The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) will be led by John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence under US President-elect Donald Trump, when the Republican retakes the White House in January, Trump revealed Tuesday.

It is expected that Ratcliffe, 59, will give top priority to thwarting foreign enemies like China and Iran that pose a threat to national security. He will be in charge of an agency that had a tense relationship with Trump throughout his first term in office if the Senate confirms him.

On social media throughout his first term, Trump regularly attacked American intelligence services while also occasionally applauding enemies such as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Intelligence agencies’ conclusions that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to help Trump were a major factor in the tense relationship. He regularly charged that he and his supporters were being “weaponised” by the “deep state.” Trump publicly sided with Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies’ findings regarding Moscow’s election meddling during the 2018 Helsinki meeting, which was a noteworthy moment.

Trump declared in a statement that he would “fight fearlessly for the Constitutional Rights of all Americans, while ensuring the highest levels of national security and PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”

where he was elected for the first time in 2014.

After serving as a Republican congressman from Texas, where he was first elected in 2014, John Ratcliffe was appointed director of national intelligence at the conclusion of Trump’s first term.