The latest on Trump’s presidential transition

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is pictured ahead of President Joe Biden's State of the Union address at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on March 7.

GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia says so-called sanctuary cities are at risk of losing government funding as Washington comes under unified Republican control.

Outlining her plans for a new House subcommittee on government efficiency, Greene threatened to cut funding for cities and states that limit or prohibit local government cooperation with immigration enforcement.

More background: Greene is set to lead the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency. It will work with the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

“The federal government has been the worst abusers of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars and the American people’s trust,” Greene said Sunday.

The subcommittee will examine government programs and bring in federal agency leaders to explain why they deserve funding, the GOP lawmaker said.

Greene highlighted NPR, federal grant programs and the Pentagon as areas likely to be targeted by the new subcommittee.

A student at the University of Texas at Austin looks for a seat ahead of a lecture in Austin, Texas, on February 22.

With much of President Joe Biden’s student loan agenda tied up in court, the incoming Trump administration could have a significant impact on millions of borrowers.

President-elect Donald Trump hasn’t made specific promises on student loans or other forms of college financial aid, but delivering student loan forgiveness isn’t a policy priority like it has been for Biden.

Republicans have repeatedly challenged Biden’s efforts, and when his sweeping student loan forgiveness program was struck down by the Supreme Court last year, Trump said the proposal “would have been very unfair to the millions and millions of people who have paid their debt through hard work and diligence.”

During his first term, Trump proposed ending a program that delivers student loan forgiveness to public sector workers after 10 years, and his administration tried to limit debt relief for borrowers who were misled by their colleges. Both efforts were unsuccessful, but the latter left many people waiting for years to find out if their debt-relief claim would be granted.

It’s possible for the Trump administration to unilaterally make some changes to the federal student loan system through a rulemaking process, but other actions — like abolishing the Department of Education, as Trump has promised to do — would require Congress to act.

During Trump’s first term, he made some unsuccessful efforts to make it harder for some people to qualify for student loan forgiveness through two existing programs. Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and many other Republicans argued against some debt relief because it transfers the cost to taxpayers, many of whom didn’t go to college.

Read more about what student loan programs could be impacted once Trump takes office.

Sen. Rand Paul is pictured at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on November 13.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday he won’t support the use of the military or the National Guard to remove undocumented immigrants from the US, something President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to do.

Paul said he “will not support and will not vote to use the military in our cities,” and advocated for using the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and US Border Patrol to aid local law enforcement in deportation efforts.

On Trump tariffs: Paul also said he is weighing his vote on Scott Bessent’s nomination to lead Trump’s Treasury Department, citing discontent with Trump’s proposed 60% tariffs on goods from China and 10% tax on goods from other countries.

Bessent has expressed his support for more gradual tariffs.

Democratic Sen.-elect Adam Schiff of California on Sunday called for the release of a House Ethics Committee report on Matt Gaetz, despite the former Florida congressman withdrawing himself from consideration for US attorney general.

Remember: The ethics probe was looking into allegations of sexual misconduct and other wrongdoing by Gaetz, including claims that he had sex with a minor. He has repeatedly denied the allegations.

On other Trump picks: Schiff had varying views on President-elect Donald Trump’s other selections for Cabinet positions.

He said Tulsi Gabbard — Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence — has “no experience” and that he’s concerned about her stances on Russia and Syria.

Schiff offered praise, meanwhile for Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio — Trump’s pick for secretary of state. The incoming senator said he believes Rubio “is enormously well-qualified” for the position.

“I still want to ask questions. I’m not going to completely pre-judge even him. But he’s unquestionably qualified,” Schiff said.

Rep. Michael Waltz speaks in New York on May 16.

Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser says the president-elect’s transition team is working closely with President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration on the war in Ukraine and other major national security issues.

Republican Rep. Mike Waltz said in an interview on Fox News Sunday that he’s spoken with Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, to ensure the current White House and the Trump transition team are “hand in glove.”

Waltz said Trump is “very concerned about the escalation” of the war between Russia and Ukraine — a conflict the president-elect has vowed to end on day one of his presidency, without saying how he would do so.

Waltz appeared to endorse Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use anti-personnel land mines, a decision criticized by some human rights groups, by saying the new weapons can help in “solidifying the lines” and to “stop Russian gains.”

Waltz said Trump remains focused on setting up negotiations to end the war.

The incoming national security adviser, who joined Trump’s meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at Mar-A-Lago on Friday, said European allies will “clearly be a key part of” any peace agreement that ends the conflict.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar speaks during a news conference on September 19 in Washington, DC.

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a member of the chamber’s Judiciary Committee, is pushing for background checks on President-elect Donald Trump’s prospective Cabinet officials.

Trump has not yet filed the paperwork necessary for the FBI to conduct the checks, which are typical for Cabinet nominations.

“They’ve got to get their background checks together. They’ve got to get qualified nominees,” Klobuchar said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

Delaying background checks could delay the confirmation process, Klobuchar said.

On Trump’s picks: The senator slammed Trump’s initial attorney general pick, Matt Gaetz, who dropped out after facing long odds for confirmation and scrutiny over allegations of sexual misconduct. Klobuchar called that original selection to lead the Justice Department “absurd,” but said she will “hear out” Trump’s other choices for top roles.

Klobuchar, who voted for half of Trump’s first administration nominees, did not say if she would confirm Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi.

She also questioned the vaccine positions of Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and past comments about women in the military by his choice to lead the Defense Department, Pete Hegseth.

Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma defended President-elect Donald Trump selecting Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence, suggesting in an interview Sunday that the criticism faced by Gabbard is political in nature.

Gabbard has a well-documented distrust of the intelligence community and has taken positions on Russia and Syria that many national security officials see as echoing Russian propaganda.

Mullin said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that Gabbard serving in the US Army Reserve shows she could pass a background check.

“There’s no document, there’s no background there for her to see, for anyone to see. She is, she is a true patriot of the United States, and there’s no reason why the Democrats are going after her other than the fact they’re upset that she left their woke party,” he said, referencing the former congresswoman’s departure from the party in 2022.

Earlier on “State of the Union,” Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth said Gabbard is “compromised” due to her “troubling relationships” with Russia and Syria.

Mullin called that comment “outright dangerous,” and said the suggestion someone serving in the Army Reserve is a Russian asset is “ridiculous.”

Another GOP senator pushes back: Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri also defended Gabbard on Sunday, saying it was “a slur” for former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley to call the would-be spy chief a “Russian, Iranian, Syrian sympathizer.”

“There’s no evidence that she’s an asset of another country. She served this country honorably,” Schmitt said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The GOP lawmaker argued this was a case of someone having a difference of opinion on foreign policy, and that responding by casting them as an “asset” amounts to an insulting smear.

This post has been updated to include comments from GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt.

CNN’s Sarah Davis contributed to this report.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin speaks with the media following a meeting with Pete Hegseth in Washington, DC on November 21.

Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin on Sunday defended Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, who is facing scrutiny over a 2017 allegation that he sexually assaulted a woman at a hotel.

“There was no case here. He was falsely accused,” Mullin claimed in an interview with Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“As a father of three girls, I will admit, when I first heard that, I thought, ‘That’s not good.’ As I started reading the report, I thought, ‘Wait a second, there’s more to this story.’ When I sat down and had a conversation with Pete I enjoyed the conversation, he answered every one of my questions, and I look forward to helping him get confirmed as the next secretary of defense.”

Key context: According to a newly released police report, the woman told police that Hegseth physically blocked her from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, and then sexually assaulted her even though she “remembered saying ‘no’ a lot.”

The 22-page report lays out the competing narratives of what happened in new detail — including conflicting accounts of how intoxicated Hegseth and the woman were, and descriptions of video surveillance showing some of their movements that night.

Hegseth was not charged with a crime in connection with the allegation. His attorney has acknowledged that Hegseth later entered into a settlement agreement with his accuser that included an undisclosed monetary payment and a confidentiality clause.

Though Hegseth insisted the encounter was consensual, the lawyer said he was fearful that the woman was poised to make an allegation against him during the #MeToo movement that might have cost him his job as a Fox News host.

Another GOP senator weighs in: Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri said lawmakers should question Hegseth over the allegations during confirmation hearings, but also touted Trump’s pick for his ability to shake up the Pentagon.

“Senators certainly are going to ask questions about that. They should — and he has a right to answer,” Schmitt said of the police report on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.

“Ultimately, this is a decision President Trump made to bring in another disruptor,” he added, saying, “There needs to be reform in the Pentagon.”

This post has been updated to include comments from GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt.

CNN’s Sarah Davis, Aileen Graef, Casey Tolan, Scott Glover and Sara Murray contributed reporting to this post.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth speaks at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 20.

Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a female combat veteran who served in Iraq, said on Sunday that President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, was wrong to say women should not serve the US military in combat roles.

After watching a clip of Hegseth on a recent podcast, in which he said the US using women in combat does not make its military more effective, Duckworth replied flatly: “He’s wrong.”

Duckworth called Hegseth “unqualified,” saying he never commanded a unit during his military service, and does not have the experience to run an organization with the size and scope of the Pentagon.

On Trump’s choice for spy chief: Duckworth called Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick to lead the intelligence community, “compromised” due to her past meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and comments viewed as sympathetic to Russia.

“I do think that we have a real deep concern whether or not she’s a compromised person,” Duckworth said, adding that “the US intelligence community has identified her as having troubling relationships with America’s foes, and so my worry is that she could pass a background check.”

This post has been updated with more comments from Duckworth’s interview.

Tulsi Gabbard speaks at a campaign rally for Donald Trump on October 27 in New York.

GOP Sen. James Lankford, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Sunday that the committee will have “lots of questions” to ask Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the intelligence community, during the confirmation process.

Lankford, a new member of Republican leadership, specifically referenced Gabbard’s meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“We’ll have lots of questions. She met with Bashar Assad. We’ll want to know what the purpose was,” Lankford told Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“We’ll want to get a chance to talk about past comments that she’s made and get them into full context,” he added.

In 2019, Gabbard said “Assad is not the enemy of the United States,” standing by her opposition to US involvement in Syria’s civil war two years after she met personally with the accused war criminal.

The senator acknowledged Gabbard has been “outspoken” on US foreign policy and highlighted the importance of having leadership that is supportive of the intelligence community.

Lankford said all of Trump’s Cabinet nominees will “get a fair shake” in confirmation hearings. “We’ll let the process work out,” he told Bash.

More context: Trump’s selection of Gabbard to run the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has quickly drawn scrutiny because of her relative inexperience in the intelligence community and her public adoption of positions on Syria and the war in Ukraine that many national security officials see as echoing Russian propaganda.

CNN’s Sam Fossum contributed to this report.

Brooke Rollins, AFPI President & CEO, arrives to speak at the America First Policy Institute Agenda Summit in Washington, DC, on July 26, 2022.

President-elect Donald Trump has now made most of his picks for key Cabinet roles and other high-ranking administration positions, announcing a slew of them Friday before the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Trump announced his latest Cabinet selection Saturday, tapping one of his former policy advisers, Brooke Rollins, as agriculture secretary. Rollins is the CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a group with close ties to Trump’s transition team, and has been a vocal supporter of the president-elect.

Remember: Most of Trump’s selections are subject to Senate approval, a process that still needs to play out, with high-profile hearings expected on Capitol Hill.

Here are the other names to know from Trump’s latest announcements:

Check out our full list of Trump’s picks for the Cabinet and key roles here.

Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard.

Republicans avoided a confirmation firestorm when former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration as attorney general, but lawmakers are already bracing for how they’ll navigate the confirmation process for the next slew of unorthodox picks by President-elect Donald Trump.

Some of Trump’s Cabinet selections, including Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, and Tulsi Gabbard, his pick for director of national intelligence, could force Republicans to choose between their allegiance to Trump and their growing concerns that some of his nominees might not be up for the job — or possible to confirm in a narrowly controlled Senate.

Hegseth on Thursday huddled with a handful of Republican senators, many of them seen as close allies of Trump, for a series of meetings. Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee called it “a great meeting,” while Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma called Hegseth “very qualified to do the job.”

Earlier on the morning of those meetings, new details emerged about a police report from 2017 in which a woman alleged that Hegseth blocked her from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, and then sexually assaulted her even though she “remembered saying ‘no’ a lot,” CNN reported. Police declined to press charges, and Hegseth has maintained the encounter was consensual.

But while some members of the party signal support for the nomination, other Republicans on the Hill warn there are mounting concerns about Hegseth. Although many senators have known Hegseth, a Fox News host and military veteran, for years, the process of vetting him to lead the Pentagon will force them to examine him and his views in a new light.

Read more about the headwinds facing Hegseth and other Cabinet picks here.

Then-candidate Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York on September 27.

We asked CNN readers for their questions about the incoming second Trump administration.

Here’s what one reader is wondering about the president-elect’s approach to Ukraine and its war against Russia:

Jim Sciutto is CNN’s chief national security analyst and the author of “The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War.” This is what he wrote in response:

I don’t speak to anyone in the US, Europe or Ukraine who expects business as usual. The question is not if Trump will change the US approach, but how much.

For my book, several former Trump administration officials told me they expected him to end US support for Ukraine in a second term, part of a broader effort to improve US relations with Russia.

That said, there is another school of thought that Trump — seeing the damage done by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan — would not want to invite accusations of weakness if Ukraine were to fall or otherwise be further occupied by Russia. We don’t know yet.

What is clear is that he has said multiple times he intends to end the war. The question is: How far will he be willing to go to do that? And can he end it, given Russian President Vladimir Putin sees the Ukraine war as a strategic interest?

His Cabinet appointments are somewhat contradictory, with some having expressed support for Ukraine, while his pick for spy chief, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, blamed Russia’s invasion on NATO.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who was President-elect Donald Trump's first nominee to be attorney general, closes a door to a private meeting with Vice President-elect JD Vance and Republican Senate Judiciary Committee members at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on November 20.

Matt Gaetz, the embattled former Florida lawmaker, became the first of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks for his second administration to withdraw from consideration.

Gaetz, who was the subject of a House Ethics Committee probe into allegations of sexual misconduct and other wrongdoing, dropped out Thursday due to flagging support on Capitol Hill, where Cabinet selections face confirmation hearings in the Senate.

While he is the first pick from Trump’s current slate to do so after being publicly named, it’s not without precedent in recent presidencies.

Here’s a look at the past three decades: