By Jerry Markon, Philip Rucker and Amy Goldstein
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has chosen former Bush administration official Elaine Chao as his transportation secretary, a position that will take on outsized importance with Trump’s plan to spend billions rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, a person with knowledge of the decision said Tuesday.
Chao, a former labor secretary and the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would oversee the massive program Trump is planning to rebuild bridges, roads and other infrastructure. Trump’s campaign has said he wants to spend up to $1 trillion, though the specifics are unclear, as is whether congressional Republicans would support the initiative.
Chao served as labor secretary during President George W. Bush’s entire eight-year administration and was the first Asian American Cabinet member in U.S. history. If confirmed by the Senate, she would add diversity to a Trump inner circle initially criticized as consisting of mostly older white men.
Transition team officials would not comment on Chao, though senior Trump communications adviser Jason Miller told Fox Business Network on Tuesday that Trump’s transportation secretary nominee would come later in the day. The news of Chao’s nomination was first reported by Politico.
It came after Trump’s team announced that he will take a break from transition planning, if briefly, to resume the occasionally raucous campaign-style rallies that marked his outsider bid for the White House. Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence have scheduled a rally in Cincinnati Thursday night, part of what Trump aides are billing as a “thank you” tour. It is unclear where else the duo might hold similar events.
In naming Chao, who has also served as deputy transportation secretary and has been married to McConnell since 1993, Trump turned to a consummate Washington insider after campaigning on a vow to bring change to Washington.
Since leaving the Bush administration, Chao has served as a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a contributor to Fox News. She is also a former chief executive of the United Way of America, director of the Peace Corps and banker with Citicorp in New York.
The Price nomination came in a news release early Tuessday that lavished praise on him, a third-generation doctor who chairs the House Budget Committee and became a champion of Trump’s candidacy. In naming him to join his Cabinet, the president-elect called Price “exceptionally qualified to shepherd our commitment to repeal and replace Obamacare and bring affordable and accessible health care to every American.”
Trump also named Seema Verma, a health-care consultant who was the architect of Medicaid changes in Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s home state of Indiana, to run a crucial section of HHS: the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
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