Loyalty is common thread as Trump fills foreign policy, immigration jobs

In the clearest example yet, Trump has asked Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), a former Army Green Beret who shares the former president’s views on illegal immigration and skepticism of America’s support for Ukraine, to be his national security adviser, according to people familiar with the discussion. The job, which Trump has elevated to cabinet rank, doesn’t require Senate confirmation.

The president-elect is also expected to nominate Sen. Marco Rubio, (R., Fla.) to be secretary of state, according to people familiar with his thinking. Rubio has differed with Trump over the importance of alliances and favors confronting China and Iran but, like Trump, has called for ending the war in Ukraine. Trump hasn’t signaled who he will pick as secretaries of defense and the treasury. Among the candidates for Treasury are hedge-fund manager Scott Bessent and billionaire investor John Paulson, both of whom publicly backed Trump during the campaign.

Some of Trump’s closest advisers are seeking to block candidates deemed insufficiently loyal for other top administration posts, fearing they could derail or slow roll his priorities.

It won’t be easy to achieve the unanimity that Trump and some advisers want. To ensure Senate confirmation he might be forced to turn to some candidates who are at odds with him in important respects. Disagreements between agencies and members of his team were rife in his first term and are likely to reappear, current and former officials said.

Trump has also announced he will nominate Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.), the first lawmaker to endorse his re-election bid, as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and has named immigration hard-liner Stephen Milleras deputy chief of staff for policy.Tom Homan, a champion of family separation, will be the new “border czar." Former Republican lawmaker Lee Zeldinwas nominated to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump announced Monday.

His choice as White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is known for delivering candid advice but isn’t confrontational and doesn’t seek the spotlight—traits that have gotten other Trump insiders in trouble. The discipline she brought to the campaign earned her credit with Trump, say people close to the incoming president, who wanted to send a message about the disciplined operation he plans to lead this time.

“What Trump will look for in senior nominees in a second term is fealty. He wants ‘yes men’ and ‘yes women,’" said John Bolton, who was national security adviser during Trump’s first term but is now one his most outspoken critics.

Trump has rejected Mike Pompeo, who served as the Central Intelligence Agency chief and secretary of state in the first term but has been a strong supporter of U.S. assistance to Ukraine, and Nikki Haley, Trump’s top presidential rival and former envoy to the U.N. who broke with him over support for NATO.

“I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country," Trump said Saturday in a social-media post, referring to Pompeo and Haley. Responding the following day, Donald Trump Jr. said in a social-media post he was working on keeping other job seekers who didn’t share his father’s agenda out of the administration.

Former top aides such as Robert O’Brien, Trump’s fourth and last national security adviser, are open to serving again but aren’t sure they will be asked to join the administration.

“The president has a great group of people to select his cabinet from. I’m enthusiastic about the prospects for the country," O’Brien said. “If I remain in the private sector, which is likely, I will be cheering on the president and his team for huge successes."

With more like-minded advisers, the hope is Trump can pursue his “America First" agenda with fewer restraints, people who served on the Trump campaign said. But a team that shuns dissenting views also brings risks, according to former officials and analysts.

“Trump looks set on bringing in a team that prizes loyalty, which could instill some message discipline but also risks group think," said Richard Fontaine of the Center for a New American Security, a centrist Washington think tank.

Trump doesn’t make decisions in an orderly process, often announcing decisions without consulting advisers or via social media. Staffers during the first term often tried to walk back some of those decisions. Loyalists are more likely to carry out the order without providing alternative ideas or explaining the pitfalls of certain calls, analysts said.

The president-elect has long said he would end American involvement in overseas wars, erect new trade barriers and force allies in Europe and Asia to share more in defense costs. During his first term, his advisers often pushed back against his more ambitious policies, occasionally convincing him to back off and other times slow-rolling his orders.

Several generals he placed in top jobs at the Pentagon and White House because he saw them as able to get results often proved to be obstacles to some of his most far-reaching national security plans.

Trump wanted U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, but it wasn’t until February 2020 that the administration struck a deal with the Taliban to withdraw several thousand remaining troops——but only after President Biden took office.

After Trump lost the 2020 election but before leaving office, he signed a directive pushed by loyalists and not seen by senior Pentagon leaders to remove all troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Germany, and across Africa. Trump eventually canceled the order but only after a conversation with O’Brien, then his national security adviser, who said it hadn’t gone through proper channels.

Journalist Bob Woodward reported in his book “Fear" thatGary Cohn, the chief economic adviser in the White House, stole a 2017 letter off the Resolute Desk that, if signed by Trump, could have ended a key free-trade deal with South Korea, a staunch ally. Trump denied that any aides took letters or other documents off his desk, even though Woodward reproduced the letter in his book.

As he constructs his second-term cabinet, Trump is turning to Republicans whose views have moved toward his own. Rubio, for example, echoed Trump in a video statement posted on social media earlier this month, saying the Biden administration’s military aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia was “funding a stalemate" that “needs to be brought to a conclusion."

Unlike Trump, who has called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “genius" and “savvy" for the Ukraine invasion, Rubio said that seeking to end the war “doesn’t mean we celebrate what Vladimir Putin did or are excited about it. But there needs to be some common sense."

Alex Leary and Brian Schwartz contributed to this article.

Write to Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com