The White House communications director or White House director of communications, also known officially as Assistant to the President for Communications, is part of the senior staff of the president of the United States. The officeholder is responsible for developing and promoting the agenda of the president and leading its media campaign.
Thomas Alfred Shannon Jr. is an American diplomat who served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2016 to 2018. In early 2017, Shannon served as acting United States Secretary of State until President Donald Trump's nominee, Rex Tillerson, was confirmed. He was also acting Deputy Secretary of State of the United States until the Senate confirmed President Trump's nominee, John J. Sullivan.
David Maclain Hale is an American diplomat and career ambassador, who previously served as the United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He is currently a Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow at the Wilson Center, on detail from the Department of State.
The National Space Council is a body within the Executive Office of the President of the United States created in 1989 during the George H. W. Bush administration, disbanded in 1993, and reestablished in June 2017 by the Donald Trump administration. It is a modified version of the earlier National Aeronautics and Space Council (1958–1973).
Philip Seth Goldberg is an American diplomat and government official who has served as United States ambassador to South Korea since 2022. He served previously as ambassador to the Philippines, Bolivia and Colombia and chief of the U.S. mission in UN-administered Kosovo during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. He has served in Washington as assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research. In 2022, he was nominated by President Joe Biden to be the U.S. ambassador to South Korea and was confirmed on May 5, 2022 by the United States Senate through voice vote.
Christopher Ashley Ford is an American lawyer and government official who served from January 2018 until January 2021 as Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Non-Proliferation. He was nominated to that position by President Donald Trump, and confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate on December 21, 2017. After October 21, 2019, Ford also, by delegation from Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, performed the duties of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security until his resignation from the Department of State on January 8, 2021.
Joseph Estey Macmanus is an American diplomat who served as Executive Secretary of the United States Department of State from 2014 to 2017. Prior to that, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to International Organizations in Vienna from 2012 to 2014, as well as interim coordinator for efforts to implement President Barack Obama's Iran Nuclear Deal in 2015. He was President Donald Trump's nominee to become United States Ambassador to Colombia. This nomination was reported favorably by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in May 2018, but was returned to the President at the close of the 115th Congress without consideration by the full Senate. In May 2019, it was announced that Philip Goldberg would replace Macmanus as nominee to be the next United States Ambassador to Colombia.
Donald Trump assumed office as President of the United States on January 20, 2017, and his term ended on January 20, 2021. The president has the authority to nominate members of his Cabinet to the United States Senate for confirmation under the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.
Carol Zelis Perez is a career Foreign Service Officer, who previously served as the Director General of the Foreign Service. Perez served as the U.S. Ambassador to Chile from October 2016 to January 2019.
Madeleine Elise Westerhout is the former Director of Oval Office Operations at the White House from February to August 2019. Prior to that, from 2017 to 2019, she served as the Personal Secretary to U.S. President Donald Trump. She was fired on August 29, 2019, after Trump learned she had shared details of the Trump family and Oval Office operations with reporters during an off the record dinner earlier that month.
Mary Elizabeth Taylor is an American political aide who served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs from 2018 to 2020. She resigned on June 18, 2020 in protest of the handling of the George Floyd protests by President Donald Trump. She previously served in the Trump White House as the Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs of Nominations.
Danny Ray Brouillette is an American government official and businessman who served as the United States Secretary of Energy from 2019 to 2021. He previously served as the Deputy Secretary of Energy from August 2017 to December 2019.
Mira Radielovic Ricardel, is an American businesswoman and former federal political appointee.
Michael Arthur Raynor is an American Foreign Service Officer specializing in relations with Africa who has served as the United States ambassador to Senegal and the United States ambassador to Guinea-Bissau since 2022. He was the United States ambassador to Ethiopia until January 2021. He previously served as the Director of the Office of Career Development and Assignments in the Bureau of Human Resources of the United States Department of State. Raynor served as United States Ambassador to Benin from 2012 to 2015 after being nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Prior to his post in Benin, he was deputy executive director and then executive director of the Bureau of African Affairs.
Jennifer Gillian Newstead is an American attorney who currently serves as the Chief Legal Officer at Meta, previously Facebook, overseeing all global legal and corporate governance matters on behalf of the company.
Manisha Singh is an American attorney and government official who served as assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs in the Trump administration until January 20, 2021. She previously also served as acting under secretary of state for economic growth, energy, and the environment. In April 2020, President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Singh to be the next United States representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, with the rank of ambassador. On January 3, 2021, her nomination was returned to the President under Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6 of the United States Senate.
Yleem D.S. Poblete is a former American government official who served as the United States Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation from April 30, 2018 to June 7, 2019. Dr. Poblete previously served as the Chief of Staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a committee on which she worked for close to 20 years.
Alyssa Farah Griffin is an American political strategist and television personality. She was the White House Director of Strategic Communications and Assistant to the President in 2020 during the presidency of Donald Trump. Griffin appears on CNN as a political commentator and is also a co-host of the daytime talk show The View for its 26th season.
Mari Stull is an American blogger, lobbyist, and former Trump administration political appointee to the United States Department of State's Bureau of International Organization Affairs. She is alternatively known as the Vino Vixen and by her maiden name, Mari Dunleavy.
Kathleen Ann Kavalec is an American diplomat who has served as the United States ambassador to Romania since February 2023. She is a former nominee to be the United States ambassador to Albania under President Donald Trump.
