Dr. Nesheiwat is one of five New York City medical directors for CityMD, a chain of urgent care centers across the region, according to a spokeswoman. She has contributed to Fox News since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, speaking about Covid-19, mpox and the importance of cancer screening tests, among other topics.

Her sister Julia Nesheiwat, a former Army officer, was homeland security adviser in the first Trump administration and is married to Representative Mike Waltz of Florida, whom Mr. Trump has tapped to be national security adviser.

Often called “the nation’s doctor,” the surgeon general is responsible for leading thousands of public health officers and communicating key health information to the public. Dr. C. Everett Koop, perhaps the most influential surgeon general in the history of the office, played a key role in changing attitudes about smoking some 40 years ago.

The job is currently held by Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has sought to draw more attention to mental health issues. He wants to require a surgeon general’s warning label for social media and calls loneliness and isolation a public health crisis.

“Dr. Nesheiwat has big shoes to fill in succeeding Dr. Murthy, a leader who spoke to healing our rifts as a nation,” said Dr. Dave Chokshi, the former New York City health commissioner. “Serving as surgeon general is a weighty responsibility, rooted in the physician’s oath to do no harm — and in the duty to be a clarion voice for public health.”

In a social media post, Dr. Nesheiwat pledged “to work tirelessly to promote health, inspire hope, and serve our nation with dedication and compassion.”

A spokeswoman for CityMD said Dr. Nesheiwat has worked there for 12 years. The company has had a major impact on medical care in the city. Many New Yorkers now often find it more convenient to drop by one of its storefront clinics than book an appointment with their primary care doctor because they are open on weekends and into the evenings. During the first year of the pandemic, long lines outside CityMD clinics were a common sight as people sought Covid tests.

In September 2022, Dr. Nesheiwat told NashvilleVoyager that she had taken care of more than 20,000 Covid-related patients over the past two years.

“I do a little bit of everything,” she said, “from taking care of broken bones, lacerations, heart attacks, monkeypox, Covid, flu, appendicitis, etc. The variety keeps me on my toes.”

The selection of a doctor with little public health experience worried some experts. Dr. Howard Markel, a medical historian who has written extensively about epidemics, did note that the job is largely “ceremonial” and less powerful than most Americans assume.

“Still, the surgeon general can move public opinion on our national health with his or her reports and pronouncements,” said Dr. Markel, the author of “Quarantine!,” a book about the 1892 typhus and cholera epidemics in New York. “Consequently, selecting a candidate many might deride as a ‘doc in the box’ director without any real public health credentials or experience is a time bomb without a clear idea of when ‘the boom’ is going to occur.”

Dr. Nesheiwat’s website mentions her forthcoming book “Beyond the Stethoscope: Miracles in Medicine.” She also sells vitamins online.

A moderate from a swing district that includes parts of Portland, Ms. Chavez-DeRemer, 56, is not a major figure in American labor politics. But she was one of only a few House Republicans to support major pro-union legislation, and she split her district’s union endorsements with her Democratic opponent, Janelle Bynum, earning nods from ironworkers, firefighters and local Teamsters.

When the House speaker, Mike Johnson, spoke at a Chavez-DeRemer rally in October, he said, “She’s got more labor union endorsements than any Republican I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Labor leaders criticized Mr. Trump’s policies during his first term as president, and at one point in the race this year, he praised Elon Musk for a willingness to fire workers who go on strike. But Mr. Trump also proposed ending taxes on tips and overtime, and many rank-and-file union members embraced his pro-tariffs economic agenda.

After Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s defeat this month, the president of the Teamsters, Sean O’Brien, urged Mr. Trump to consider her for the labor secretary role, Politico reported. On Friday, Mr. O’Brien praised her selection, posting a photograph on X of himself standing with Mr. Trump and Ms. Chavez-DeRemer.

“North America’s strongest union is ready to work with you every step of the way to expand good union jobs,” he wrote.

Mr. O’Brien courted Mr. Trump throughout the presidential race — to the consternation of some of his membership — even speaking at the Republican National Convention; ultimately, the Teamsters did not endorse a candidate.

Ms. Chavez-DeRemer, who has said her father belonged to the Teamsters, faced one of the toughest re-election battles of any House member this year.

She endorsed Mr. Trump, but she rarely praised him on the campaign trail in her district, where many voters are unaffiliated. Instead, she focused on a law-and-order message and her legislative work on the fentanyl crisis.

In the run-up to Election Day, Ms. Chavez-DeRemer toured a training facility for a local plumbers and steamfitters union, where apprentices practiced their welding skills. The group later endorsed her.

Ms. Chavez-DeRemer began her political rise in Happy Valley, Ore., a Portland suburb where she served as mayor for eight years. On social media on Friday, she thanked Mr. Trump for putting her on the threshold of a cabinet position.

“Working-class Americans finally have a lifeline with you in the White House,” she wrote.

During the Biden administration, the Labor Department — led first by Martin J. Walsh, then by Julie Su — ramped up its enforcement of minimum-wage, overtime and worker-safety rules. Much of that could be reversed after Mr. Trump takes office. In his first four years in the White House, the Labor Department rolled back various worker protections and benefits, from paid leave to worker classifications.

Among the Labor Department’s most far-reaching policies under President Biden was an expansion of overtime eligibility to millions of workers by raising the income cutoff to about $59,000 next year from the $35,500 threshold set by the department under Mr. Trump. A federal judge in Texas struck down the Biden administration’s overtime rule on Nov. 15, and Mr. Trump’s Labor Department could reinforce limitations on how many people would qualify for overtime pay.

Worker classification was another Biden administration priority. Mr. Biden’s Labor Department issued a rule making it more likely that gig workers would be classified as employees rather than independent contractors, entitling them to the federal minimum wage and overtime pay. Mr. Trump’s department could undo that rule, which has faced several lawsuits from businesses seeking to block it. During his first term, Mr. Trump issued a rule that some labor experts argued made it easier for employers to classify workers as independent contractors.

The Labor Department is also responsible for enforcing child labor violations, a mandate that Mr. Biden stepped up. Last year, the department’s wage and hour division instructed officials to seek large monetary penalties from violators. But the Trump administration is likely to tamp down enforcement of child labor rules.

Mr. Trump’s department could walk back or delay Biden-era safety rules, including a proposal by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration requiring employers to protect workers from the health risks of heat. During Mr. Trump’s first term, the Labor Department took aim at safety regulations less directly, too, by instructing the heads of the department’s enforcement agencies to generally refrain from issuing news releases about citations or other enforcement actions against companies.

The Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration during his first term had a chilling effect on immigrant workers, discouraging them from coming forward to discuss workplace issues, said Janice Fine, a professor of labor studies at Rutgers University. That, she said, could play out again and affect the Labor Department’s work, beyond the likely reversal of specific Biden-era measures.

“When immigrant workers don’t come forward, they don’t complain about wage theft and health and safety threats and violations,” Dr. Fine said. “It gets in the way of the government’s ability to protect all workers.”

Maya C. Miller contributed reporting.

“I am confident that Dr. Makary, having dedicated his career to high-quality, lower-cost care will restore the F.D.A. to the gold standard of scientific research and cut the bureaucratic red tape at the agency to make sure Americans get the medical cures and treatments they deserve,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.

Mr. Trump announced two other top health picks on Friday evening as well. He chose Dr. Dave Weldon, a physician and former congressman from Florida, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For years, Dr. Weldon championed the notion that thimerosal, a preservative once used widely in vaccines, caused an explosion of autism cases around the world. In 2007, he backed a bill proposing to take vaccine safety research out of the hands of the C.D.C. Health officials reject the idea that research shows any link between thimerosal and autism.

Mr. Trump also put forward Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a physician and Fox News contributor, to be surgeon general. She worked caring for patients after Hurricane Katrina, an announcement from Mr. Trump said, and on the front lines of the Covid pandemic in New York City. She also markets vitamin B and vitamin C dietary supplements.

Dr. Makary, 54, rose to prominence more than a decade ago as a critic of the medical establishment, speaking out about patient safety and working with hospitals to improve practices. He also gained attention during the pandemic, weighing in on herd immunity, vaccines and masks in 2021, roiling some doctors who were still contending with packed I.C.U.s and hundreds of deaths a week.

As F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Makary would lead an agency that has come under considerable fire from Mr. Kennedy, who would be his boss if confirmed by the Senate to become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Mr. Kennedy has been outspoken in his desire to overhaul the F.D.A., saying he would fire agency staff members who he argued had “suppressed” disputed and sometimes harmful treatments; would gut an entire department; and would clamp down on the food and pharmaceutical industries. Mr. Kennedy has also criticized the so-called user fees from drug and medical device companies that pay for thousands of employees to review industry products and account for nearly half of the agency’s overall budget of $7.2 billion.

Dr. Makary would oversee an agency that regulates a vast swath of the economy, including prescription and over-the-counter drugs, revolutionary cell and gene therapies as well as food, medical devices, tobacco and cosmetics.

The F.D.A. is supposed to ensure that the pharmaceutical supply chain is secure. It sends staff employees to inspect food and drug facilities in the United States and overseas to verify that drugs are potent and injectable therapies are sterile. The agency also oversees recalls of harmful products, including fresh produce and other foods that can become contaminated with deadly pathogens, like E. coli or listeria.

Dr. Makary is well known in certain circles. He has cultivated a high-profile public perch for criticizing government and the medical community, writing a series of books and opinion articles and appearing as a Fox News commentator on medical issues.

He ignited controversy by declaring in early 2021 that herd immunity from previous infections, or the idea that people would be broadly protected after the Omicron surge, was just weeks away, eliciting a considerable outcry from other doctors. On vaccines, he was largely opposed to mandates and also criticized the administration for minimizing the benefits of protection gained after a Covid infection over that from vaccines.

“I have argued for months that we could save more American lives if those with prior Covid-19 infection forgo vaccines until all vulnerable seniors get their first dose,” Dr. Makary wrote in an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal in 2021.

If he is confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Makary would preside over the very agency that has the primary responsibility for deciding whether to approve vaccines such as annual flu and Covid shots that are updated as the viruses mutate. The F.D.A. also evaluates continuing safety concerns for possible regulatory action. Such actions could include enhancing warnings, placing conditions on how therapies are used or even removing products from the market.

Whether Mr. Kennedy sets new parameters for vaccines — he has argued that they were not vetted properly for safety or effectiveness — could conflict with Dr. Makary’s long-held views in support of immunizations as protection against a variety of diseases. In his most recent book, Dr. Makary advocated for a universal flu vaccine that could make the shots more effective.

In recent months, Dr. Makary has publicly sought to align his views with the current pronouncements of Mr. Kennedy, who had run his own campaign for president before being embraced by Mr. Trump as a top health adviser. Dr. Makary contended that Mr. Kennedy’s skepticism about vaccines had evolved. “I would say people should not dissect what he said 30 years ago, and listen to what he’s saying now,” Dr. Makary said on Fox News on Sunday. “He’s saying very clearly he’s not anti-vax, he’s not going to remove or take away anyone’s vaccines.”

Yet Mr. Kennedy has only recently backed off his attacks on vaccines, said Dr. Paul Offit, who is the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and is an adviser to the F.D.A. Dr. Offit doubted whether Mr. Kennedy’s long-held views had changed significantly since last year, when he said on the computer scientist Lex Fridman’s podcast that there was “no vaccine that is safe and effective.” (Mr. Kennedy later said he was interrupted and meant to say no vaccine is safe and effective for everyone.)

“That somebody like Marty Makary sort of whitewashes his opinions, in order to get a position in the administration, is even more upsetting,” Dr. Offit said.

He added that Mr. Kennedy, given the power of the role he could assume as head of H.H.S., “could do an enormous amount of harm.”

Dr. Makary has worked with a Trump administration before. During Mr. Trump’s first term in office, he helped on a drug price transparency executive order and was at the White House for the signing.

Dr. Makary has also echoed Mr. Kennedy’s enthusiasm for taking a critical look at the root causes of rising rates of diseases that affect children and adults, including obesity, and increases in the incidence of cancer among young people.

Food safety and the ingredients in food have been popular targets of Mr. Kennedy, who has often said that eliminating harmful chemicals will be a major goal of his. That’s an area where the F.D.A. exercises some oversight: It regulates about 80 percent of the U.S. food supply. Food policy groups, typically aligned with Democrats, that have grown impatient with the F.D.A. have had some success in turning to the states, including California, to take up that cause in the absence of federal action.

“For the first time ever, we’re now seeing a focus on addressing the health of our nation’s children and the chronic disease epidemic,” Dr. Makary said during a post-election interview on Fox News. “And that’s exciting a lot of people.”

Mr. Kennedy’s vows to drastically alter food policy could collide with the overall missions of deregulation and cost-cutting outlined already by the incoming Trump administration, and could rile the powerful food and agricultural industries, which have stalwart Republican allies in Congress.

Another point of contention may involve the drug industry. Dr. Makary has aired concerns that Americans are too reliant on drugs, saying the nation has the most overmedicated and sickest population in the world.

“The best way to lower drug costs in the U.S. are to stop taking drugs we don’t need,” he said during a Senate round table in September.

In a note to investors, Brian Abrahams, head of global health care research with RBC Capital, said that compared with Mr. Kennedy, Dr. Makary is “less apt to dismantle” the F.D.A. and would be expected to leave core agency work to existing staff. But he added that Dr. Makary seems likely to “evolve the agency toward a more industry-unfriendly stance.”

In recent years, Dr. Makary has appeared before congressional committees as an expert reflecting Republican views. But he also has some history with Democrats: He donated $1,000 to Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. He also serves on the board of Harrow Eye, an ophthalmology drug company, which reported paying him $40,000 in 2023.

Dr. Makary was born in England, but moved to the United States as a child and was reared in rural Pennsylvania. An accomplished surgeon and member of the elite National Academy of Medicine, Dr. Makary holds establishment credentials, including a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University. He is the Mark Ravitch chair in gastrointestinal surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and teaches public health policy as a professor at the university’s school of public health.

Dr. Makary would succeed Dr. Robert M. Califf, who made his name as a clinical trial leader at Duke University and spoke extensively as commissioner about the danger of misinformation and the problems of high costs and chronic disease.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Benjamin Mueller contributed reporting.

The choice of Mr. Vought would bring in a strongly ideological figure who played a pivotal role in Mr. Trump’s first term, when he also served as budget chief. Among other things, Mr. Vought helped come up with the idea of having Mr. Trump use emergency power to circumvent Congress’s decision about how much to spend on a border wall.

Mr. Vought was a leading figure in Project 2025, the effort by conservative organizations to build a governing blueprint for Mr. Trump should he take office once again. Mr. Trump tried to distance himself from the effort during his campaign, but he has put forward people with ties to the project for his administration since the election.

Mr. Vought’s role in Project 2025 was to oversee executive orders and other unilateral actions that Mr. Trump could take during his first six months in office, with the goal of tearing down and rebuilding executive branch institutions in a way that would enhance presidential power.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2023, Mr. Vought laid out an agenda of eliminating the independence of certain regulatory agencies that operate outside the direct control of the White House, such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The independent structure of those agencies has been a central part of how Congress has set up the administrative state since the New Deal. But Mr. Vought sees the modern structure of government as a theft of the president’s rightful powers.

“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” Mr. Vought said at the time, adding of the Federal Reserve: “It’s very hard to square the Fed’s independence with the Constitution.”

Mr. Vought has a long history in the conservative movement, including stints working for the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation and for Mike Pence when he was a member of Congress. But it was in the Trump era — and especially after Mr. Trump’s presidency — that Mr. Vought became a figure of national prominence.

In the final week of Mr. Trump’s presidency, in mid-January 2021, Mr. Vought told Mr. Trump about his plan to set up the Center for Renewing America to keep his policies alive. Mr. Trump blessed the idea and later helped raise money for the group, hosting Mr. Vought at Mar-a-Lago and praising his efforts to a large gathering of wealthy donors.

Mr. Vought kept in close touch with Mr. Trump for the next three years, according to people with knowledge of the relationship. They would talk often by phone, and Mr. Vought made trips to Mr. Trump’s private clubs in Palm Beach, Fla., and Bedminster, N.J.

He also sought to maintain a productive relationship with Mr. Trump’s top political adviser, Susie Wiles, though Ms. Wiles and others in the senior ranks of the campaign occasionally expressed irritation privately at some of Mr. Vought’s more radical policy statements in the press, according to two people with knowledge of the comments. Mr. Trump has named Ms. Wiles chief of staff in his new administration.

Still, Mr. Vought was appointed to lead the policy platform committee for the Republican National Convention this year.

But as Project 2025 became more controversial, Mr. Vought’s relationship with the Trump campaign grew more distant. He receded from view and the Trump transition proceeded under the explicit directive, from its co-chair Howard Lutnick, to deny formal roles to anybody associated with Project 2025.

Now that Mr. Trump has won the election, Mr. Vought has come back into public view, including sitting for a lengthy interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which he posted on social media on Monday. Mr. Carlson has broad influence in Mr. Trump’s circle.

In the interview, Mr. Vought laid out ideas for how Mr. Trump “has to move executively as fast and as aggressively as possible, with a radical constitutional perspective, to be able to dismantle” the power of federal agencies and civil servants.

“The American people currently are not in control of their government, and the president hasn’t been either,” Mr. Vought said. “We have to solve the woke and the weaponized bureaucracy and have the president take control of the executive branch.”

Even before Project 2025 became a campaign issue, Mr. Vought’s think tank was a home for proposals that were too radioactive even among the highly conservative audiences.

In one case, Mr. Vought’s group published a legal framework for Mr. Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy federal troops on domestic soil. Its public white paper on the topic framed the issue in terms of using the military to patrol the southern border against migrants. But the legal arguments would be the same to use troops to crush demonstrations by American protesters, like the racial justice protests that erupted in the summer of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, which sometimes turned violent.

Mr. Vought’s group listed using the Insurrection Act to stop riots as a “Day 1” idea, meaning one whose legal framework was already well established, and which could be put into effect by a president unilaterally, according to an internal email from early 2023 reviewed by The Times.

“Insurrection — stop riots ** — Day 1, easy,” the email said.

Mr. Vought also offered a professional home and employment to Jeffrey B. Clark, the former high-ranking Justice Department official criminally charged in Georgia in connection with efforts to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in that state.

Mr. Clark wrote a paper, published by Mr. Vought’s group, that advocates eliminating the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department investigative independence from the White House — another idea listed on the group’s internal email.

Mr. Vought has proved more radical than others in the conservative movement in another way. In the first Trump administration, lawyers in the mold of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, at times acted to constrain Mr. Trump’s impulses.

But Mr. Vought is among a faction of MAGA supporters who have come to see the Federalist Society as too soft for an era in which, they believe, liberals and Democrats pose an existential threat to the nation.

“The Federalist Society doesn’t know what time it is,” Mr. Vought declared in an interview last year.

“Scott is widely respected as one of the World’s foremost International Investors and Geopolitical and Economic Strategists,” Mr. Trump said in a statement posted on social media. “Scott’s story is that of the American Dream.”

“Together, we will Make America Rich Again, Prosperous Again, Affordable Again, and most importantly, Great Again,” Mr. Trump said.

Although Mr. Bessent’s policy ideas are in lock step with conservative economic principles, one aspect of his background could draw questions from Republicans. He rose to prominence in the finance world as a protégé of George Soros, the billionaire Democratic donor and longtime villain of the right wing, and served for years as his top money manager.

The selection came after intensive deliberation by Mr. Trump and his advisers, who debated for weeks about who should win the most prominent economic job in his administration. Mr. Bessent and Howard Lutnick, the chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, tussled over the job before Mr. Lutnick was picked to be commerce secretary this week. Mr. Trump also considered tapping Kevin Warsh, a former Federal Reserve Board governor, and Marc Rowan, the chief executive of Apollo Global Management, for the role.

If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Bessent would take over a department with vast responsibilities that is at the core of the federal government. The Treasury Department issues debt to fund the government’s operations and pay its bills, including paying Social Security and veterans benefits.

But the most visible parts of Mr. Bessent’s job will be shepherding the administration’s tax plans through Congress, leading economic negotiations with China and overseeing the nation’s sanctions program.

Mr. Bessent will be taking over the department at a time when the American economy is the strongest in the world and as years of rapid inflation have finally come under control. However, the national debt is approaching $36 trillion, and the campaign policies proposed by Mr. Trump could cost as much as $15 trillion over a decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

At Treasury, Mr. Bessent will be responsible for turning many of Mr. Trump’s unconventional campaign ideas into policy. The president-elect has called for eliminating taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security benefits. He also wants to impose blanket tariffs as high as 50 percent on imports and to enact higher import duties on goods from some countries.

Mr. Bessent will be in the middle of what is expected to be a time of growing tension between the Trump White House and the Federal Reserve.

During his first term, Mr. Trump raged publicly on social media about the interest rate policies of Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, and as a candidate this year he has suggested that presidents should have input on interest rates.

Mr. Bessent laid out a plan last month to undercut Mr. Powell by naming someone else to the position well before Mr. Powell’s term expires — a move that would widely be seen as interfering in the central bank’s independence. However, Mr. Bessent subsequently downplayed the merits of the idea.

Mr. Bessent’s credentials bear some similarities to those of Mr. Trump’s first Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. Both are Yale-educated finance titans who are familiar operating in Democratic circles.

In 2011, Mr. Bessent was recruited by Mr. Soros to be the chief investment officer of his $30 billion Soros Fund Management. Four years later, Mr. Bessent took a $2 billion investment from Mr. Soros to start his own fund, Key Square.

Mr. Bessent and his husband have two children. He has taught classes at Yale on the history of hedge funds, 20th century “booms and busts” and the 2007 financial crisis.

A longtime Republican donor, Mr. Bessent has also given money to some Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. In 2000, he hosted a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee in support of Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate for president that year.

Mr. Bessent has been one of Mr. Trump’s most prominent fund-raisers this year.

Despite his previous donations to Democrats, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, criticized the choice of Mr. Bessent on Friday.

“Donald Trump pretends to be an economic populist, but it wouldn’t be a Trump Treasury Department without a rich political donor running the show,” Mr. Wyden said. “When it comes to the economy, the government under Trump is of, by and for the ultrawealthy.”

Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho, the top Republican on the finance committee, praised the selection, citing Mr. Bessent’s “extensive private sector experience and market knowledge.”

As an adviser to Mr. Trump, Mr. Bessent became a vocal critic of the economic agenda being pitched by Democrats.

At a campaign rally in South Carolina in August, Mr. Bessent warned of a “Kamala crash” if Vice President Kamala Harris were elected, and he won the praise of Mr. Trump, who described him as “one of the most brilliant men on Wall Street.”

At Treasury, Mr. Bessent will have to quickly get up to speed with managing a thicket of challenging issues.

The Biden administration has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia that the Treasury Department is responsible for enforcing. The debt limit, which caps how much the government can borrow, is suspended until early January, at which time Mr. Bessent will need to use “extraordinary measures” to allow the federal government to keep paying its bills. And if Mr. Trump embarks on new trade wars with China, Mexico or Europe, Mr. Bessent will be responsible for trying to calm financial markets.

In an interview with CNBC after the election, Mr. Bessent was already smoothing out some of Mr. Trump’s proposed policies, which economists have said could ignite a new bout of inflation and slow the economy.

Mr. Bessent suggested that Mr. Trump’s tax ideas would have to be negotiated in Congress with Republicans, who will not want to widen deficits. He also said that it would be prudent if any tariffs were phased in so that any associated “price adjustment” could be absorbed gradually by the economy.

And Mr. Bessent was mindful that high prices were one of the reasons that Ms. Harris lost the election and predicted that Mr. Trump would want to avoid policies that increase costs.

“President Trump has some very good ideas,” Mr. Bessent said. “But I guarantee you the last thing he wants is to cause inflation.”