“Trump, when will you understand that I am not paying for that fucken wall. Be clear with U.S. tax payers. They will pay for it.”
— Former Mexican President Vicente Fox, on Twitter.
Paul Says Trump Wants a Replacement for Obamacare
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tweets: “I just spoke to Donald Trump and he fully supports my plan to replace Obamacare the same day we repeal it. The time to act is now.”
Playbook: “This is becoming a thing and that’s an issue. Why? Because Republicans are nowhere close to being ready to replace the law. One of two things will need to happen: Republicans will have to wait to repeal the law until they come up with a replacement package, or someone will have to emerge with a replacement package now. There is peril in both approaches, obviously. If Republicans wait, they risk the ire of their constituents, who they have been telling they’ll repeal the law on day one. And if they rush a replacement, they hand Democrats a potent attack: Republicans rushed and rammed a health care plan down our throats quickly.”
For members: Effort to Repeal Obamacare Falters In Senate
Trump Insiders Cash In As Lobbyists
Politico: “A growing number of Donald Trump’s allies are rushing straight to K Street to cash in, despite the president-elect’s pledge to restrain the industry, and their prized connections could draw huge paydays. Legitimate ties to Trump and his inner circle are exceedingly rare – and coveted – in a lobbying industry where many established GOP players kept their distance from Trump, or defiantly opposed him, during the bitter primary. Bona fide Trump insiders can expect offers of at least $450,000 a year downtown, according to a person familiar with efforts to recruit them as lobbyists.”
Meanwhile, Politico notes the same is not true for Democrats, as thousands of Obama appointees join the hundreds of Clinton campaign staffers looking for employment: “There’s rarely been less demand for their services.”
Trump Son-In-Law Has His Own Conflicts of Interest
New York Times: “Since the election, intense scrutiny has been trained on Mr. Trump’s company and the potential conflicts of interest he will face. But with Mr. Kushner laying the groundwork for his own White House role, the meeting at the Waldorf shines a light on his family’s multibillion-dollar business, Kushner Companies, and on the ethical thicket he would have to navigate while advising his father-in-law on policy that could affect his bottom line.”
“Unlike the Trump Organization, which has shifted its focus from acquisition to branding of the Trump name, the Kushner family business, led by Mr. Kushner, is a major real estate investor across the New York area and beyond. The company has participated in roughly $7 billion in acquisitions in the last decade, many of them backed by opaque foreign money, as well as financial institutions Mr. Kushner’s father-in-law will soon have a hand in regulating.”
Obama Says Left Helped Undermine Obamacare
President Obama said that criticism from the left wing of his own Democratic Party helped feed into the unpopularity of Obamacare, Reuters reports.
Said Obama: “In the ‘dissatisfied’ column are a whole bunch of Bernie Sanders supporters who wanted a single-payer plan. The problem is not that they think Obamacare is a failure. The problem is that they don’t think it went far enough and that it left too many people still uncovered.”
Tweets Give Congress Taste of What’s to Come
Wall Street Journal: “From 6:19 a.m. to 7:42 a.m., Mr. Trump posted six messages on Twitter in which he criticized the media, tweaked a promise to pay for a border wall and derided Arnold Schwarzenegger for a TV ratings flop—on a show that Mr. Trump himself is producing.”
“It may have been par for the course for candidate Trump, but it capped an extraordinary first week of a new Republican-controlled Congress eager to do business with President-elect Trump, who in turn got a taste for what life will be like in the nation’s capital as the 45th president two weeks from now.”
“It was a study in contrasts. Mr. Trump’s rapid-fire missives about an assortment of topics clashed with typical Washington political tactics that prioritize message discipline and avoiding overexposure.”
Trump Finds Attack Dog Strategy Has Its Limits
New York Times: “That aggressiveness served him well in the presidential campaign, and allowed him to muscle through scandals and self-inflicted management mistakes that would have scuttled a lesser politician. But Mr. Trump’s postelection effort to minimize intelligence assessments about Russia’s actions came to an abrupt end Friday after a detailed classified briefing from the nation’s top intelligence officials at Trump Tower and the release of an unclassified report concluding that the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, had a ‘clear preference’ for Mr. Trump.”
“By the end of the day, it was clear that the strategy of intimidation and bluster that served Mr. Trump so well in the presidential campaign would not prove nearly as effective in Washington. Here was a reminder, should Mr. Trump heed it, that a president’s critics, especially the lords of Washington’s national security establishment, can’t always be cowed by a flash-grenade tweet or a withering quip about the possibility that a “400-lb. hacker” might have breached Democratic servers.”
Ethics Office Struggled to Get In Touch with Trump Team
“The office tasked with overseeing ethics and conflicts in the federal government struggled to gain access to leaders of the Trump transition team, and warned Trump aides about making decisions on nominees or blind trusts without ethics guidance,” according to new emails obtained by MSNBC.
A Sullied Election
David Remnick: “One should continue to demand even more information from the U.S. government, and one can readily concede that Trump won his Electoral College victory for a variety of reasons, including the disaffection of the white working class in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio; the F.B.I. director’s two letters, late in the campaign, about Clinton’s e-mail server; and Clinton’s deficiencies and tactical errors as a candidate.”
“And yet how is it possible, if these intelligence reports are true, to count the 2016 Presidential election as unsullied? We are two weeks away from Trump’s Inauguration, and American intelligence agencies, flawed as they are, have declared, publicly and clearly, that they have convincing evidence that Russia, at its President’s direction, interfered in a Presidential election.”
Another Bonus Quote of the Day
“It was a really great meeting, I really like those people a lot. I learned a lot and I think they did also.”
— President-elect Donald Trump, quoted by the AP, on his meeting with U.S. intelligence agencies.
Republicans Embrace Massive Cost of Border Wall
Washington Post: “The GOP’s willingness to fund Trump’s border wall with taxpayer money could put the party’s deeply held desire to rein in government spending in conflict with its long-standing goal of cracking down on illegal immigration and toughening border security. Nonetheless, many Republicans do not see an inherent conflict.”
“There is no reliable price tag on building a border wall, but Trump has estimated the cost at $8 billion. Recent congressional legislation pegged the number at $10 billion, and construction experts say it could be more than double that.”
“The Trump team is committed to moving forward on the wall quickly and before Republicans become uneasy about the project and its political cost, according to several people close to Trump.”
The Fix: How funding the border wall could go south real quickly for Republicans
Hackers Tried to Break Into DNC Again
“The FBI alerted the Democratic National Committee as recently as New Year’s Eve that hackers were once again trying to break into their computer systems,” BuzzFeed News has learned.
Said one official: “There was activity the day after the president issued sanctions against Russia, looking for ways to get into the servers.”
A Message for Trump Supporters
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.”
