Who are the first names announced by Biden for his administration

President-elect Joe Biden presented some of his nominations for his government team from the stage of the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware. Pending confirmation from the Senate, the team is already the harbinger of several American primates

(photo: CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP via Getty Images) After formal approval by the General Services Administration , the presidential transition in the United States has finally begun: On Tuesday, November 24, President-elect Joe Biden introduced the country to six of the senior officials appointed to his national security team. "America is back," Biden announced from the stage of the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, surrounded by part of his socially distanced new team and with the anti-Covid-19 mask on his face. The president-elect's new officials are "ready to lead the world, not to withdraw from it," Biden stressed to highlight the cut with the isolationist and nationalist policy of the outgoing Donald Trump administration. Also, in the president-elect's own words, his team will strive to tell Biden what he "needs to know," not what he wants to know.

Many of his candidates have already worked together under the President of Barack Obama, but Biden has shown willingness to prove that, "although this team has unparalleled experience and results", at the same time "we cannot face" the new challenges of this mandate (such as the Covid pandemic -19 and the climate crisis) "with old thinking and unchanged habits". The nominations proposed by Biden will however have to be confirmed by the Senate, with a Republican majority until the ballot to be held in Georgia in January 2021.

Biden's proposals

The team already presents itself as a harbinger of several absolute records for US political history. Avril Haines, former deputy director of the CIA, will be the first woman to serve as director of national intelligence: on the stage in Wilmington, she said that throughout her career "she has never failed to say things as they are to the powerful". Alejandro Mayorkas will be the first Latin American and the first immigrant (son of refugees from Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba) to head the Department of Internal Security, after having already been deputy secretary. Mayorkas has already reiterated its intention to carry on the "proud history" of the United States as a "host country", in contrast to the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on all forms of immigration. In addition, 43-year-old Jake Sullivan will become the youngest national security advisor in decades.

Biden's other appointments include: Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a senior diplomat formerly sent to Africa, Pakistan , Switzerland and Jamaica, which has been designated as the United States ambassador to the United Nations; John Kerry, Barack Obama's former secretary of state, will become the National Security Council's first envoy for climate (this is the first time a full-time official has been employed in the fight against climate change); Anthony Blinken, Biden's adviser in foreign policy, will be the new secretary of state.

The most noticeable absentee on the Wilmington stage was the appointment to the secretariat of defense: nothing is official yet, but major US newspapers insistently mention Michèle Flournoy, Pentagon undersecretary of the Obama administration and co-founder of the Center for a New American Security along with Anthony Blinken. Furthermore, next week, the secretariat of the Treasury could also be appointed, in the person of Janet Yellen, former chairman of the Federal Reserve. If selected and confirmed, Flournoy and Yellen would become the first women in both roles in US history.