“Nikki Haley pushed back Wednesday against President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that she wouldn’t be welcome in his new administration, pointing out that she had long said she wasn’t interested and revealing she had been contacted by his transition team,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Said Haley: “I know the game he was playing. I don’t need to play that game. He can be shallow at times, and I think he showed that.”
“Jurors in former Sen. Bob Menendez’s corruption trial had access to evidence they should not have seen, federal prosecutors disclosed Wednesday in a surprise legal filing,” Politico reports.
“During Menendez’s two-month corruption trial, a federal judge ruled that certain evidence could not be shown to jurors without treading on a form of immunity given to members of Congress.”
Donald Trump told the New York Post that he and President Biden had a “really good meeting” at the White House yesterday.
Said Trump: “I wanted to know his views on where we are and what he thinks. And he gave them to me, he was very gracious.”
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“The president and co-founder of Donald Trump Jr.’s publishing company, Sergio Gor, has been offered the low-profile, influential job leading the Presidential Personnel Office in Donald Trump’s incoming administration,” Semafor reports.
“He appears to have beaten out a high-profile rival for the role: Blake Masters — the venture capitalist, former political candidate, and ‘protege’ of Peter Thiel — was viewed as the top choice in pro-Trump tech circles.”
New York Times: “The role sounds administrative but can wield power, particularly for a president who, in his first term in office and in the transition before his second one, is keenly focused on who fills what jobs and whether prospective staff meet his perception of loyalty.”
New York Times: “Mr. Trump’s gamble that courting this ‘young world’ — an increasingly influential sphere of podcasts and personalities built for, inhabited and consumed overwhelmingly by young men — would motivate them to vote for him appears to have paid off, at least according to early data.”
“And while many factors contributed to Mr. Trump’s victory, Democrats are seizing on exit polling that suggests he improved his performance with Gen Z men, with a focus on the so-called manoverse, as they seek to rebuild a fractured coalition after Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss. As young men increasingly reported feeling left behind, Mr. Trump wooed them in part by tapping into a right-leaning online media ecosystem that celebrated traditional masculinity while speaking to their economic insecurities.”
“A close aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Donald Trump and Jared Kushner this week that Israel is rushing to advance a cease-fire deal in Lebanon, with the aim of delivering an early foreign policy win to the president-elect,” the Washington Post reports.
“President-elect Donald Trump’s aides are readying unconventional strategies to implement at least some recommendations from a new government spending commission with or without congressional approval,” the Washington Post reports.
“Although changes to government spending typically require an act of Congress, Trump aides are exploring plans to challenge a 1974 budget law in a way that would give the White House the power to unilaterally adopt the Musk commission’s proposals.”
“It is unclear if Trump will ask Congress to approve changes to the budget law or first appeal to the courts to do so, though aides have previously endorsed either approach.”
“After years of financial growth, Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine nonprofit group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recorded a more than 30% drop in revenue last year, to $16 million, according to recent tax filings,” NBC News reports.
Amid all the House leadership election developments yesterday, Republicans clinched a deal that could make the tight majority somewhat easier to manage: Conservative hard-liners agreed to raise the threshold for the infamous “motion to vacate” — i.e., ousting a sitting speaker — from one vote to nine, Politico reports.
The Bulwark: “None of the attorneys had what Trump wants, and they didn’t talk like Gaetz. Everyone else looked at AG as if they were applying for a judicial appointment. They talked about their vaunted legal theories and constitutional bullshit. Gaetz was the only one who said, ‘yeah, I’ll go over there and start cuttin’ fuckin’ heads.’”
Playbook: “The Gaetz-for-AG plan came together yesterday, just hours before it was announced, Meridith tells us. It was hatched aboard Trump’s airplane en route to Washington, on which Gaetz was a passenger. A Trump official revealed more details to Playbook late last night: Boris Epshteyn played a central role in the development, lobbying Trump to choose Gaetz while incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles was in a different, adjacent room on the plane, apparently unaware.”
“In short: Many in Trump’s inner circle were blindsided and are not exactly happy.”
“Pennsylvania’s nationally watched U.S. Senate race is headed to a recount after Sen. Bob Casey did not waive an automatic recount,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
New York Times: “This parade of loyalists is Mr. Trump’s first show of force to Senate Republicans, who will be under immense pressure to either confirm his nominee or sidestep that process altogether. But it is also something of a denial-of-service attack against one of the checks on the presidency: Mr. Trump has insisted that the next Senate majority leader allow for recess appointments, which would grant him the ability to unilaterally install cabinet members.”
NBC News: Hitting government with a ‘blowtorch’: Trump’s Cabinet picks are the first step in carrying out his agenda.
“A historically long and divisive fight to choose one speaker. A near default on the federal debt, followed by a mutiny on the House floor and multiple government shutdown scares. The ouster of the speaker, followed by weeks of paralysis and another vicious fight over who should lead next,” the New York Times reports.
“For almost two years, House Republicans have barely been able to overcome their own intraparty feuding to keep the government functioning. But despite it all, they emerged on Wednesday night, when The Associated Press declared that Republicans had effectively won control of the House, with a wafer-thin majority almost identical to the one they have now.”
“The apparent success of their battle to keep control of the House of Representatives suggests that they paid little political price for the chaos and dysfunction they presided over, a period when Congress struggled to carry out even the basics of governing.”
“President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, former Democratic lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard, has been accused of amplifying Russian propaganda and would come to the job having never worked in the intelligence world or served on a congressional intelligence committee,” NBC News reports.
“Gabbard, who served in the Hawaii Army National Guard and was deployed to Iraq with a medical unit, has long criticized U.S. foreign policy as imperial and heavy-handed. She also has sharply criticized Trump in the past over his approach to the Middle East during his first presidential term, portraying him as dangerous.”
“As director of national intelligence, a position created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Gabbard would oversee 18 intelligence agencies with a budget of about $70 billion and serve as the principal adviser to the president on intelligence matters.”
Jeff Stein: Trump picks shock national security world.
“President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Matt Gaetz — a Florida congressman who was recently the target of an FBI investigation — to be the next attorney general of the United States sent shockwaves through the Justice Department on Wednesday,” NBC News reports.
Said one official: “What the fuck is happening?!”
Said another: “I’m struggling to find words. And look, he is uniquely qualified. How many other prospective attorneys general had previous experience as the subject of a criminal investigation?”
“President-elect Donald Trump is seriously considering naming his lead attorney Todd Blanche to serve as the next deputy attorney general, the second-highest position in the Justice Department,” CNN reports.
“Blanche has represented Trump for the last 18 months and defended him during his criminal hush money trial in Manhattan earlier this year. He has grown close to the president-elect in that time period and is often seen with Trump in Palm Beach and when he travels. Because of his proximity and Trump’s trust in him, it was widely expected inside Trump’s inner circle that if he won, Blanche would likely follow him into the federal government.”
“Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team are drawing up a list of military officers to be fired, potentially to include the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in what would be an unprecedented shakeup at the Pentagon,” Reuters reports.
“The planning for the firings is at an early stage after Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory and could change as Trump’s administration takes shape.”
Rudy Giuliani’s lawyers said in a court filing that they are quitting after they say he’s taken actions or insisted on arguments they disagree with.
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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