December 3, 2024 - Presidential transition news

Sen. Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who has battled against sexual assault in the military, said she will have a “really frank and thorough“ discussion with defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth when she meets with him in the coming days.

Asked if she could support Hegseth with all the allegations swirling around him, she said: “I’m just looking forward to visiting later this week and we’ll see what he has to say. We’re just going to have a really frank and thorough conversation.”

Asked what she thought about the material she has been reading about Hegseth’s alleged behavior, she said: “We’ll talk about it in our meeting.”

In this 2020 photo, a woman walks past the US Department of Justice in Washington, DC.

The Trump-Vance Transition team has formally entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Department of Justice, according to a statement from Susie Wiles, President-elect Donald Trump’s chief of staff.

This agreement outlines the terms of cooperation between the transition team and the DOJ, marking a significant step in the preparation of the incoming administration.

The memorandum also paves the way for the Trump team to seek FBI background checks on Trump’s appointees.

CNN previously reported that the transition team was using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates and not going through traditional FBI screenings for at least some of its nominees. It is still unclear how many of Trump’s Cabinet picks will be submitted for FBI background checks going forward.

The move comes after complaints from GOP senators that the delay in signing the memorandum could delay the confirmation process of Trump’s nominees.

“This agreement with the Department of Justice will ensure President Trump and his team are ready on Day 1 to begin enacting the America First Agenda that an overwhelming majority of our nation supported on Election Day,” Wiles said.

In addition, the MOU grants the transition team enhanced access to critical information from federal agencies, allowing for more effective preparation as they take on the challenges and responsibilities of governing.

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth leaves a meeting with Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Capitol Hill on December 2, in Washington, DC.

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham called some of the recent articles detailing accusations against Department of Defense pick Pete Hegseth “disturbing,” saying his confirmation is “going to be difficult.”

“Leadership comes from the top. And I want to make sure that every young woman who joins the military feels welcomed and respected,” he said.

When asked if he thought the accusations might cause trouble, Graham said he wants to “make sure that we have good order and discipline.”

“I mean, some of the things have to be addressed and we’ll see. I mean, what we want to do is make sure that we have good order and discipline. I’ve been in the military for over 30 years. I was a military lawyer, prosecutor, defense attorney and a judge for a short period of time, good order and discipline is important,” Graham said.

GOP Sen. John Kennedy told reporters Tuesday that President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks should receive background checks, and that “I would prefer to have the FBI perform them.”

Kennedy immediately hedged that stance by praising congressional committee staff and equating their work to the work of the FBI.

While the Louisiana Republican said he didn’t have a meeting scheduled with Department of Defense pick Pete Hegseth to talk about his nomination and the allegations that surround him, Kennedy said: “I want to know if they’re true, and I want to hear his side of the story, and he’s going to have to address them.”

“I have read all the articles, I have seen all the allegations, and Mr. Hegseth is going to have to address them,” he said.

When asked about The New York Times reporting on an email Hegseth’s mother reportedly sent to her son in 2018 sharply criticizing his treatment of women, Kennedy said: “Of all the allegations I’ve seen that’s probably the most serious.”

”Now I don’t know. I haven’t seen the emails. I haven’t — I don’t know if they’re accurate. I don’t know if there were emails. Once again, just because you read it on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true,” Kennedy said.

Donald Trump is set to visit Paris to attend the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral on December 7. It’s his first overseas trip since his November election to a second term in office.

Trump’s team has been in discussions for days with French President Emmanuel Macron’s office regarding the visit, and the US president-elect was invited by the French government to attend the reopening, sources familiar with the plans told CNN.

Here’s why Macron’s office was tactical with its invitation:

President-elect Donald Trump called into the Senate GOP retreat, according to Sen. John Cornyn.

House Speaker Mike Johnson attended the meeting, a source familiar tells CNN, signaling how House and Senate Republicans are looking to hit the ground running on a number of issues at the start of the new Congress.

CNN’s Annie Grayer contributed reporting to this post.

Rep. Sean Casten on December 13, 2022 in Washington, DC.

Democratic Rep. Sean Casten took a key step on the House floor to force a vote over a resolution to release the House Ethics Committee report into allegations of misconduct by former congressman Matt Gaetz, who was Donald Trump’s former pick for attorney general.

Democrats attempted to force a vote over the issue before the Thanksgiving recess break, but the procedural move stalled out, which is why Casten is bringing it back up again now.

The move today is expected to force a floor vote within two legislative days over the resolution. The House could hold a vote to table — or block — the resolution, hold a vote to refer it to committee, or hold an up or down vote on the merits.

Republicans and Democrats alike doubt that enough GOP members will buck House Speaker Mike Johnson’s wishes on the matter and therefore believe the report would not be released in this way. Johnson has said he does not think the report should be released, arguing against it because Gaetz is no longer a member of the House and the ethics panel no longer has jurisdiction over him.

Casten called up a privileged resolution on the floor that directs the ethics panel to immediately release its report into the allegations against Gaetz. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.

Remember: Gaetz’s withdrew his name from attorney general consideration in the face of bipartisan pressure, especially as Democrats were pressing for the release of a House Ethics Committee report into him.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will speak to Republican House and Senate members on Thursday afternoon, according to a notice distributed by Speaker Mike Johnson’s office on Tuesday.

The meeting — which will center on Trump’s new agency, Department of Government Efficiency — will take place at 3 p.m. ET in the congressional auditorium.

More on DOGE: Trump had proposed the creation of a government efficiency commission as part of a slate of new economic plans that he unveiled in early September.

He has tapped both Musk and Ramaswamy to lead DOGE.

On the campaign trail, Trump pointed to his proposed government efficiency commission as a way to reduce government spending. “As the first order of business, this commission will develop an action plan to totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months,” he said in September. “This will save trillions of dollars.”

It’s important to note that while Trump has promised that the initiative will make “drastic changes,” Musk and Ramaswamy will not have any direct power to make spending cuts, regulatory changes or other moves. The group will exist outside of the government and will likely serve to make recommendations to the White House for the president’s annual budget, which outlines the president’s vision but Congress is not required to follow.

CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Tami Luhby, Aaron Pellish, Matt Egan, Tierney Sneed and Rene Marsh contributed to this report.

There is officially a street in Miami-Dade County, Florida, in honor of President-elect Donald Trump, who made significant gains in the county in the 2024 election.

Miami-Dade County Commissioner for District 6, Kevin Marino Cabrera, announced the news on Tuesday in a post on X.

Trump received strong support in Miami-Dade County during the election, particularly in the city of Hialeah, which is predominantly made up of Hispanic or Latino residents. In 2020, Trump lost the county to Joe Biden, 46% to 53%. Four years later, he carried it with 55% of the vote.

Cabrera’s post features a photo of Trump signing the plaque for “President Donald J. Trump Avenue.”

Rep. Jared Moskowitz listens during a hearing on March 19 in Washington, DC.

Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz is the first Democrat to join the caucus supporting President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, a sign that efforts to cut the federal government could have bipartisan support.

Moskowitz, who wants to work on making the Secret Service and FEMA independent federal agencies that report directly to the White House, isn’t the only Democrat showing support for DOGE. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, posted “Elon Musk is right” and said he supports efforts to overhaul spending at the Pentagon.

The glimmers of Democratic support for the broader effort suggest that DOGE, led by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, could create rare instances of bipartisanship between unlikely pairings on Capitol Hill.

Moskowitz will join a caucus led by GOP Rep. Aaron Bean, of Florida, and Rep. Pete Sessions, of Texas. Separate from their caucus, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene will chair an Oversight subcommittee created to work with DOGE.

Musk and Ramaswamy will speak to Republican House and Senate members on Thursday afternoon, according to a notice distributed by Speaker Mike Johnson’s office on Tuesday.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune speaks to reporters following a news conference following the weekly Senate Republican policy luncheon at the US Capitol on November 19 in Washington, DC.

During a closed-door GOP conference meeting on the 2025 agenda, incoming Republican leader John Thune laid out an ambitious portrait of how he sees the first few months of the Trump administration playing out — and President-elect Donald Trump called in.

During the meeting, a source familiar said Thune warned members that the Senate will vote on Fridays early next year to get Trump’s Cabinet confirmed, a major departure from how the Senate has operated for years where lawmakers often depart Thursday afternoon. Thune also warned that he’s committed to canceling recess and weekends when necessary to fill Trump’s administration.

Thune told members that unlike the era of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, when a single vote might be held open for hours, he will pledge to make voting more efficient where a single vote won’t be held open endlessly.

Thune also said he is looking to have a targeted piece of legislation in the first 30 days that could include key priorities of Trump’s, like the border, energy priorities and defense. That package would use a budget process known as reconciliation that allows the Senate Republicans to pass a bill with a simple majority vote.

That is intended to give Republicans more time to iron out a larger tax package that would use the same reconciliation process.

Federal Reserve Board Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference following a Federal Open Market Committee meeting in Washington on November 7, in Washington, DC.

President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to impose stiff tariffs against America’s three biggest trading partners is widely expected to push prices higher — which would set the stage for the Federal Reserve to stop cutting interest rates and possibly raise them instead.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a recent speech in Dallas that it is still too early to consider how Trump’s tariff plans would affect the US economy. Campaign rhetoric is one thing, but enacted policy is another. Trump, however, says he won’t waste any time, threatening last week to slap 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% duty on Chinese goods on the first day of his second term on January 20.

Trump’s tariffs would almost certainly push up prices for imported goods like avocados, cars and tequila. That would affect about $1.5 trillion of goods that flow throughout North America, according to an estimate from the International Monetary Fund.

Fed officials will eventually develop economic models of how the US economy could perform under different tariff scenarios. Two potential developments they’ll consider will be whether retaliatory tariffs emerge from Trump’s plans, if enacted, and if Americans believe inflation will pick up.

That’s precisely what the Fed did in 2018 when the first Trump administration went on a tariff spree, slapping duties on foreign goods ranging from solar panels to washing machines.

In one scenario, assuming retaliation against a 15% universal tariff, the Fed deemed it best to raise rates if Americans also expected inflation to pick up. That was the formula for the Fed to raise rates: a trade war and spooked consumers, according to a declassified 2018 Fed document detailing policy alternatives known as the “tealbook.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has already suggested retaliatory tariffs in response to Trump’s threat.

Read more about what the plan could mean for interest rates and the economy.

For all the drama generated every four years by Cabinet appointments, defeat of a nominee by a vote in the Senate is extremely rare.

Rather than face the humiliation of a rejection vote in the Senate, Cabinet nominees are more frequently withdrawn when it becomes clear they cannot be confirmed.

Every recent president since Bill Clinton has withdrawn at least one of their initial nominees. Clinton’s initial nominee to be attorney general, Zoe Baird, withdrew her nomination after admitting she employed undocumented immigrants to watch her child.

Here’s more about the confirmation process:

What is the Cabinet? Presidents lead the federal government with the help of a group of close advisers and the heads of federal agencies like the Department of Justice and the Pentagon. Some members of the Cabinet, like vice president and White House chief of staff, do not need Senate approval. But most of them do.

Some roles, like US ambassador to the United Nations or CIA director, have been at the Cabinet level in some administrations but not all. The current Cabinet, under President Joe Biden, has 26 members.

The Senate’s role: Article II is the section of the Constitution that deals with the executive branch. In Section II, it makes clear that while the president is the executive, he hires certain positions spelled out in the Constitution and others established by law with the “advice and consent” of senators. If the Senate is in recess, the president can make temporary appointments.

Timeline of nomination process: In modern times, a president-elect nominates his picks for top officials ASAP after winning the election. Planning should ideally begin before Election Day.

Oversight committees in the Senate can conduct confirmation hearings before Inauguration Day on January 20. They can refer nominees to the full Senate or quick votes when the new president takes the oath of office. But things frequently take a lot longer.

A nomination takes longer than it used to. Even after Democratic senators pushed through changes to the rules in 2013 to remove the filibuster from confirmation of administration officials, the two parties have gotten more adversarial about the process.

Read more about the Senate’s Cabinet confirmation process.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to expel millions of undocumented people as part of the biggest deportation program in American history. But Wall Street doesn’t believe the looming immigration crackdown will live up to Trump’s campaign trail hype.

Although investors expect immigration will slow significantly during Trump’s second administration, just 6% of investors expect net immigration will turn negative under Trump, according to a Goldman Sachs survey released Sunday.

Wall Street is betting that, even with Trump’s promised crackdown, more people will enter the United States than are deported from it. That would come as a relief to the business owners who warn that wide-scale deportations of millions of people, as Trump has repeatedly promised to enact, will starve them of workers and lift prices on consumers.

The findings underscore the reality that deportations will likely be slowed by legal obstacles and logistical constraints, not to mention the economic risk of causing worker shortages at farms, construction sites and elsewhere.

Nearly half of the investors anticipate annual immigration will average between 500,000 and 1 million under Trump, according to Goldman Sachs. That would be down from the recent annualized rate of about 1.75 million and the peak of 3 million last year.

The president has some authority to control immigration by executive action, but those orders lack the scope and permanence of legislation. Although the House of Representatives and Senate will be under Republican control next year, the party’s margins will be narrow, which could make legislating — particularly on a hot-button topic like immigration — potentially difficult.

Read more about Trump’s impact on the market.

In this 2017 photo, then-President Donald Trump meets with French President Emmanuel Macron in Brussels.

There’ll be a strong sense of déjà vu when French President Emmanuel Macron lays the flattery on thick for Donald Trump in Paris this weekend.

Few foreign leaders did more to woo Trump when he was the 45th president. Macron treated him with such deference at a Bastille Day parade on the Champs-Élysées that Trump came home wanting a military parade of his own — on July Fourth.

As Trump prepares to become the 47th president, Macron has surpassed himself, inviting Trump to attend the year’s most vaunted opening — the unveiling of the newly restored Notre Dame Cathedral five years after a savage fire.

Putting Trump at the center of the star-studded VIP event, which will mark his big return to the global stage, says everything about the power fast flowing back to the president-elect six weeks before he begins his second term.

Trump isn’t waiting until January to launch his new foreign policy — he’s already threatened a trade war with Canada and Mexico and showed who is boss when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rushed to Florida to appease him last week. And on Monday, he warned that there will be “ALL HELL TO PAY” in the Middle East if Hamas doesn’t release hostages in Gaza before Inauguration Day.

Trump’s starring role in Paris will also mark a poignant contrast with Joe Biden’s increasingly ignominious long goodbye. The president came under fierce criticism Monday, even from within his own party, after he pardoned his son Hunter, undercutting a core principle of his term — that everyone is equal before the law.

Read Collinson’s full analysis.

President-elect Donald Trump joked to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Canada should become a 51st state during a discussion on tariffs over dinner Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club last Friday, two sources briefed on the conversation told CNN.

Trudeau’s impromptu trip to Florida came just days after Trump promised massive hikes in tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and Canada starting on the first day of his administration, specifically calling for a 25% tariff on all products sent to the US, a version of which Trump mentioned during the dinner. After what was described as polite pushback on the matter from Trudeau on how such tariffs would hurt the Canadian economy, Trump joked that if that were the case, maybe Canada should join the United States as a 51st state, the sources said. One source emphasized that the comment was meant to be a joke, and that the other dinner guests took it as one.

The mention of becoming a 51st state was first reported by Fox News Digital.

Notably present at the dinner were: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who Trump asked to serve as Department of the Interior secretary, Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser pick, commerce secretary pick Howard Lutnick, incoming Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick and former deputy national security adviser Dina Powell.

Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford and Canadian Minister of Public Safety Dominic LeBlanc were also in attendance.

Top advisers to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign said that they could not overcome the gap of voters who were dissatisfied with the Biden administration and those who viewed Donald Trump’s first term positively, according to CNN political analyst Ron Brownstein.

Brownstein explained that, in a sense, Trump became a normal candidate due to voters becoming dissatisfied with the state of the country and the incumbent president. “The natural hydraulics of American politics is that most voters turn to the out party and that’s what we saw,” he said.

Brownstein noted that some Harris advisers and Democratic strategists said that they had a difficult time combatting President Joe Biden’s low approvals with Donald Trump’s rising approvals of his previous term.

Watch Brownstein’s full analysis:

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Why Trump beat Harris in 5 minutes, according to Ron Brownstein

04:59 - Source: CNN

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer has been unanimously elected as the Democratic leader for the 5th straight Congress, according to a Senate Democratic leadership aide.

The entire leadership team was unanimously elected by the Senate Democratic Conference.

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth leaves a meeting with Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Capitol Hill on December 2, in Washington, DC.

Donald Trump’s defense secretary pick, Pete Hegseth, will meet with three Republican senators Tuesday in their offices as he looks to garner support ahead of his confirmation hearings.

North Carolina Sen. Ted Budd, a member of Senate Armed Services Committee, will meet him at 2 p.m. ET.

Incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Jim Risch will meet him at 3:45 p.m. ET.

Armed Services member Sen. Eric Schmitt will meet him at 5 p.m. ET.

Hegseth met with senators Monday following a New Yorker report alleging his ousting from two veterans’ advocacy organizations over mismanagement and misconduct.

With just weeks until a December 20 spending deadline, negotiators in the House and Senate are trying to find a path forward on yet another short-term spending bill to run into next year — a move that will force incoming President Donald Trump to contend with a funding battle in his first months of his presidency and smack dab in the middle of what is expected to be a contentious confirmation season.

The length of that bill as well as what else is included in it is still an active discussion, sources tell CNN.

Negotiators are upbeat at the moment about their ability to meet the deadline ahead of the holidays, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer saying yesterday on the floor talks were on track, and one aide telling CNN the talks included the “usual squabbling but nothing that will jeopardize a deadline.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson has previously floated to his conference that his preference would be to kick another spending fight into March of next year, weeks after a speaker election on the floor.

Doing so would help protect the speaker from a right flank that loathes an end-of-year mega spending bill, known as an omnibus. For now, negotiators are trying to nail down an agreement on what else will be included in the package.

A top target: A disaster aid package to help areas ravaged by hurricanes this fall — and how big that package will be remains an active discussion.

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Attorney General Pam Bondi meets with Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Sen. Lindsey Graham in his office at the Russell Senate Office Building on December 2, in Washington, DC.

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Attorney General Pam Bondi will be back on Capitol Hill today meeting with critical Republican senators who sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN.

Yesterday, Bondi met with Sens. Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham. Grassley, who will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next Congress, promised to “move swiftly” on Bondi’s nomination at the beginning of the new year.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett speaks during a press conference in Washington, DC, in February.

Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas defended President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden, saying it was “the right move.”

Biden announced Sunday that he had pardoned Hunter Biden, who faced sentencing this month for federal tax and gun convictions, marking a reversal of his previous position as he prepares to leave office.

CNN has reported that Biden’s decision to pardon Hunter has left some Democrats fuming, as he repeatedly and unequivocally claimed that he would never take that step.

“I can’t say why my colleagues are acting the way that they are. I can say that the American people are tired of us bringing a butter knife to a real fight, a real war. And the reality is that, you know, a lot of my colleagues, even if they are lawyers, they’ve never practiced law, they’ve never actually been in a courtroom,” Crockett said of some Democrats who are critical of Biden.

Pete Hegseth speaks to reporters as he leaves the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, on November 21.

Donald Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said that the transition team doesn’t have “any concerns” about the president-elect’s pick for defense secretary — Pete Hegseth — despite recent reports detailing personal misconduct involving alcohol and inappropriate behavior toward women.

“So when it comes to Pete Hegseth, there aren’t any concerns and we feel very good about his positioning for being confirmed by the Senate,” Miller told CNN’s Kasie Hunt.

Miller — acknowledging a story from The New York Times about an email sent from Hegseth’s mother to her son — argued that family conversations can be “very tough” and pointed out that Hegseth’s mother apologized for her previous criticism of her son’s treatment of women.

The Trump senior adviser also called reporting from The New Yorker about Hegseth being pushed out as the head of two veterans’ advocacy organizations “innuendo and gossip.”

Pressed by Hunt on the details of that story, Miller responded he would disagree with those characterizations of Hegseth and stressed that Hegseth will ultimately come across as a great person to lead the Pentagon.

President-elect Donald Trump has announced additional picks for key positions in his administration over the weekend into Monday.

Here are the latest:

Read more about who Trump has picked for positions in his Cabinet and in his administration.

President Joe Biden walks with his son Hunter Biden toward Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in July.

Donald Trump is continuing to prepare for his return to the White House, naming some new picks over the past few days for his administration. But most of the focus so far this week has been on President Joe Biden pardoning of his son Hunter Biden. You can read the official document here.

Hunter Biden faced sentencing this month for federal tax and gun convictions.