Newt Gingrich, who backs Rudy Giuliani for secretary of state, told the Wall Street Journal that the search for the nation’s top diplomat is playing out a bit like Donald Trump’s longtime reality show, The Apprentice, as he publicly mulls the candidates’ skill sets and invites “audience participation.”
Said Gingrich: “It’s the only place so far that we have seen him trying to do an open apprenticeship, if you will.”
Two sources at the top of the trump transition team confirm to MSNBC that Donald Trump was furious at Kellyanne Conway’s comments on Sunday suggesting Trump betrayed his supporters by even considering Mitt Romney for a position in his cabinet.
Said one: “Kellyanne went rogue at Donald Trump’s expense at the worst possible time.”
“Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus have reportedly been growing frustrated by Kellyanne Conway’s failure to become a team player in a transition process where the top players are forming a tight knit group around the president-elect.”
Conway pushed back telling The Hill the reporting was “sexist” and said she could have any job she wants.
Paul Krugman: “Remember all the news reports suggesting, without evidence, that the Clinton Foundation’s fund-raising created conflicts of interest? Well, now the man who benefited from all that innuendo is on his way to the White House. And he’s already giving us an object lesson in what real conflicts of interest look like, as authoritarian governments around the world shower favors on his business empire.”
“Of course, Donald Trump could be rejecting these favors and separating himself and his family from his hotels and so on. But he isn’t. In fact, he’s openly using his position to drum up business. And his early appointments suggest that he won’t be the only player using political power to build personal wealth. Self-dealing will be the norm throughout this administration. America has just entered an era of unprecedented corruption at the top.”
Peggy Noonan: “I don’t know if there’s anyone around him who can convince him that the attitude with which he’s operated for 50 years must end, and something wholly new and different begin.”
“But whoever does must be aware of this: The press, which wants to kill him, is going to zero in on his biggest weak spot: money, profit, the deal. Democrats too will watch like hawks. And this is understandable! Presidents shouldn’t ever give the impression things aren’t on the up and up. And Mr. Trump campaigned saying he’d dismantle the rigged system, drain the swamp, fight the racket.”
“The press does not believe, not for a second, and Democrats do not believe, not for a second, that Mr. Trump will be able to change the habits of a lifetime. They are relying on it.”
President-elect Donald Trump and President Obama have been in regular communication, CNN reports.
Said Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway: “I can tell you from President-Elect Trump’s side that he very much enjoys speaking with President Obama, talking about the serious issues that face this country and the world. They get along nicely. They disagree on many things. That’s not going to change.”
Appointing Mitt Romney as secretary of state would be viewed by many supporters of President-elect Donald Trump as a major betrayal, former Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told CNN.
Said Conway: “It’s just breathtaking in scope and intensity.”
She added: “I’m all for party unity, but I’m not sure we have to pay for that with secretary of state position.”
Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, told the Associated Press that President-elect Donald Trump offered him the job of Secretary of Education last week during a meeting in New York.
He said he declined the job but that Trump wanted a four- to six-year commitment and said he couldn’t leave Liberty for more than two years.
New York Times: “The globe is dotted with such potential conflicts. Mr. Trump’s companies have business operations in at least 20 countries, with a particular focus on the developing world, including outposts in nations like India, Indonesia and Uruguay, according to a New York Times analysis of his presidential campaign financial disclosures. What’s more, the true extent of Mr. Trump’s global financial entanglements is unclear, since he has refused to release his tax returns and has not made public a list of his lenders.”
“My knowledge of foreign policy is as good, or better, than anybody they’re talking to.”
— Rudy Giuliani, quoted by the Wall Street Journal, making the case for why he should be Secretary of State.
Donald Trump’s transition team wants Mitt Romney to publicly apologize for railing against the president-elect during the campaign if he hopes to become the next Secretary of State, Fox News reports.
“Laura Ingraham doesn’t want to be just another flack. The popular conservative radio talk show host is willing to accept the position of White House press secretary in Donald Trump’s administration, but she wants a bigger title, a role in policymaking and a seat at the decision-making table with the president,” Politico reports.
“It’s not yet clear how Ingraham, a regular on Fox News who boosted Trump’s anti-establishment candidacy throughout the campaign, would mesh with the rival power centers that currently define Trump’s inner circle.”
“President-elect Donald Trump on Friday chose Washington insider Donald McGahn to be his White House counsel, giving him the job of untangling potential conflicts of interest that the New York businessman’s presidency may present,” Reuters reports.
“McGahn, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, had been the chief counsel of the Trump campaign and was one of the few members of the Republican establishment to embrace the candidate.”
“The Secret Service is in negotiations with the Trump Organization to take over two vacant floors in the gilded 68-story Fifth Avenue tower,” law enforcement sources told the New York Post.
“The federal agency and the NYPD plan to run a 24/7 command post out of the space that would be housed at least 40 floors below Trump’s $90 million penthouse triplex, where wife Melania and their 10-year-old son Barron will continue to reside at least through the spring, sources said.”
“The lease deal alone could cost more than $3 million a year, based on prevailing rates in the building.”
“Tech and civil liberties advocates are imploring the Obama administration to rein in the government’s massive surveillance apparatus before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, fearful he will carry out his campaign promises to register Muslims, spy on mosques and punish companies that offer Americans unbreakable encryption,” Politico reports.
“But many national security experts and former administration officials say the effort is almost certainly doomed to fail… And some civil libertarians blame Democrats for being too content to allow President Barack Obama to wield the sweeping, post-Sept. 11 surveillance powers he inherited from George W. Bush, rather than rolling them back so that no future president could use them.”
“In the scarcely two weeks since Donald Trump’s surprise victory over Hillary Clinton, he and Russian President Vladimir Putin have spoken at least twice by phone,” McClatchy reports.
“Their aides have had additional contacts.”
“That’s more contact than Trump is known to have had with any other world leader since he defeated Clinton in the Nov. 8 election. But it is a concrete display of what many predicted would be a reversal in the standoffish relations between the two nuclear powers should Trump win election.”
“Rival factions of Republicans are locked in an increasingly caustic and public battle to influence President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of state, leaving a prominent hole in an otherwise quickly formed national security team that is unlikely to be filled until next week at the earliest,” the New York Times reports.
“The debate inside Mr. Trump’s wide circle of formal and informal advisers — pitting supporters of one leading contender, Mitt Romney, against those of another, Rudolph W. Giuliani — has led to the kind of dramatic airing of differences that characterized Mr. Trump’s unconventional and often squabbling campaign team.”
“And it traces the outlines of the enduring split in the Republican Party between establishment figures who scoffed at Mr. Trump’s chances of victory and the grass-roots insurgents who backed him as a disrupter of the Washington power structure.”
“It has been a tough couple of days for Mitt Romney. After the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 GOP nominee met with President-elect Donald Trump, it was rumored — and then stated explicitly by Vice President-elect Mike Pence — that Romney was being considered for Secretary of State,” Politico reports.
“And it’s been all downhill from there, as Trump supporters and surrogates have piled on, slamming Romney for his attacks on Trump during the GOP primary and his refusal to endorse Trump. Now Kellyanne Conway, a senior transition adviser and Trump’s campaign manager, has joined the fray.”
President-elect Donald Trump “has received two classified intelligence briefings since his surprise election victory earlier this month, a frequency that is notably lower — at least so far — than that of his predecessors,” the Washington Post reports.
“A team of intelligence analysts has been prepared to deliver daily briefings on global developments and security threats to Trump in the two weeks since he won. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, by contrast, has set aside time for intelligence briefings almost every day since the election.”
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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