Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 194
What Just Happened?
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson “is still the leading contender to become President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state despite pushback from prominent senators wary of Tillerson’s ties to Russia,” Politico reports.
“One of the sources said Tillerson could be named as the nation’s chief diplomat in the coming days — ‘unless something massive explodes’ in the next 24 hours.”
Sen. John McCain told Reuters that he personally backs Washington’s decades-old “one China” policy and that no one should “leap to conclusions” that President-elect Donald Trump would abandon it.
Said McCain: “I do not respond to every comment by the president-elect because it may be reversed the next day.”
President-elect Donald Trump “is scheduled to testify under oath at Trump Tower in January, just weeks before the inauguration, in a lawsuits tied to his Washington D.C. hotel,” USA Today reports.
“His lawyers are battling over special conditions Trump is seeking because of his new position.”
“I am turning down billions of dollars of deals. I will tell you, running for president — the money I spent is peanuts compared to the money I won’t make, and that’s okay, because this is so important. What I’m doing is so important. This is a calling… I’m not going to be doing deals at all. Now that would be — I don’t even know if that’s a conflict. I mean, I have the right to do it. You know, under the law, I have the right to do it. I just don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do deals, because I want to focus on this. But, by my not doing deals — I turned down seven deals with one big player, great player, last week, because I thought it could be perceived as a conflict of interest.”
— Donald Trump, in an interview with Fox News.
Kellyanne Conway said she “politely declined” an offer to be White House press secretary for Donald Trump and that communications, particularly with a “hostile” press will be paramount in Trump’s White House, Politico reports.
Said Conway: “As you imagine in President Trump’s administration, communications will be a very important aspect for it and there will be a number of people handling that.”
President-elect Donald Trump will meet today with Carly Fiorina to discuss the job of director of national intelligence, the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump and Ms. Fiorina do not have the warmest of relationships. They clashed bitterly when she ran against him for the Republican nomination. And Mr. Trump once denigrated her appearance once in an interview with Rolling Stone, saying ‘Look at that face!‘”
Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, “the top choice for secretary of state in a Trump administration, faces bipartisan resistance in Congress over his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Republican hesitation over Mr. Tillerson marked the first sign of division between congressional GOP and the Trump team over its likely cabinet picks. All of President-elect Donald Trump’s other nominees so far appear likely to be confirmed by the Senate.”
“Mr. Tillerson, a seasoned deal-maker whose company has a long history of doing business in Russia, is drawing unease from senators on both sides of the aisle. Republicans can likely afford to lose only two GOP votes next year in the new Congress when it meets to consider Mr. Trump’s nominees.”
President-elect Donald Trump “is about to inherit a newly empowered Voice of America that some officials fear could serve as an unfettered propaganda arm for the former reality TV star who has flirted for years with launching his own network,” Politico reports.
“Buried on page 1,404 of the National Defense Authorization Act that passed last week is a provision that would disband the bipartisan board of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the independent U.S. agency that includes Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcast Networks.”
“The move – pushed by House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce as a way to streamline the agency – concentrates control into a powerful CEO that is appointed by the president.”
Donald McGahn, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for White House counsel, “fought for years to strip away limits on big money in politics long before the Supreme Court blessed the idea, and he has relied on a bare-knuckle style to defend politicians in trouble,” the New York Times reports.
“Still, it was an audacious move even for Mr. McGahn when he signed on in early 2015 as the lawyer for Mr. Trump’s long-shot presidential bid. At the time, few other Washington insiders would get behind Mr. Trump, and some were skeptical of Mr. McGahn’s decision, even openly scornful.”
“Now, Mr. McGahn stands to become one of the most powerful, if least known, figures in Mr. Trump’s inner circle.”
Politico: “The party loses its standard-bearer once President Barack Obama leaves office, and the Democratic National Committee won’t get a permanent chairman and staff until March, two months into the presidency. That Democratic power vacuum has raised concerns about the party’s ability to provide a united message — or even to stand up a centralized rapid response operation — for the president’s first 100 days in office.”
“Their worst nightmare is that Trump, ever the showman, will define his opening act with little unified resistance.”
“Trump lives and thrives in a fact-free environment. No president, including Richard Nixon, has been so ignorant of fact and disdains fact in the way this president-elect does. Richard Nixon was nothing, in terms of lying, compared to what we have seen from Donald Trump.”
— Carl Bernstein, in an interview on CNN.
Donald Trump has narrowed his search for energy secretary to four people, with Rick Perry the leading candidate, Bloomberg reports.
“Two Democratic senators from energy-producing states — Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — are also in the mix, along with Ray Washburne, a Dallas investor and former chairman of the Republican National Committee.”
Other reports suggest Heitkamp will be agriculture secretary instead.
For members: Here’s Trump’s Cabinet So Far
President-elect Donald Trump was interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News:
TRUMP: It’s so easy to do and we’re going to have to impose a major tax on companies that leave, build their product and think their going to sell it right through out border like we’re a bunch of jerks.
WALLACE: But what about the free market, sir?
TRUMP: That is — that’s not free market when they go out and they move and they sell back into our country.
WALLACE: But that’s the free market. They made a decision and it makes —
TRUMP: No. That’s — that the dumb market, okay? That’s the dumb market. I’m a big free trader, but it has to be fair.
President-elect Donald Trump indicated “that as president, he would not take the daily intelligence briefing that President Obama and his predecessors have received,” the New York Times reports.
He said that it was often repetitive and that he would take it “when I need it” while noting his vice president, Mike Pence, would receive the daily briefing.
Said Trump: “You know, I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years.”
He added that he had instructed the officials who give the briefing: “‘If something should change from this point, immediately call me. I’m available on a one-minute’s notice.'”
“Saturday Night Live” mocked President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks by introducing Breaking Bad’s Walter White as the new chief of the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Carly Fiorina praised Donald Trump’s “brilliant” moves as president-elect ahead of her visit to Trump Tower on Monday, the Washington Post reports.
Said Fiorina: “One thing President-elect Trump clearly understands is this: that actually changing an ingrained, embedded status quo requires a major shock to the system. It can’t be such a violent shock that you put the patient in cardiac arrest, but you have to have a signal strong enough that people understand change is actually coming.”
During the presidential primaries Fiorina said, “Trump does not represent me or my party.”
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as deputy secretary of state under Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, “with Bolton handling day-to-day management of the department,” NBC News reports.
Huffington Post: “His time at the U.N. was marked by a rapid uptick in anti-American sentiment among the global diplomatic community. Bolton remains one of the most disliked foreign policy operators on the world stage… Even as the second in command at State, Bolton is an aggressive selection from Trump, shattering the president-elect’s pledge to work peacefully with other countries.”
“I don’t know what Mr. Tillerson’s relationship with Vladimir Putin was, but I’ll tell you it is a matter of concern to me. You want to give the president of the United States the benefit of the doubt because the people have spoken. But Vladimir Putin is a thug, a bully and a murderer, and anybody else who describes him as anything else is lying.”
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by Politico, on the expected nomination of Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.
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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