When then-presidential candidate Donald Trump was on the campaign trail in October 2024, he singled out a handful of Republicans in a crowd of thousands at a boisterous rally in Albuquerque.

Among them was former New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce, whom Trump called "a very special guy and a friend of mine."

Now, Trump wants to make Pearce part of his administration.

The president on Wednesday nominated Pearce, a conservative Republican who represented New Mexico's 2nd Congressional District for multiple terms, to lead the U.S Bureau of Land Management, an agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages about 245 million acres of public land and an additional 700 million acres of subsurface mineral rights.

Pearce, 78, who declined to comment on the nomination, wasn't the

See Full Page