. Regarding the 1,340 positions that require Senate confirmation, Yale University scholar Christina Kinane has found that only about 696 of those Senate-confirmed positions are drawn from the 15 cabinet departments and four agencies: the CIA, EPA, OPM and OMB. Though 696 is just over half of the total positions, it remains a considerable challenge for the Senate to confirm that many nominees.
  2. The first 100 days span from January 20 to April 29, 2025; the second 100 days end on August 7, 2025; and the third 100 days end on November 15, 2025.
  3. I relied on the U.S. Census categories. I classified as “Unknown” the few individuals for whom I was unable to identify race/ethnicity. In some cases, individuals have more than one race/ethnicity. For example, an individual could be both “Black” and “Hispanic/Latino,” and would be counted in both categories. Finally, in March 2024, the U.S. Census Bureau changed its categories in advance of the 2030 census, adding a category for those who are “Middle Eastern or North African” (MENA). In the 2020 census, these individuals were categorized as White. This tracker abides by categorization of the 2020 census.
  4. Special thanks to Adelle Patten and Amelia Nason for expert research assistance.

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