Axios: “Trump has been in a strikingly imperial mood since his election victory. He has floated acquiring Greenland, reclaiming the Panama Canal, annexing Canada, and potentially invading Mexico — to the intense consternation of their leaders.”
“In each case, Trump is blending trolling, negotiation and intimidation.”
Axios: “Nearly a dozen House Democrats tell Axios that party members need to increase their appearances on conservative-leaning and non-traditional platforms, or risk irrelevance.”
“They say they no longer can look past the huge audiences offered by Fox News and conservative podcasts, whose messaging power became evident when Republicans swept the White House and both chambers of Congress in last month’s election.”
“Top CEOs and their companies are pledging to donate millions of dollars to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, as they seek to get on his good side and make inroads before he takes office,” CNBC reports.
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Associated Press: “With Donald Trump returning to the White House, there is intense interest in how the Republican will carry out his immigration agenda, including a campaign pledge of mass deportations.”
“His priorities could run into the realities faced by agents focused on enforcement and removals, including the unit in New York that offered The Associated Press a glimpse into its operations: The number of people already on its lists to target eclipses the number of officers available to do the work.”
“As Donald Trump’s nominee to run the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Scott Turner may soon oversee the nation’s efforts to build affordable apartments, protect poor tenants and aid the homeless. As a lawmaker in the Texas House of Representatives, Turner voted against those very initiatives,” ProPublica reports.
“Turner supported a bill ensuring landlords could refuse apartments to applicants because they received federal housing assistance. He opposed a bill to expand affordable rental housing. He voted against funding public-private partnerships to support the homeless and against two bills that called merely to study homelessness among young people and veterans.”
“Behind those votes lay a deep-seated skepticism about the value of government efforts to alleviate poverty, a skepticism that Turner has voiced again and again.”
Politico: “Democrats are starting to cobble together a playbook for the second Trump era: Mock Republicans for their dysfunction, attack the incoming president for being a step behind Elon Musk and keep praising themselves as the adults in the room.”
“I just felt like, he tried to kill me once. I’m not available for it again.”
— Rep. Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH), quoted by Roll Call, on Donald Trump, the Jan. 6 insurrection and one of the reasons she decided to retire.
New York Times: “A look at the people who influence the world’s richest man, and those who stand to gain from their association with him now.”
Greenland’s prime minister said Monday the autonomous island is not for sale after President-elect Donald Trump said owning Greenland “is an absolute necessity” for the U.S., The Hill reports.
Said Prime Minister Múte Egede: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale.”
“President Joe Biden on Monday signed into law a defense bill that authorizes significant pay raises for junior enlisted service members, aims to counter China’s growing power and boosts overall military spending to $895 billion despite his objections to language stripping coverage of transgender medical treatments for children in military families,” NBC News reports.
“President Joe Biden has vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have added dozens of new federal judge positions in the coming years,” Politico reports.
“The president had threatened to veto the bill because he didn’t want to give the president-elect new appointment opportunities, according to one of the outgoing president’s closest allies.”
“President-elect Donald Trump has tapped multiple people for overlapping foreign affairs posts. Get ready for turf battles and confusion over who’s in charge,” Politico reports.
“The positions include special envoys whose exact responsibilities are unusually vague and that echo roles traditionally played by ambassadors, assistant secretaries of State and National Security Council staffers.”
Elaine Godfrey: “The normal rules of public disgrace may no longer apply to Donald Trump. But at least some expectation of good behavior remains, it seems, for a politician in Trump’s orbit…”
“A man who reportedly dreams of being Florida governor is now facing the blunt reality of his own political irrelevance.”
New York Times: “Heading into the 2024 election, the conservative group Turning Point Action made a risky and expensive bet as it tried to fix Republicans’ early-voting problem: It zeroed in on infrequent voters who seemed to lean to the right.”
“Calling its effort ‘Chase the Vote,’ the group focused heavily on Arizona, where it is based and says it spent tens of millions of dollars to help elect Donald Trump. Hundreds of paid staff members worked to build enduring relationships with Arizonans whom Turning Point saw as friendly to Republicans, targeting a smaller universe of voters than traditional canvassing operations.”
“Turning Point’s gamble appears to have paid off, at least in Arizona.”
Ron Brownstein: “This time, Trump’s fate will be much more in his own hands. If he can deliver greater economic stability for working families, while avoiding too many firefights on militant MAGA priorities, strategists in both parties agree that he will be in a strong position to consolidate the gains he’s made among traditionally Democratic constituencies, such as Black, Latino, and younger white men.”
“But if an unbound Trump veers in directions that too many voters don’t want to follow—including vaccine skepticism, politicizing the criminal-justice system against his opponents, and the separation of undocumented parents from their U.S.-citizen children—he could quickly shrink his coalition again. And if his economic agenda rekindles inflation, as many independent analysts forecast, that effect will only be stronger.”
“Even in our highly polarized age, the fundamental hydraulics of America’s two-party system still govern elections: When one party falls in the public’s esteem, the other inevitably rises.”
The House Ethics Committee officially released its report into former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
Associated Press: “While ethics reports have previously been released after a member’s resignation, it is extremely rare.”
President-elect Donald Trump announced he will bring back Mount McKinley after the mountain was changed in favor of the native population.
Said Trump: “We’re going to bring back the name of Mount McKinley. He deserves it.”
“House Democrats are sending an early warning signal to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) that he shouldn’t count on them to rescue him again,” Axios reports.
“Johnson will have the barest of majorities next year — and he’s staring down growing unrest within the Republican conference.”
Said one swing state Democrat: “I have thought multiple times that I would help Johnson in a tough Speaker vote because he was true to his word even in hard times. That has absolutely changed now. Trust is all we have in these negotiations. I thought Johnson was truly different. He’s no better than McCarthy. He’s getting no help from me and I know many of my colleagues feel the same.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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