Rick Klein: “In his month as president-elect, Donald Trump has used Tweets to blast protesters upset with his election; threaten a government contract awarded to a company opposing his agenda; falsely claim that he won the popular vote if you only count the votes of legal citizens; and attack a local union head – a private citizen – who went on television to question the accuracy of his claims of saved jobs. This isn’t crossing lines – it’s scribbling over the old ones, and redrawing the boundaries of propriety even before Trump takes office.”

“One question for those who might seek to challenge the president is how they react to this new reality. Trump won’t change – but will efforts to draw him out adjust? When a president reacts to cable news, or online chatter, the spotlight will be on not just the president but on the person or entities under attack.”

A federal judge “refused yet another request” by Donald Trump to toss a 2013 lawsuit filed against his Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, the Palm Beach Post reports.

“Club members say Trump hasn’t returned an estimated $6 million to members of his country club… Trump bought the club from the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club & Spa for $5 million in 2012. When the Ritz owned it, deposits ranging from $35,000 to $210,000 were refundable. But once Trump bought the club, some club members say Trump changed the rules and refused to return their deposits.”

“Across Mr. Trump’s business, he uses a similar web of privately held LLCs and other entities to house his assets—everything from real estate to a vintage carousel in Manhattan’s Central Park, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of hundreds of pages of his corporate filings and personal financial disclosures. Fifteen entities, for example, are used to hold his interests in two airplanes and three helicopters.”

“Unlike publicly traded companies, Delaware LLCs don’t have to publish any financial information or even disclose the identity of the owner… None of the 96 LLCs examined by the Journal appear to regularly release audited financial statements. That opacity—compounded by Mr. Trump’s decision to break with decades of precedent by declining to release his tax returns—makes it impossible to gauge the full extent of potential conflicts between his business interests and presidential role.”

President-elect Donald Trump “is considering formally turning over the operational responsibility for his real estate company to his two adult sons, but he intends to keep a stake in the business and resist calls to divest,” the New York Times reports.

“Under a plan now being considered by the Trump family and its lawyers, Ivanka Trump, Mr. Trump’s elder daughter, would also take a leave of absence from the Trump Organization, in the surest sign that she is exploring a potential move to Washington with her husband, Jared Kushner. Mr. Kushner is discussing an as-yet undetermined role advising his father-in-law, and Ms. Trump plans on being an advocate on issues in which she has a personal interest, like child care.”

“‘What amazes a lot of people is that I’m sitting in an apartment the likes of which nobody’s ever seen. And yet I represent the workers of the world.”

— Donald Trump, quoted by Time magazine.

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.”

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.