Chris Kennedy (D), son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, is interviewing potential pollsters and consultants as he moves toward a possible 2018 gubernatorial run in Illinois, Politico reports.
“Top Illinois Democrats who have met with Kennedy say they would welcome his candidacy but were not sure if he’ll actually make the run, given his flirtations with higher office in the past.”
President-elect Donald Trump “has settled on Gen. John F. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general whose son was killed in combat in Afghanistan, as his choice for secretary of homeland security, placing defense of American territory from terrorism in the hands of a seasoned commander with personal exposure to the costs of war,” the New York Times reports.
“The president-elect plans to roll out the appointment next week, along with his remaining national security positions, including secretary of state.”
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) told the Minneapolis Star Tribune he will vacate his Congressional seat if he wins the chairman job at the Democratic National Committee.
“Ellison conceded Wednesday that a full-time chair is what the party wanted after the losses of the 2016 presidential and Congressional elections. He said he came to the decision after difficult soul-searching and hearing from the more than 400 voting members of the DNC who said they wouldn’t vote him as long as he was a sitting member of Congress.”
“We’re not going to do a replacement. If they repeal without a replacement, they will own it. Democrats will not then step up to the plate and come up with a half-baked solution that we will partially own. It’s all theirs.”
— Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), in an interview with the Washington Post, on Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare.
James Hohmann: “It was not an act. Trump’s concern about Syrian refugees entering the U.S. without proper vetting and his personal discomfort with Muslim radicalization is genuine and deeply felt, according to several people who have spoken with him directly. Much of what he said during his rallies was improvisational, and he certainly campaigned by the seat of his pants from time to time. But he thought the Muslim ban through, heard out objections from his advisers and spoke on the phone with several people before making the announcement.”
“Trump’s political instincts were certainly at play. He saw an opportunity to exploit the fears of the American people, and he captured it. He saw a rising tide of xenophobia and prejudice across the country, and he swam with the current.”
“Because he has few core principles, beyond winning, Trump was perfectly willing to stake out a position that he knew his major Republican rivals – for constitutional, legal, moral, practical and national security reasons – would never be willing to embrace. That gave him a textbook wedge issue, which worked to his advantage throughout the primaries.”
Jonathan Karl: “As President-elect Donald Trump puts together his White House team and makes his cabinet picks, he’s tapped governors, business executives and retired military officers, but there’s one group largely absent from the President-elect’s appointments so far: long-time Trump loyalists. With the exception of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who supported Trump early and landed the nomination for attorney general, Trump’s most high-profile political supporters during the campaign -– Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich -– are all, at least for now, without any known role in the incoming Trump administration. The same is true for those who ran Trump’s campaign during the first months of the Republican primary.”
“Until Trump started winning primaries, his campaign was run by a small band of dedicated loyalists. So far, none of them have been publicly offered jobs in the administration.”
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) has accepted Donald Trump’s offer to be named Ambassador to China, NBC News has learned from a source close to the governor.
Des Moines Register: “If it happens, the six-term Republican’s appointment would spark a shakeup without precedent in Iowa history. It would remove from the state’s political equation the longest-serving governor in American history and the head of its dominant political party.”
Ballot Access News: “On December 6, two Colorado presidential electors sued the Governor and Secretary of State of Colorado, to establish that they, and all presidential electors, have a constitutional right to vote for any qualified presidential candidate when they vote as electors on December 19.”
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) asserted without evidence that millions of noncitizens voted in the presidential election moments after he certified the state’s election results, the Wichita Eagle reports.
Said Kobach: “I think the president-elect is absolutely correct when he says the number of illegal votes cast exceeds the popular vote margin between him and Hillary Clinton at this point.”
A new Harvard study finds that over the full course of the election, it was Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, who was more often the target of negative coverage. Overall, the coverage of her candidacy was 62% negative to 38% positive, while his coverage was 56% negative to 44% positive.
Negative coverage was the order of the day in the general election. Not a week passed where the nominees’ coverage reached into positive territory. It peaked at 81% negative in mid-October, but there was not a single week where it dropped below 64% negative.
A new Bloomberg poll finds that two-thirds of Americans think Donald Trump needs to choose between being president or a businessman, but slightly more — 69% — believe it goes too far to force him and his family to sell their business empire to avoid conflicts of interest.
The poll also finds that 51% of those surveyed are very or mostly confident the billionaire businessman will put the nation’s best interests ahead of his family’s finances when he deals with foreign leaders.
Politico: “Donald Trump is following much the same political blueprint his predecessor and longtime adversary laid out years ago, signaling he’ll actively intervene in the U.S. economy while antagonizing free-marketeers who say his meddling will end in disaster. It’s a funhouse-mirror version of Obama’s early image of the presidency — the man of action for down-and-out Americans who desperately want to see that somebody is on their side.”
“Only this time, Democrats aren’t hailing the president-to-be’s efforts as a needed corrective to capitalism run amok. And Republicans, aside from a principled few, aren’t quoting from dog-eared copies of The Road to Serfdom to warn of impending socialist tyranny. The parties have almost completely reversed positions in response to Trump, testament to the Death Star-like pull of Washington partisanship.”
Washington Post: “It was a day of big pronouncements and few details, leaving many wondering whether this would be the unusual and unpredictable way that Trump will govern when he takes office next month.”
“That style, including his opaque personal financial dealings and his sudden shots at certain companies, has helped unnerve a corporate America that traditionally craves stability. Some business leaders and economists have worried whether executives can speak their minds about the president-elect or his policies without fear of facing Trump’s rage.”
“After meeting with Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Tuesday to hash out plans to repeal Obamacare, top Senate Republicans are no closer to resolving an issue that’s splintering the GOP heading into the start of Donald Trump’s presidency: how long to give themselves to replace the law,” Politico reports.
“Pence communicated that the incoming administration is prepared to work closely with Congress on the issue, senators said, but did not dictate how long the transition period should last. That decision will affect millions of Americans’ health care and send insurance companies scrambling to adjust.”
Vice President-elect Mike Pence said that President-elect Donald Trump has secured the largest mandate of a Republican president since Ronald Reagan despite losing the popular vote, Politico reports.
Said Pence: “Thirty of fifty states, more counties won than since Ronald Reagan was a Republican candidate. This is a historic victory.”
A new Ipsos/BuzzFeed poll finds that fake news headlines fool American adults about 75% of the time.
“The survey also found that people who cite Facebook as a major source of news are more likely to view fake news headlines as accurate than those who rely less on the platform for news.”
“Trump transition team members had to sign a code of ethics with a pretty significant lobbying ban, but they’ve also had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to make certain they keep all of their work confidential,” Politico reports.
“The agreement legally bars transition staffers from disclosing info about major portions of the transition work, like policy briefings, personnel material, donor info, fundraising goals, budgets, contracts, or any draft research papers. It also demands that if anyone on the team suspects a colleague of leaking material, he or she must tell transition team leadership.”
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.
