Keith Olbermann tries to understand.
Report Concludes Putin Ordered Election Interference
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a widespread influence campaign intended to help elect Donald Trump, according to a declassified report released this afternoon.
From the report: “Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”
Trump Suggests Briefing Confirmed His View
President-elect Donald Trump emerged from a meeting with the nation’s top intelligence officials declaring that the session had been “constructive,” but concluded that whatever hacking had occurred “there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump’s statement seemed designed to create the impression that this was the view of the intelligence officials… But weighing whether Russia’s intervention altered the outcome of the 2016 race was beyond the scope of the review that the nation’s spy agencies completed this week.”
Trump also said that there had been similar attacks against the Republican National Committee but that those attacks failed because of the RNC’s “strong hacking defenses.”
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my lifetime. The fact that the president-elect is tweeting on this issue and taking it to the public, and in many ways undermining the credibility of the very intelligence agencies that have to provide information to him in order for him to be president of the United States, this is just unheard of and unprecedented, and I think we all have to be concerned about this.”
— Former CIA Director Leon Panetta, in an interview with NBC News, on Donald Trump’s criticism of the U.S. intelligence agencies.
Effort to Repeal Obamacare Falters In Senate
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Trump’s Pick Named Chair of Ohio GOP
“John Kasich’s hand-picked chairman of the Ohio GOP will step into an emeritus role, ceding leadership of the party to a Donald Trump-backed challenger, under a deal reached Friday at the state party’s meeting,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.
“The deal marks a victory for the president-elect over the Ohio governor, former primary rivals who have feuded for months.”
Trump Still Answers His Cell Phone
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) says he’s thrilled with the “unbelievable” access he’s getting to Donald Trump, noting that the president-elect will answer his phone calls even when he doesn’t know who’s calling, Politico reports.
Said Corker: “The president-elect, as you know, still answers his cellphone number.”
Trump Calls Focus on Russia a ‘Witch Hunt’
President-elect Donald Trump told the New York Times that “the storm surrounding Russian hacking during the presidential campaign is a political witch hunt being carried out by his adversaries, who he said were embarrassed by their loss to him in the election last year.”
Said Trump: “With all that being said, I don’t want countries to be hacking our country. They’ve hacked the White House. They’ve hacked Congress. We’re like the hacking capital of the world.”
First Read: “You can count on maybe one hand the issues where Trump has been very consistent. So his constant position here — at least before today’s briefing — is striking.”
Trump Orders All Envoys Home
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition staff “has issued a blanket edict requiring politically appointed ambassadors to leave their overseas posts by Inauguration Day… breaking with decades of precedent by declining to provide even the briefest of grace periods,” the New York Times reports.
“The mandate — issued ‘without exceptions,’ according to a terse State Department cable sent on Dec. 23, diplomats who saw it said — threatens to leave the United States without Senate-confirmed envoys for months in critical nations like Germany, Canada and Britain. In the past, administrations of both parties have often granted extensions on a case-by-case basis to allow a handful of ambassadors, particularly those with school-age children, to remain in place for weeks or months.”
When Grudges Weren’t Settled by Tweets
Tom Eblen: “When politicians want to settle scores these days, they often pick up their phones and tweet insults at each other. Things were more dangerous in Henry Clay’s time.”
“The Lexington resident, who was one of America’s most prominent statesmen in the early 19th century, fought two duels with pistols against political opponents, and he suffered a wound that left him with a slight limp for the rest of his life.”
Warren Will Run Again
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) announced this morning that she is running for reelection in 2018, the Boston Globe reports.
Said Warren: “The people of Massachusetts didn’t send me to Washington to roll over and play dead while Donald Trump and his team of billionaires, bigots, and Wall Street bankers crush the working people of our Commonwealth and this country. This is no time to quit.”
She added: “I don’t kid myself: the upcoming fights in the Senate – and our campaign in Massachusetts in 2018 – are likely to be uglier and nastier than anything we’ve ever imagined. I’m not taking anything for granted.”
Most Say Don’t Repeal Obamacare Without Replacement
A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that 75% of Americans say they either want lawmakers to leave Obamacare alone, or repeal it only when they can replace it with a new health care law.
Twenty percent of those polled say they want to see the law killed immediately.
Conservatives Now Willing to Explode National Debt
“Some of the most conservative members of Congress say they are ready to vote for a budget that would — at least on paper — balloon the deficit to more than $1 trillion by the end of the decade, all for the sake of eventually repealing the Affordable Care Act,” the Washington Post reports.
“In a dramatic reversal, many members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus said Thursday they are prepared later this month to support a budget measure that would explode the deficit and increase the public debt to more than $29.1 trillion by 2026, figures contained in the budget resolution itself.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I don’t think we can just repeal Obamacare and say we’re going to get the answer two years from now.”
— Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), in an interview with NBC News.
Trump Hotel Raises Drink Prices Again
Washingtonian: “And you thought the $14 cocktail was too pricey? The Trump hotel’s lobby bar has raised its cocktail prices yet again. The cheapest option now is $24, while the most expensive is $100. It’s safe to say the Trump hotel’s Benjamin Bar & Lounge is now the most expensive overall bar in all of Washington, and its price hikes are the hugest I’ve ever seen, especially in such a short period.”
Trump Goes to War with Kasich
Cleveland Plain Dealer: “The call was part of Trump’s last-minute effort in what has become an all-out political war with Ohio Gov. John Kasich. On Friday, Simpson and 65 other members of the GOP’s state central committee will vote on whether to dump Kasich ally Matt Borges as their chairman. Trump is backing Jane Timken, a prominent Republican activist and donor from Stark County.”
“Kasich is calling committee members on Borges’ behalf. But Trump’s involvement in the intraparty battle is an extraordinary step for an incoming president and shows how eager he is to settle scores that date to Kasich’s failed White House bid.”
Politico: “A Trump transition aide said the president-elect had phoned around a dozen committee members.”
GOP Begins to Worry About Repeal Consequences
Playbook: “We’re hearing more and more from rank-and-file Republicans that they are afraid they’ll never be able to insure as many people as Obamacare does — and they all, to a person, worry about the steep political consequences.”
For members: The GOP Faces Big Risks in Repealing Obamacare
Mattis Clashing with Trump Transition Team
“The honeymoon seems to be ending between retired Gen. James Mattis and Donald Trump’s transition team amid an increasingly acrimonious dispute over who will get top jobs in the Defense Department — and who gets to make those decisions,” the Washington Post reports.
“With only two weeks left before Inauguration Day and days before Mattis’s Senate confirmation hearing, most major Pentagon civilian positions remain unfilled. Behind the scenes, Mattis has been rejecting large numbers of candidates offered by the transition team for several top posts, two sources close to the transition said. The dispute over personnel appointments is contributing to a tenser relationship between Mattis and the transition officials, which could set the stage for turf wars between the Pentagon and the White House in the coming Trump administration.”
