Know Your Officials

Stephen Miller
Senior Advisor to the President under Trump, Campaign Senior Advisor

The senior policy advisor for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Miller continued serving Trump during his first administration. Miller was the senior advisor to the president and White House director of speech writing during Trump’s first administration. In 2021, Miller founded the America First Legal Foundation, which he has continued to lead.

Peter Navarro
Former Director of the National Trade Council

Navarro is a professor emeritus at UC Irvine. He served as an economic and trade advisor during Trump’s 2016 campaign and served as the director of the National Trade Council during the Trump administration. He has also written several books, including Death by China.

Will Scharf
Trump’s Attorney | Former Federal Prosecutor | Former Policy Director in the Missouri Governor’s Office

Will Scharf, a personal attorney for Trump, is of counsel to the James Otis Law Group. Scharf has spent time as both a federal prosecutor and policy director in the Missouri Governor’s Office. Scharf worked on the confirmations of both Supreme Court justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Vince Haley
Trump Campaign Speechwriter and Director of Policy

Haley was the Trump Campaign’s speech writer as well as the campaign’s director of Policy. During President Trump’s first administration, Haley served in the White House speech writing office. Before Haley worked on President Trump’s 2016 campaign, he spent 12 years working for former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA).

May Mailman
Former Associate Staff Secretary; Deputy Assistant to the President for Policy Coordination; and Deputy Assistant to the President and Advisor to the White House Counsel

Mailman served in Trump’s first administration as associate staff secretary, deputy assistant to the President for policy coordination, and deputy assistant to the President and advisor to the White House Counsel. She was the legal director of Independent Women’s Forum, deputy solicitor general for the state of Ohio, and vice president at Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections. She has also contributed to Fox News and NewsNation.

Heidi Overton
White House Fellow in the Office of American Innovation and on the Domestic Policy Council | Chief Policy Officer and Vice Chair of the Center for a Healthy America at the America First Policy Institute

In the first Trump administration, Overton served as a White House Fellow in the Office of American Innovation and on the Domestic Policy Council. Overton was chief policy officer and vice chair of the Center for a Healthy America at the America First Policy Institute. Before that, Overton was a general surgery resident at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Sam Adolphsen
Policy Director at the Foundation for Government Accountability

Adolphsen was Policy Director at the Foundation for Government Accountability. Before that, he served as Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Commissioner of Finance at Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services and as the Director of the Center for Open Government and Director of Government and External Affairs at the Maine Heritage Policy Center.

Theo Merkel
Former Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the National Economic Council in the White House

Merkel served in Trump’s first administration as special assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the National Economic Council in the White House. He spent a decade working for the Senate and was director of the Private Health Reform Initiative and a senior research fellow for the Paragon Health Institute and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Scott Centorino 
Former Assistant Attorney General in the Louisiana Department of Justice

Centorino was vice president of Policy and Programs at Do No Harm Medicine, deputy policy director at the Foundation for Government Accountability, and executive director at Reformers Academy. He spent three years as assistant attorney general in the Louisiana Department of Justice and four years as an officer in the United States Army Reserve in the JAG Corps.

Wells King
Former Senior Policy Advisor to JD Vance in the Senate

King served as the senior policy advisor to JD Vance in the Senate and as an advisor to Senator Mike Lee on the Joint Economic Committee. He also worked as the founding research director of American Compass. Prior to his career in public policy, Wells was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.

James Sherk
Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy on the White House Domestic Policy Council

Sherk served as special assistant to the President for domestic policy on the White House Domestic Policy Council during the first Trump administration. He was the director of the Center for American Freedom at the America First Policy Institute. Prior to his White House service, Sherk was a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Eric Bledsoe
Former Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability

Bledsoe was a senior fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability. Before his work at FGA, he was senior director of Civics at the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, and an instructor at Florida State University. Bledsoe has a BA from the Catholic University of America and a master’s from Florida State University.

Emory Cox
Former Associate Director of the National Economic Council

Cox served in the first Trump administration as the associate director of the NEC and in the Office of Presidential Personnel, after which he served as senior economic advisor to US Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. He holds a BA from Washington and Lee University.

Ryan Baasch
Former Texas Associate Deputy Attorney General and Assistant Solicitor General

Baasch previously served as Texas’s associate deputy attorney general and assistant solicitor general. Before his time in office, Baasch was an associate at Latham & Watkins LLP. Baasch began his legal career as a law clerk for DC Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson and holds a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Kara Frederick
Director of the Tech Policy Center at The Heritage Foundation

Frederick was the director of the Tech Policy Center at The Heritage Foundation and a fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a lecturer at George Washington University. She previously worked at Facebook and as an intelligence officer for the Department of Defense. She deployed to Afghanistan three times with tier one elements of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

Anthony R. Dolan
Former Special Assistant and Advisor on Planning

Dolan served as senior advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell, special advisor to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and as a special assistant and advisor on Planning during President Trump’s first term. He received a Pulitzer Prize while he was chief speechwriter in the Reagan White House.

Ryan Baasch
Former Texas Associate Deputy Attorney General and Assistant Solicitor General

Baasch previously served as Texas’s associate deputy attorney general and assistant solicitor general. Before his time in office, Baasch was an associate at Latham & Watkins LLP. Baasch began his legal career as a law clerk for DC Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson and holds a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Emily Underwood
Clinical Professor of Law and the Bluhm-Helfand Director of the Innovation Clinic at The University of Chicago Law School

Underwood was a clinical professor of law and the Bluhm-Helfand director of the Innovation Clinic at The University of Chicago Law School. Before that, she practiced corporate law as an associate at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, and prior to that, as an associate at Sidley Austin LLP.

Clark Milner
Former Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Chief Counsel to Senator Bill Hagerty

Milner was deputy chief of staff for Policy and chief counsel to Senator Bill Hagerty. He also served as deputy counsel to Governor Bill Lee and associate deputy counsel to Governor Bill Haslam, as a litigation associate with Bass, Berry, and Sims PLC in Nashville, and as a law clerk to Judge Thomas A. Varlan of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

Cale Clingenpeel
External Advisor to President Trump’s 2024 Campaign | Former Senior Advisor to the Chairman and Economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers

During Trump’s first term, Clingenpeel served as the senior advisor to the chairman and economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers. After that, he was chief economist of Greenmantle and led global research at a growth equity fund. Clingenpeel also served on the 2024 Republican National Convention Platform Committee policy staff and as an external economic advisor to President Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Andrew Lyon
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis at Treasury | Former Senior Staff Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers

Lyon served as deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis under President George W. Bush, as a senior staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H. W. Bush, and on the staff of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Outside of public service, Lyon was a principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and was an associate professor of economics at the University of Maryland.

Jeff Wrase
Chief Economist on the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, House and Senate Budget Committees

Wrase served on the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, House and Senate Budget Committees, and Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and on the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy of the House Committee on Financial Services. He also served on the Senate Committee on Finance. Prior to his work in Congress, he was a senior economist in the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and an economics professor.  

Joel M. Zinberg
Former Senior Economist and General Counsel at the White House Council of Economic Advisers

Zinberg served in the first Trump administration as senior economist and general counsel at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He practiced for nearly 30 years at New York’s Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine, taught at Columbia University Law school for 10 years, and held health policy positions in New York State government, at the American Enterprise Institute, and as president of the New York County Medical Society.

Sara Carter
Fox News Contributor

Before joining Fox News, Carter worked as a senior national security correspondent for Circa News. She previously worked with the Los Angeles News Group, The Washington Times, The Washington Examiner, and wrote numerous exclusives for USA Today, US News & World Report, and Arutz Sheva in Israel. As a journalist, she focused extensively on the US–Mexico border.

Steven Cheung
Trump Campaign Spokesman

Cheung, the former spokesperson for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and Trump campaign became director of rapid response during Trump’s first presidency. He left the White House in 2018 and created a private firm that worked with Trump on his 2020 campaign.

Karoline Leavitt
Trump Campaign Press Secretary

Leavitt is the spokesperson for Trump’s transition and will be the youngest White House press secretary in history at age 27.

In 2022, she ran for Congress in New Hampshire, winning the Republican primary before losing to incumbent Democrat Rep. Chris Pappas. She worked in the White House press office during President Trump’s first term in office and for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY).

Justin Caporale
Trump Campaign Spokesman

Caporale was the CEO of Event Strategies Inc, which staffed and managed Trump 2016 campaign events. During Trump’s first term, he served as an aide to Melania Trump. He went on to work for governor DeSantis, and on the Trump 2020 and 2024 campaigns.

Kevin Hassett
Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers

Hasset worked at the American Enterprise Institute before joining the Trump administration in 2017, as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. Hassett left Trump’s first administration in 2019 and became a fellow at the Hoover Institution. He later returned to the Trump White House to advise on the Covid-19 pandemic.

Karoline Leavitt
Trump Campaign Press Secretary

Leavitt is the spokesperson for Trump’s transition and will be the youngest White House press secretary in history at age 27.

In 2022, she ran for Congress in New Hampshire, winning the Republican primary before losing to incumbent Democrat Rep. Chris Pappas. She worked in the White House press office during President Trump’s first term in office and for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY).

Robin Colwell
Former Special Assistant to the President for Technology, Telecom and Cybersecurity Policy | Former Chief Counsel, House Committee on Energy and Commerce

Colwell served as special assistant to the President for Technology, Telecom and Cybersecurity Policy and as chief counsel for communications and technology at the Energy and Commerce Committee of the US House of Representatives. Colwell also served as chief of staff to the Federal Communications Commission and as a Senate staffer. Outside of her time in government, she was an associate at Wiley Rein LLP and a principal at BGR Group.