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Pete Hoekstra, Betsy DeVos viewed as contenders for jobs in new Trump administration

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Pete Hoekstra, Betsy DeVos viewed as contenders for jobs in new Trump administration

Lansing — Pete Hoekstra, chairman of the Michigan GOP, and Betsy DeVos, a prominent Republican political donor from the state, are being floated as potential contenders for positions in President-elect Donald Trump’s upcoming administration.

Tyson Shepard, executive director of the state Republican Party, confirmed that Hoekstra, who helped deliver a series of wins for Republicans in the Nov. 5 election, was at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida resort where Trump’s political operations are based, on Thursday.

“Pete looks forward to serving the president wherever he is needed most,” Shepard said.

Hoekstra, a former member of the U.S. House, was the ambassador to the Netherlands during Trump’s first administration. Then, amid a leadership dispute within the Michigan Republican Party, Trump endorsed Hoekstra in January 2024 to be the state GOP’s chairman.

“Pete will make the Republican Party of Michigan great again and has my complete and total endorsement to be its chairman,” Trump wrote on social media at the time.

With Hoekstra leading the Michigan Republican Party, Trump won the state on Nov. 5 by about 2 percentage points, 50%-48%, over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. On the campaign trail this fall in Michigan, Trump routinely praised Hoekstra’s leadership.

A source close to Hoekstra who declined to be identified because of the ongoing deliberations said on Thursday that Hoekstra was hoping to be the country’s transportation secretary.

This week, Trump has been rolling out his selections for key positions within his administration. On Thursday, for example, he announced that former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Hoekstra, a Holland Republican, served in the U.S. House from 1993 to 2011, chairing the House Intelligence Committee. He ran for governor unsuccessfully in 2010 and for the U.S. Senate unsuccessfully in 2012.

If Hoekstra got a position in the Trump administration, Michigan Republicans would have to choose a new chairperson in February.

DeVos, the billionaire school choice activist, is also viewed as a contender for the position of secretary of education, which she held during Trump’s first term before her resignation on Jan. 7, 2021, following the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

“There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” DeVos wrote to Trump in her resignation letter.

DeVos in August told The Detroit News that she is open to serving in a second Trump administration but she had conditions of future employment.

“I would want to do so only if it was with the goal of phasing out the Department of Education as we tried to do through budgetary process in the first administration,” DeVos said. 

“And also getting a commitment to passing a major education freedom bill in the form of a tax credit mechanism at the Department of Treasury.”

More: Trump pledged to close the Education Department. What would that mean?

Last week, DeVos suggested to EdWeek that she remains open to the post. 

“If President-elect Trump wanted to talk to me, I would be very open to talking,” DeVos told the magazine. “But I think there’s also a lot of folks [who could do the job well].”

DeVos has been on Capitol Hill this week meeting with lawmakers including Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, who like DeVos is an advocate for school choice. 

The DeVos family this fall chipped in $2 million to help fund America PAC, the political committee that Tesla CEO Elon Musk founded and has been using to support Trump.

cmauger@detroitnews.com

mburke@detroitnews.com

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