Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 194
What Just Happened?
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) has emerged as President-elect Donald Trump’s leading choice for Agriculture secretary, Politico reports.
“A special election to replace Heitkamp would almost certainly turn her seat over to a Republican, so the choice would give Trump a chance to appear conciliatory to Democrats, albeit with a lower-profile Cabinet role, while allowing the GOP to bolster its Senate majority.”
For members: Here’s Trump’s Cabinet So Far
“An extraordinary breach has emerged between President-elect Donald Trump and the national security establishment, with Mr. Trump mocking American intelligence assessments that Russia interfered in the election on his behalf, and top Republicans vowing investigations into Kremlin activities,” the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on.”
“Though Mr. Trump has wasted no time in antagonizing the agencies, he will have to rely on them for the sort of espionage activities and analysis that they spend more than $70 billion a year to perform.”
President-elect Donald Trump’s financial arrangement with “Celebrity Apprentice” could provide him with a cut of the money generated by NBC’s product integration deals for the show, CNN reports.
“For years, Trump has received a portion of the revenue from the show’s product integration deals, the source said. If that arrangement is still in place, it is now a potential avenue of influence for companies that want to get the ear of Trump and his administration, and presents a thorny situation for Comcast/NBCUniversal, which controls the deals.”
ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson has emerged as the top candidate for secretary of state, the Washington Post reports.
“Tillerson and former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney were two of the finalists… Both Tillerson and Romney are business executives with international experience in the for-profit world. But Tillerson would come into the job with a clean slate politically, while Romney’s candidacy had come under fire from some Trump aides who think the former governor went too far in his opposition to Trump during the campaign.”
Michael Kinsely: “For close to a year, and especially since his election as president, people have been trying to figure out Trump’s political principles: What does he stand for, how will he act as president? Various theories have been advanced…”
“But now that we’ve seen a bit of him in action, it seems that Trump actually does have a recognizable agenda that explains how he simultaneously can pander to big business generally while ‘strong-arming’ (the words of a Post editorial Friday) an air conditioning manufacturer to save a few hundred jobs for a while. Or how he can make nice with the authoritarian Vladimir Putin while making bellicose foreign policy noises in general. Or how he can blithely upset with a phone call the absurdly delicate balance of our relations with China and Taiwan. All this seemingly erratic behavior can be explained — if not justified — by thinking of Trump as a fascist. Not in the sense of an all-purpose bad guy, but in the sense of somebody who sincerely believes that the toxic combination of strong government and strong corporations should run the nation and the world. He spent his previous career negotiating with the government on behalf of corporations; now he has switched teams. But it’s the same game.”
Rudy Giuliani, a longtime Donald Trump ally, will not be serving in the president-elect’s administration, The Hill reports.
“Giuliani has removed himself from consideration for any position in the new administration, the Trump transition team announced Friday. He was rumored to be in the mix to be secretary of State.”
Politico: “Giuliani had previously publicly campaigned for the post and it was not immediately clear why he had withdrawn. The transition team said that he withdrew on November 29.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) met with Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) this week to discuss a potential open Senate seat, Politico reports.
The Tuesday meeting comes as President-elect Trump is considering Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) for a Cabinet position, possibly at the Energy Department or the Agriculture Department.
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Gary Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs, to direct the National Economic Council, the New York Times reports.
“Adding Mr. Cohn to the economic team was a favorite idea of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. And he does not break the streak of wealthy Trump teammates. His most recent total compensation package made public at Goldman exceeded $20.5 million.”
“Goldman Sachs shares, by the way, are up 33 percent since Election Day.”
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), the highest-ranking woman in the House Republican leadership, is expected to be announced as Donald Trump’s secretary of the interior, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Ms. McMorris Rodgers, a senior member of the House of Representatives, if confirmed by the Senate, would lead Mr. Trump’s efforts to open up federal lands and waters to fossil-fuel development and reverse environmental policies the Obama administration has pursued over the past eight years.”
Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump are trying to identify staff in the Energy Department who played a role in promoting President Obama’s climate agenda, Bloomberg reports.
“The transition team has asked the agency to list employees and contractors who attended United Nations climate meetings, along with those who helped develop the Obama administration’s social cost of carbon metrics, used to estimate and justify the climate benefits of new rules.”
Kellyanne Conway defended President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to remain an executive producer on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” even as he takes office, arguing that “presidents have a right to do things in their spare time,” CNN reports.
Said Conway: “He’s a very transparent guy. Everyone can see what he’s doing, and the fact is that he is conferring with all types of experts who tell him what he can do and not do as president of the United States. If this is one of the approved activities, then perhaps he will consider staying on.”
President-elect Donald Trump “is receiving an average of one presidential intelligence briefing a week, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter, far fewer than most of his recent predecessors,” Reuters reports.
“Although they are not required to, presidents-elect have in the past generally welcomed the opportunity to receive the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), the most highly classified and closely held document in the government, on a regular basis.”
“One newspaper criticized me: ‘Why can’t they have people of modest means?’ Because I want people that made a fortune!”
— President-elect Donald Trump, quoted by TPM, on his cabinet choices.
Variety has more on Donald Trump remaining an executive producer on the “Celebrity Apprentice” while serving as president:
The larger issue for MGM, NBC, and the White House is the payment that Trump will receive for the series. It’s unclear what his per-episode fee is, but it is likely to be in the low five-figures, at minimum…
Although Trump has no role in the production of the show, the fact that a sitting president will be on the payroll of a current TV show is another example of the thicket of potential conflicts of interest raised by Trump’s segue from private businessman and TV star to commander-in-chief. However, past presidents have published books during their time in the White House, so there is precedent for a president earning royalties while in office.
New York Times: “The president-elect’s transition work continues to hum at Trump Tower, with most personnel decisions being made from New York, while the landing teams put together in the weeks before his campaign victory work hundreds of miles away in Washington. Mr. Trump has resisted efforts by his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, to move the transition work to Washington, given how many people are traveling north every week.”
Former baseball manager Bobby Valentine is on a short-list of candidates for the job of United States Ambassador to Japan, WEEI reports.
“The 66-year-old, who currently serves as Sacred Heart University’s athletics director, has engaged in preliminary discussions with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team regarding the position. When contacted Thursday night, Valentine refused comment.”
“Valentine is still very popular in Japan, having managed the Chiba Lotte Marines for seven seasons, becoming the first U.S. born manager to win the Japan Series with a championship in 2005.”
“Donald Trump will continue to hold the title of executive producer for the television show ‘The Celebrity Apprentice’ after taking office, foreshadowing an unorthodox presidency in which the commander in chief has a hand in the world of reality TV,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump’s name will be listed in the credits of the NBC show that he once hosted, according to details of the arrangement confirmed by a representative of the show. Such credits in Hollywood often come with a paycheck, though the representative did not disclose whether Trump will be compensated.”
New York Magazine: “Some Trump advisers are dismayed by Priebus’s influence because they question the Washington insider’s loyalty to the president-elect. Three sources told me that shortly after the Access Hollywood tape leaked in early October, Priebus went to Trump’s penthouse and advised the candidate to get out of the race. Priebus told Trump that if he didn’t, he ‘will go down with a worse election loss than Barry Goldwater’s.'”
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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