Cabinet of the President of the United States

Official Cabinet seal

The **Cabinet of the United States** is a body consisting of the Vice President of the United States and the heads of federal executive departments of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States which is regarded as the principal advisory body to the President of the United States. The President is not formally a member of the Cabinet. The heads of departments, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, are members of the Cabinet, and acting department heads also sit at Cabinet meetings whether or not they have been officially nominated for Senate confirmation. There are also other positions that have Cabinet-rank status, generally referred to as Cabinet-level positions. The President can unilaterally designate senior advisers from the Executive Office of the President or heads of other federal agencies as members of the Cabinet. The Cabinet does not have any collective executive powers or functions of its own, and no votes need to be taken. As of January 15, 2021, there were 23 members of Cabinet: the Vice President, 15 department heads (of which 4 were acting), and 7 were Cabinet-level members.

The members of the Cabinet serve at the pleasure of the president, who can dismiss them at any time without the approval of the Senate, as affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in *Myers v. United States* (1926), or downgrade their Cabinet membership status. The President can organise the Cabinet as he sees fit, such as instituting committees. Like all federal public officials, Cabinet members are also subject to impeachment by the House of Representatives and trial in the Senate for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors".

The Constitution of the United States does not explicitly establish a Cabinet. The Cabinet's role, inferred from the language of the Opinion Clause (Article II, Section 2, Clause 1) of the Constitution is to provide advice to the President. Additionally, the Twenty-fifth Amendment authorizes the vice president, together with a majority of the heads of the executive departments, to declare the president "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office". The heads of the executive departments are—if eligible—in the presidential line of succession.

## Current Cabinet

### In Order of Succession to the Presidency

* Kamala Harris (Vice President)
* Antony Blinken (Secretary of State)
* Dr. Janet Yellen (Secretary of Treasury)
* General Lloyd Austin (Secretary of Defense)
* Merrick Garland (Attorney General)
* Deb Haaland (Secretary of the Interior)
* Tom Vilsack (Secretary of Agriculture)
* Gina Raimondo (Secretary of Commerce)
* Marty Walsh (Secretary of Labor)
* Xavier Becerra (Secretary of Health and Human Services)
* Marcia Fudge (Secretary of Housing and Urban Development)
* Pete Buttigieg (Secretary of Transportation)
* Jennifer Granholm (Secretary of Energy)
* Dr. Miguel Cardona (Secretary of Education)
* Denis McDonough (Secretary of Veterans Affairs)
* Alejandro Mayorkas (Secretary of Homeland Security)
* Michael Regan (Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency)
* Neera Tanden (Director of the Office Management and Budget)
* Avril Haines (Director of National Intelligence)
* Katherine Tai (United States Trade Representative)
* Linda Thomas-Greenfield (United States Ambassador to the United Nations)
* Dr. Cecilia Rouse (Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors)
* Isabel Guzman (Administrator of the Small Business Administration)
* Dr. Eric Lander (Presidential Science Advisor and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy)
* Ron Klain (Chief of Staff)