Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 194
What Just Happened?
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes the CIA had a role in assassinating his uncle, President John F. Kennedy — part of RFK Jr.’s motivation for pushing his daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, for deputy CIA director,” Axios reports.
“RFK Jr. has been telling people that Fox Kennedy — his presidential campaign manager, who is married to his son Bobby Kennedy III — would help get to the bottom of the JFK assassination.”
“Donald Trump is slated to ring the New York Stock Exchange’s opening bell on Thursday, presenting a president-elect who has vowed to rejuvenate the US economy a celebratory photo opportunity at an iconic symbol of American capitalism,” Bloomberg reports.
“Diplomatic and depressed as they have been in public, a small group of Democratic governors are deep into behind-the-scenes preparations and deliberations over how to balance the politics of pushing back on what they are expecting from President-elect Donald Trump’s next turn in the White House,” CNN reports.
“Since long before the election, they’ve been poring through Project 2025 — it’s helpful, several Democratic governors told CNN, to have a blueprint in public. They’ve been studying their own executive powers and state laws. They’ve been collaborating on how to shame any extreme Trump actions in the court of public opinion, rather than debating the principles, as often happened when Democrats took on Trump last time.”
“President-elect Donald Trump bolstered his national profile on NBC’s The Apprentice before first running for the White House. Now he’s turned his second transition into a casting call, pulling from the ranks of entertainment and media to find loyal allies to carry out his agenda,” Bloomberg reports.
“While critics say some of Trump’s picks are short on experience for the agencies they are being tapped to run, they offer to bring a different set of qualities, including telegenic looks or a flair for showmanship that play well on screen. Trump makes clear he values those attributes, given his own political rise has been heavy on theatrics.”
Asked about Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be Defense Secretary, Sen. Lindsey Graham told CNN: “Right now, he’s in pretty good shape… he’s much better off this week than he was last week.”
Meanwhile, Newsmax instructed staff to “lay off” Hegseth “after a segment bashing the pick sparked the ire of Trump himself,” Mediaite reports.
Politico: “At least three closely watched senators are noncommittal about confirming the vaccine critic, who’s being considered to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Those include swing votes like Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, as well as Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician who will chair a committee that could host confirmation hearings for Kennedy.”
A new Axios-Ipsos poll finds Americans are still more trusting of Anthony Fauci than they are of President-elect Donald Trump and his health team when it comes to medical information.
Also interesting: “Only about a third think the government puts the public’s health and well-being first, or that America is adequately prepared to deal with another pandemic.”
New York Times: “These days, it seems that everyone who is anybody on Wall Street — to say nothing of a whole lot of nobodies — is amped up for Mr. Trump’s return to the Oval Office. In interviews, bankers, lawyers, investors and corporate executives with a wide range of political views said that despite mixed opinions on Mr. Trump’s proposed policies overall, they see in his administration the greatest possibility for a boon to the business world in a generation or more…”
“Notably, the rosy outlook sidesteps some of the nonconformist economic ideas — namely tariffs on all imports to the United States — that Mr. Trump has pledged. It also takes as a given that the president-elect will continue to save his most provocative political picks for bureaucracies such as the F.B.I. that financiers see as unrelated to their world.”
“President-elect Donald Trump is continuing to fill out key posts at the Office of Management and Budget with two staff picks on Tuesday,” Politico reports.
“Trump picked Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina as deputy director of the OMB. Bishop lost his election in the North Carolina attorney general race in November.”
“President-elect Donald Trump announced private equity executive Tom Barrack, a longtime ally who faced legal scrutiny for his work on behalf of the United Arab Emirates, as his pick to be the next U.S. ambassador to Turkey,” Politico reports.
“President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday selected Andrew Ferguson to lead the Federal Trade Commission, elevating a Republican lawyer who is likely to abandon the Biden administration’s liberal approach to policing mergers while keeping the heat on big technology companies,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Ferguson, one of two current GOP commissioners on the five-member FTC, would succeed Chair Lina Khan, a progressive hero who sought to flex the commission’s enforcement muscle in ways not seen in decades. She challenged a range of mergers, as well as business practices by dominant companies. Her term has expired, and she is set to step down from the commission soon.”
Molly Jong-Fast: “We are a country that stands on the precipice, just six weeks away from swearing in, for the second time, a wannabe ‘dictator’ with ambitions to wildly reshape our democracy. There is a desire to tune out.”
“I get it. And while, as a member of the media, I feel a little sheepish making the case to keep reading columns (like this one!), watching the news, and listening to podcasts, it’s a perilous moment for America, and it only serves Donald Trump and his allies to look the other way.”
President-elect Donald Trump is considering nominating Kimberly Guilfoyle to be U.S. ambassador to Greece, CBS News reports.
Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host-turned-political fundraiser, was dating Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
“President Joe Biden on Tuesday took direct aim at President-elect Donald Trump’s economic agenda, denigrating his plan to impose sweeping tariffs and cut taxes as a ‘major mistake’ that will weaken the economy,” Politico reports.
Said Biden: “By all accounts, the incoming administration is determined to return the country to another round of trickle-down economics. On top of that, he seems determined to impose steep, universal tariffs on all important goods brought into this country on the mistaken belief that foreign countries will bear the cost of those tariffs, rather than the American consumer.”
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign manager and daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox Kennedy is making a push to serve as deputy director at the CIA next year — and RFK Jr. is making calls on her behalf,” Axios reports.
“Fox Kennedy, an integral member of Kennedy’s campaign, wrote a memoir detailing nearly a decade working at the CIA. The deputy director position does not require Senate confirmation.”
This year’s House Republican retreat will take place at the president-elect’s Doral golf resort in Miami, Punchbowl News reports.
Rolling Stone: “Prices for rooms at the hotel range from several hundred dollars a night, to over $8,000 a night to book the Presidential Suite. There are currently 220 Republican representatives in the GOP caucus, and while not all of them will attend, Trump’s hotel can expect to charge a hefty price tag to keep them housed, fed, and entertained for the multi-day retreat.”
Associated Press: “Trump’s second term comes with the specter of the world’s richest man serving as his political enforcer. Within Trump’s team, there is a feeling that Musk not only supports Trump’s agenda and Cabinet appointments, but is intent on seeing them through to the point of pressuring Republicans who may be less devout.”
President-elect Donald Trump is set to host a gala fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night where he will give “champion of America” awards to musician Kid Rock and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, Politico reports.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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