President Donald Trump has the keys to the White House again, and the Senate is moving quickly to ensure he has his Cabinet team in place.

The first successful confirmation was longtime GOP senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Catholic and now the first Latino Secretary of State. Rubio had the rare honor to be voted in unopposed, garnering 99–0 affirmative votes on Monday.

It’s unlikely the rest of Trump’s Cabinet will glide through as easily. But some may garner bipartisan support, like John Ratcliffe, who was confirmed to lead the Central Intelligence Agency on a 74-25 vote. This week, lawmakers are holding hearings for several of Trump’s other picks, and they may hold a full floor vote soon on Veterans Affairs (VA) secretary nominee Doug Collins, a former Southern Baptist pastor and chaplain who cleared a committee vote Thursday.

Trump’s second round includes some familiar faces and some White House newcomers. These are the people who will be implementing Trump’s broad “America First” agenda, which includes mass deportations and refugee-resettlement cuts, trade wars, and a sharp return to conservative policies on diversity and gender issues.

“When you look at his first go-around, you did see some establishment people,” Mark Caleb Smith, director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University, told Christianity Today. Earlier picks such as Jim Mattis for secretary of defense, David Shulkin for Veterans Affairs secretary, or Nikki Haley for UN ambassador were more in line with a traditional Republican Cabinet.

Smith said some Republicans, like one-time Trump-critic Rubio, have moved into his orbit, a sign of the transformation of the party. But the president is still reaching from a more populist, antiestablishment, MAGA mold—more controversial nominees like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services (HHS) and Pete Hegseth for the Department of Defense. 

The through line that unites them all is simple, according to Smith: “With Trump, the ultimate standard is loyalty to Trump.”

Trump’s Cabinet also represents a curious mix of religious backgrounds, with Catholics predominating among the picks. The diversity reflects Trump’s voting base in 2024, which, while it still garnered strong support from white evangelicals, drew support from a wider coalition of voters.

One of Trump’s picks is currently an evangelical pastor: Southern Baptist Scott Turner, an associate pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, was tapped to be Trump’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Starting in 1995, Turner played for nine seasons in the NFL for three teams. Eventually, his interest shifted to politics, and he served in the Texas House of Representatives from 2013 until he joined the Trump White House.

Turner would be responsible for an agency that addresses the nation’s housing and community-development assistance needs and fair housing laws. It also oversees pervasive issues like homelessness. Turner worked on Trump’s opportunity-zone initiative, which sought to encourage private investment in low-income and otherwise distressed communities.

“We have an important mission ahead. To God be the glory. Let’s get to work!” Turner posted after the announcement of his nomination.

If confirmed, Turner would be the sole Black nominee on the Cabinet. In his post, he thanked former Trump-era HUD secretary Seventh-day Adventist Ben Carson, calling him a mentor. “I am aware that I have big shoes to fill,” he wrote. In an opinion piece for the Washington Examiner, Carson wrote his own endorsement of Turner, calling him “above all, a man of God.”

Another Southern Baptist on deck is Collins, whom Trump tapped for the VA. His hearing included questioning on how he would handle Biden-era policies that allowed the agency to provide abortions under certain circumstances, such as if the health of the mother is at risk or in cases of rape or incest. He said that the administration “will look at this rule and see if it complies with the law.”

Collins, who has a master’s degree in divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, also has the role of pastor on his résumé. He served as the senior pastor for Chicopee Baptist Church in Gainesville, Georgia, for 11 years, according to the Illinois Baptist Newsjournal. He’s currently a member of Lakewood Baptist Church in Gainesville.

Collins also served as a military chaplain, serving for two years as a US Navy chaplain and later joining the US Air Force Reserve. He was also deployed to Iraq for five months in 2008 and remains in the Air Force Reserve as a colonel.

His career includes stints in the Georgia State House and in Congress, where he became vice chair of the House Republican Conference. During the Trump years, he was a stalwart defender of the president while on the House Judiciary Committee. He ran for the Senate in 2020 but lost.

Kristi Noem, Trump’s pick for Homeland Security secretary, belongs to a Pentecostal denomination. Her family attends Foursquare Family Worship Center in Watertown, South Dakota, which her grandparents helped plant. She has taught children’s church there. In her memoir, she said she believed going into politics was part of God’s plan for her.

The South Dakota governor would be overseeing what Trump has pledged will be the largest mass-deportation operation to date. The administration has recently changed a policy, dating back to the Obama administration, that law-enforcement officials are no longer barred from making raids on “sensitive” areas such as houses of worship or schools. Noem has a tough-on-immigration stance. During her time as governor, she once gave a speech to a joint session of South Dakota’s legislature where she focused on the role of cartels at the US-Mexico border.

For the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Trump picked Russell Vought, who has previously served in the same role. Vought grew up blue-collar, with an electrician father and a schoolteacher mother, and attended Wheaton College. He identifies as a Christian nationalist. In 2021, he founded the Center for Renewing America in 2021 and was one of the architects of Project 2025, a presidential transition plan collated by The Heritage Foundation that became controversial during Trump’s reelection. 

The OMB is the largest office within the president’s executive office. It’s primarily responsible for presenting the president’s budget, but it also watches over other agencies’ programs and policies to ensure consistency with the executive’s vision. Vought is one of the proponents for Trump’s actions on Schedule F, which seeks to remove civil-service protections from executive-branch workers, instead classifying them as employees who may be fired “at will.”

During the first administration, he was one of the officials who defied a congressional subpoena to testify about Trump’s decision to freeze military aid to Ukraine. That decision led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Another returnee is Brooke Rollins as agriculture secretary. During the first administration, she worked on domestic policy as director of the Office of American Innovation. Raised by a single mom, she grew up on a Texas farm and has a degree in agricultural development. 

During the last few years, she has served as cofounder and president of the America First Policy Institute, a think tank that aligned with Trump during his reelection campaign. While it received less buzz than Project 2025, the institute also focused on drafting presidential transition plans, including executive orders.

During the first administration, Rollins was a strong advocate for criminal-justice reform and worked with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to push for the First Step Act, which implemented policies to reduce recidivism and sentencing disparities. Rollins is open about her Christian faith, highlighting Bible verses in her Instagram bio and participating in a weekly faith call hosted by the Republican National Committee. “Faith should always be at the heart of all we do,” she wrote on Instagram.

Army veteran and former Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth is nominated for secretary of the Defense Department. He attends Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship in Tennessee, which is associated with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, cofounded by Idaho-based pastor Doug Wilson.

Hegseth grew up Baptist but told a Tennessee magazine he had a “Christian veneer but a secular core” until his late 30s. In the interim, he racked up a series of controversies for which he faced questioning by Democratic lawmakers during his confirmation hearing. He’s denied allegations of alcohol abuse and sexual assault. Hegseth, who has been divorced twice, has acknowledged past marital infidelity. In his hearing, he said he’s been “redeemed by his Lord and Savior for his failings in life.” 

Initially skeptical Republicans have gotten on board with confirming him, but there were some signs of trouble on Friday when Sen. Lisa Murkowski became the first Republican to oppose one of Trump’s picks. The Alaska senator said she “cannot in good conscience support his nomination” and cited the allegations against him and past comments suggesting he opposed women serving in the military, though he has revised those in recent days. Hegseth can still be confirmed unless two other Republicans come out against him.

“The danger with someone like Hegseth is that someone could use their faith as just a shield for criticism and to say, ‘Well, you know, I’m a believer now, and I’m changed,’ and then you just try to short-circuit all the conversation,” Smith said. “I think the way that you get past that, obviously, is you look at someone’s life and their actions.”

Other Protestants include Doug Burgum, who would be Secretary of the Interior. While reticent to talk about faith, in one interview he told voters he grew up Methodist and had been “sustained” by his faith during difficult times, such as the deaths of family members.

Hedge-fund executive Scott Bessent, teed up for secretary of the Treasury, brings one of the more unique Protestant backgrounds to the table as a French Huguenot. He’s a member of the French Huguenot Church of Charleston and funded a renovation of the Gothic Revival building in the last few years. His relatives helped found the church in the 1680s, according to The Wall Street Journal. If confirmed, Bessent would be the highest-ranking openly gay US official. He is married to former New York City prosecutor John Freeman. 

Trump’s Catholic picks that will make up his Cabinet include Vice President JD Vance; Rubio; Ratcliffe; Education secretary nominee Linda McMahon, who grew up Baptist and converted to Catholicism; Transportation nominee and former congressman Sean Duffy; Labor nominee Lori Chavez-DeRemer; HHS nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; Small Business Administration chief nominee Kelly Loeffler; and United Nations ambassador nominee Elise Stefanik.

Michael Kratsios, who would be science advisor, is a leader in the Greek Orthodox Church. Tulsi Gabbard, who would be director of national intelligence, is Hindu. Jamieson Greer, who would serve as US trade representative, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jewish nominees include Howard Lutnick for Secretary of Commerce and Lee Zeldin for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Less is known about the faith backgrounds or practices of some of Trump’s other selections, such as Energy Secretary pick Chris Wright. Pam Bondi has been tapped to serve as Attorney General; she has not spoken publicly about her faith but has had fundraising support from members of the Church of Scientology.

It’s not yet clear how Trump’s team will impact the administration’s positions on issues important to evangelicals. 

“It was pretty clear in 2016 Trump believed he needed evangelical support [to win] and to get reelected in 2020,” Smith said. “It was a strong, necessary voting bloc in 2016 that I think you could argue he went out of his way to accommodate.”

Smith ticked off Trump’s actions like picking evangelical Mike Pence as his running mate and selecting Supreme Court justices vouched for by the Federalist Society. He made appearances at the March for Life and talked extensively about pro-life issues.

This time around, issues like abortion may be relegated to the back burner. Part of that is because the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision relegated the issue back to the states, but Smith also noted that there is a lack of appetite among congressional Republicans or the incoming Trump administration to attempt any kind of national legislation on the issue. Smith also noted that Trump has appointed pro-choice nominees like RFK Jr., leading to an outcry by some conservatives (including Pence).

“When you look in 2024 at least, to me, I think his behavior suggests he’s not running for reelection. Obviously, he’s a lame duck, and he’s just not as reliant or dependent upon evangelicals, and so I don’t think he has felt the same kind of need with appointments,” Smith said. “It’s a much more diverse coalition, and I think socially, a much more progressive coalition than what we saw in 2016. Evangelicals are a part of it, as opposed to a driving force.”