A new Quinnipiac poll finds American voters say by a 59% to 37% margin that they are “optimistic about the next four years with Donald Trump as president.”
That said, by a 52% to 42% they say he is not honest and by 57% to 38% say he is not level-headed.
President-elect Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has admitted to the IRS that it violated a legal prohibition against “self-dealing,” which bars nonprofit leaders from using their charity’s money to help themselves, their businesses or their families, the Washington Post reports.
“Such violations can carry penalties including excise taxes, and the charity leaders can be required to repay money that the charity spent on their behalf.”
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC that President-elect Donald Trump will not pursue any investigations into Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server and the Clinton Foundation.
Said Conway: “I think when the president-elect, who’s also the head of your party now, Joe, tells you before he’s even inaugurated he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges it sends a very strong message, tone, and content to the members… If Donald Trump can help her heal then, perhaps, that’s a good thing.”
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“President-elect Donald Trump has canceled a planned meeting with reporters and editors from the New York Times, a frequent target of criticism by the Manhattan billionaire, because he was upset with a supposed change in the terms of the meeting,” Politico reports.
“Details of the now-cancelled meeting were reported by the Times itself. Neither the newspaper nor Trump specified the terms of the meeting nor the change that prompted the president-elect to cancel it.”
New York Times: “Mr. Christie’s fall in the Trump circle was weeks in the making. There was already grumbling, particularly from former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, and from Mr. Trump’s children. Mr. Christie, they believed, had gone off-message after an Access Hollywood tape was released in which Mr. Trump made vulgar comments about women; the governor first canceled Sunday show appearances, then emerged on the radio the next week to call Mr. Trump’s comments ‘indefensible.'”
“Spending on the Trump transition effort, which Mr. Christie was leading, was already higher than what the transition team of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, had spent, even though polls showed her winning. And some around Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Christie was using his post to promote his own people, including his former chief of staff and his former law partner, who were running the team day to day, and one of his longtime supporters, Bob Grady, who had been recommended for several positions.”
“Though President-elect Donald Trump’s first five picks for top jobs in his administration have all been white men, transition officials insisted Monday that the team he ultimately puts together will represent a cross-section of America,” the Washington Post reports.
“The Trump aides were seeking to dismiss speculation that the parade of people summoned by the president-elect — which has included women, nonwhites and erstwhile political foes — has been merely for show.”
“Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world.Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!”
— Donald Trump, on Twitter.
Gov. Chris Christie (R) said that he does not plan to accept a job in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, according to Politico.
Said Christie, on his monthly radio show: “I’m serving the rest of my term.”
“The remarks by the governor, who was among the first mainstream Republicans to support Trump’s candidacy, were his most definitive yet on the subject and come a day after he met with the president-elect at his golf club in Bedminster.”
Donald Trump scolded media big shots during an off-the-record Trump Tower sitdown on Monday, sources told the New York Post.
Said a source: “It was like a fucking firing squad.”
The source added: “The meeting was a total disaster. The TV execs and anchors went in there thinking they would be discussing the access they would get to the Trump administration, but instead they got a Trump-style dressing down.”
The New York Times notes “it seemed the meeting was being used as a political prop, especially after Trump-friendly news outlets trumpeted the session as a take-no-prisoners move by a brave president-elect.”
President-elect Donald Trump released a recorded video message to the nation Monday evening, in which he outlined several executive actions he plans to take on his first day in office, Politico reports.
TPM: “For a number of years, Trump and his Argentine partners have been trying to build a major office building in Buenos Aires. The project has been held up by a series of complications tied to financing, importation of building materials and various permitting requirements.”
“According to a report out of Argentina, when Argentine President Mauricio Macri called President-Elect Trump to congratulate him on his election, Trump asked Macri to deal with the permitting issues that are currently holding up the project.”
“Executives and anchors from the country’s five biggest television networks are set to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower on Monday afternoon,” CNBC reports.
After multiple reports suggesting he was on the short list to be Treasury Secretary, a Trump transition source tells CNBC that an appointment of JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon is not going to happen.
In fact, Trump “doesn’t respect” Dimon, the source said, adding that the bank chief “was never under consideration” for the appointment and was not on “any Trump-approved list.”
“Donald Trump’s popularity is rising in the days since his election, according to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll of registered voters. Forty-six percent of voters now have a very favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of the president-elect. Twelve percent have a somewhat unfavorable opinion and 34% have a very unfavorable opinion of him. It’s a dramatic uptick since the election.”
“Trump’s favorability has grown 9 points, 37% to 46%, compared to a Morning Consult poll right before the election — while his unfavorability has dropped 15 points, from 61% to 46%.”
President-elect Donald Trump “has turned the vital, but normally inscrutable, process of forming a government into a Trump-branded, made-for-television spectacle, parading his finalists for top administration positions this weekend before reporters and the world,” the New York Times reports.
“The two days unfolded like a pageant, with the many would-be officials striding up the circular driveway at Trump National Golf Club here, meeting Mr. Trump below three glass chandeliers at the entrance and shaking hands while facing the cameras. To build suspense, Mr. Trump offered teasing hints about coming announcements.”
“President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress are drawing up plans to take on the government bureaucracy they have long railed against, by eroding job protections and grinding down benefits that federal workers have received for a generation,” the Washington Post reports.
“Hiring freezes, an end to automatic raises, a green light to fire poor performers, a ban on union business on the government’s dime and less generous pensions — these are the contours of the blueprint emerging under Republican control of Washington in January.”
“He was in. And then he was out. And now, he’s — well, it’s hard to tell exactly where New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stands in the intrigue-filled orbit of those who surround the president-elect of the United States,” the Washington Post reports.
“What is clear is that Christie has become an object lesson of the perils that face those who try to navigate Donald Trump’s world, a place where loyalty is demanded, but not always one where it is returned in kind.”
“Nine days after the public humiliation of being unceremoniously dumped as the head of Trump’s presidential transition, Christie on Sunday showed up among the parade of potential Trump administration job seekers to meet with the president-elect at his New Jersey golf course.”
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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