January 9, 2025 - Presidential transition news

Sen. John Fetterman is seen at the Capitol on December 19, 2024.

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania confirmed that he has accepted an invitation from President-elect Donald Trump to meet, stressing that he will “have a conversation with anyone” in service of his constituents.

“President Trump invited me to meet, and I accepted. I’m the Senator for all Pennsylvanians— not just Democrats in Pennsylvania. I’ve been clear that no one is my gatekeeper. I will meet with and have a conversation with anyone if it helps me deliver for Pennsylvania and the nation,” Fetterman said in a statement to CNN.

A source familiar with the meeting said that it will take place at Mar-a-Lago.

CBS first reported that Fetterman accepted an invitation to meet with Trump at his Florida club.

Fetterman is also supporting a GOP-led immigration bill that will be up for vote this Thursday afternoon in the Senate. The Pennsylvania senator is a co-sponsor of the “Laken Riley Act,” which would require the detention of undocumented migrants charged with theft or burglary. The legislation is named after a Georgia student who was killed last year while she was out for a run. It faces an uncertain future in the Senate.

The House vote was 264 to 159, with 48 Democrats voting with Republicans in support.

This post has been updated with additional reporting.

CNN’s Matt Stiles contributed to this report.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, during a press conference in Washington, DC, on January 7, 2025.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that believes one large policy bill to enact President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda will ultimately happen — despite some Senate Republicans advocating for two bills.

“We will align both chambers, and we will move forward. I have said clearly the preference over here is one bill and that is because I have a much larger group of members to work with and a more diverse caucus,” Johnson said. “If you put it all together, you greatly increase the probability of success in getting it all done. That’s why we have this position. It still remains, as you heard, as recently as last night, um, the President Trump’s preference, and I think that that’s ultimately is what’s going to happen.”

Trump, who initially said he wanted “one big, beautiful bill” said on Wednesday that it “doesn’t matter” if it’s one or two – “the end result is going to be the same.”

Johnson also said he spoke to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Vice President-elect JD Vance at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral this morning, where they talked about the single bill strategy.

“The pieces are coming together. But I will say this, I am very confident that we are going to get this accomplished,” Johnson told reporters outside his office.

“Everyone is rowing in the same direction,” he continued. “The sequence and how we do it is being decided now, and just wait. You’ll see. It’s going to work.”

Johnson also said he “bears no ill will” toward others who want two bills.

“The idea that we would be, that there would be any difference of opinion about this, that that’s some sort of existential threat to the package or that we’re in trouble or something is just nonsense. This is part of the process. We are a deliberate body,” he said.

Asked if he would be open to working with Democrats with issues like state and local tax deductions (SALT) to earn their support, Johnson said, “Of course. We welcome all Democrats to vote for a good package. This is gonna be great legislation.”

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources has scheduled confirmation hearings next week for Doug Burgum for secretary of the Interior and Chris Wright for secretary of Energy.

Burgum’s hearing will be at 10 a.m. ET on January 14 and Wright’s hearing will be at 10 a.m. ET on January 15.

Wright will also serve as a member on the newly formed Council of National Energy, which Trump said will consist of all agencies involved in the “permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation” of energy. Burgum will be the chairman.

Burger served two terms as governor of North Dakota and is a former Microsoft executive. In the role, Burgum would inherit the agency that oversees natural resources, public lands and Indian affairs from Secretary Deb Haaland, a former member of Congress who made history as the first Native American Cabinet secretary.

Wright is the CEO of Denver-based fracking company Liberty Energy. In addition to his company’s work on fracking oil and natural gas, Wright also sits on the board of a modular nuclear reactor company and has talked about the potential of nuclear energy.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaks during a press conference at Ramstein Air Base in Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany, on Thursday.

At his final appearance at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Ramstein, Germany, outgoing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urged Ukraine to continue fighting against Russia’s invasion, and said that Russia has now suffered more than 700,000 casualties since 2022.

“To my brave Ukrainian teammates, and to my friends who have already given and sacrificed far too much, let me urge you to stay in the fight,” said Austin at a news conference after the meeting.

Austin’s comments come after Keith Kellog, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming special envoy to Ukraine, said that he would like to find a resolution to the war within the first 100 days of the new administration.

Austin added that the UDCG “is built to succeed, built to adapt and built to last.”

“Free people must refuse to replace an open order of rules and rights with a violent world of force and fear,” Austin said. He noted that the casualties Russia has suffered is “more than Moscow has endured in all of its conflicts since World War II combined.”

“Russian casualties in Ukraine now surpass two thirds of the total strength of the Russian military at the start of Putin’s war of choice,” he said.

Biden administration’s final aid package: The Biden administration has announced the final tranche of military aid it will send to Ukraine, amounting to about $500 million.

The last package comes as the White House prepares to announce another round of sanctions on Russia, expected at the end of this week. US officials have argued they are trying to give Ukraine the greatest leverage possible ahead of possible negotiations to end the war this year. There had been an expectation that the White House could impose more sanctions on Russia before the looming inauguration and amid persistent Ukrainian pressure.

Sen. John Cornyn said he intends to support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after meeting with President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be Health and Human Services secretary on Thursday.

Cornyn is a senior Republican who sits on the Senate Finance committee, which has jurisdiction over advancing Kennedy’s nomination.

Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju if Kennedy had expressed his previous false claim that childhood autism is linked to vaccines, Cornyn said they did not specifically discuss autism, but added that Kennedy is “not the first person” who has expressed that view and called it a “serious concern.”

Cornyn said he had asked Kennedy about his views on the regular childhood vaccine schedule, and that Kennedy had told him those shots are “well-tested and time-tested for safety.”

A boy looks through a border wall separating Mexico from the United States in November in Tijuana.

When Altagracia left Honduras to embark on the monthslong journey to the US-Mexico border, she had two clear goals on her mind: Reach the United States to claim asylum and reunite with her children living there.

But after leaving her hometown of Siguatepeque, in Honduras’ central highlands, she learned that Donald Trump had won the US election touting a crackdown on immigration – one that she feared could shrink her chances of reaching the US after a nearly 3-month trip through central America and Mexico.

Speaking from a shelter in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca in December, the 39-year-old told CNN she was racing against the clock to reach the US’s southern border with Mexico before Trump’s January 20 inauguration.

“We’ve been told that when Trump starts, he won’t let us in,” Altagracia, who asked CNN not to share her last name over fears it would impact her asylum claim in the US, said on a phone call.

Altagracia is one of several migrants CNN spoke to who are racing to reach the US-Mexico border before Trump returns to the White House.

Her concerns, she says, stem from Trump’s rhetoric around mass deportations and closing the border altogether.

Read more on migrants who spoke to CNN here.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr heads to a meeting with Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) on Capitol Hill on January 8 in Washington, DC. Trump's nominees for his incoming administration continue to meet with senators on Capitol Hill, weeks before his inauguration.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wouldn’t say whether he’s had to walk back any of his views on vaccines as he tries to shore up support from enough senators to be confirmed as Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary.

At the start of his meeting with Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, Kennedy ignored questions from CNN’s Manu Raju on whether he’s had to amend his positions and whether he still stands by his controversial views on vaccines.

Several lawmakers who have already met with Kennedy have said they’ve discussed vaccines with him and that the former independent presidential candidate has expressed an interest in questioning science around vaccines.

While going into Cornyn’s office, Kennedy told Raju that his home in Brentwood is “so far still standing” as devastating wildfires engulf the Los Angeles area.

U.S. Transportation secretary nominee Sean Duffy arrives to meet with U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) on Capitol Hill in Washington, on December 11, 2024.

Sean Duffy will appear before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation for his confirmation hearing to be transportation secretary on January 15 at 10 a.m. ET.

Duffy served in the US House of Representatives from 2011 to 2019, representing Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District. He most recently was co-host of Fox Business’ “The Bottom Line,” after first joining Fox News as a contributor in 2020.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks after the guilty verdict in Donald Trump's criminal trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, at a press conference in New York on May 30, 2024.

New York prosecutors pushed back Thursday on President-elect Donald Trump’s assertion that a sentencing in the hush money case would jeopardize the transfer of power of the presidency this month.

Trump asserted in an emergency appeal on Wednesday that the sentencing, set for Friday, would be “uniquely taxing.” He is set to be inaugurated on January 20.

“President Trump is currently engaged in the most crucial and sensitive tasks of preparing to assume the executive power in less than two weeks, all of which are essential to the United States’ national security and vital interests,” his attorneys wrote.

The US Supreme Court is considering Trump’s request to delay his sentencing in the hush money case and is expected to hand down a decision as soon as Thursday.

Former U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe (C), U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, moves between meetings with senators in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on December 18, 2024 in Washington, DC.

John Ratcliffe will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation hearing to be CIA director on January 15 at 10 a.m. ET.

Ratcliffe, a former representative from Texas, served as the director of national intelligence from 2020 to 2021 during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term – and his appointment served as a key argument for critics who believed that Trump was using the intelligence community to serve his political needs.

Trump chose Ratcliffe in November to serve as his CIA director. Ratcliffe had been high on the list of potential attorney general candidates, sources told CNN. He currently serves as co-chair at the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-linked think tank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York on September 27, 2024.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has scrapped plans to attend US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, Israeli officials told CNN on Thursday.

The prime minister hadn’t formally announced a trip to the US, but Israeli media has reported that he was expected to attend the ceremony.

News of Netanyahu’s change of plans came two days after judges involved in his long-running corruption trial announced that his next court hearing will be held on January 20, the day of Trump’s inauguration.

Netanyahu has repeatedly spoken on the phone with the incoming US president since Trump won the election in November. Both Trump and Biden are pushing Israel and Hamas to reach a hostage and ceasefire deal before Trump’s inauguration.

The New York Court of Appeals – New York’s highest court – rejected Donald Trump’s request to stay his sentencing one day before Judge Juan Merchan is set to impose a sentence on the president-elect for the May conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the hush money case.

Trump’s attorneys were notified Thursday morning that Judge Jenny Rivera denied Trump’s request, according to a letter from the Court of Appeals.

Trump has also asked the Supreme Court to block his sentencing.

Merchan signaled in an order earlier this month denying Trump’s bid to toss the conviction that when he sentenced Trump, he will not impose penalties on the president-elect, who is set to retake the White House in less than two weeks.

Trump is expected to appear virtually at Friday’s sentencing if it happens.

State prosecutors overseeing Trump’s hush money case in New York urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow the sentencing of the incoming president to continue as planned.

The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, told the justices that the high court doesn’t have jurisdiction to consider Trump’s emergency request because his appeals have not fully played out in New York courts.

Elon Musk attends a meeting at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on November 13, 2024.

Elon Musk has walked back his previous claim that he could cut at least $2 trillion from the federal budget, saying Wednesday that half that amount would be “an epic outcome.”

Musk, who has been tasked by President-elect Donald Trump to co-lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, called the $2 trillion target “the best-case outcome.”

There’s no shortage of money-saving targets in the federal government, Musk said, without offering any specifics.

Musk, the world’s richest person, is looking to downsize the federal budget and operations by slashing spending, curbing regulations and cutting the workforce. However, budget experts have scoffed at his pronouncements, saying that eliminating $2 trillion from a roughly $6.8 trillion budget is unrealistic.

Read more on Musk’s DOGE budget goals here.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland addresses members of the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York on November 18, 2024 in New York City.

The Justice Department told a federal appeals court on Wednesday that Attorney General Merrick Garland intends to release the January 6-related volume of its final report of special counsel Jack Smith before Donald Trump takes office.

However, Garland does not plan to publicly release the part of Smith’s report regarding the investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, the Justice Department said, the first formal notification of the attorney general’s intentions.

The Justice Department asked the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals to approve the plan.

“The Attorney General intends to release Volume One to Congress and the public consistent … in furtherance of the public interest in informing a co-equal branch and the public regarding this significant matter,” DOJ said in a filing.

At the moment, Garland is blocked from releasing any part of Smith’s report due to a ruling from District Judge Aileen Cannon. The Justice Department is seeking to lift the injunction as it applies to the January 6 section of the report.

Cannon on Tuesday temporarily blocked the special counsel from releasing both volumes, following a request from Trump and his former co-defendants in the classified documents case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira. (Nauta and De Olivera have pleaded not guilty.)

Because it won’t make the part regarding Nauta and De Oliveira public, the Justice Department told the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals that the pair shouldn’t be allowed to stop the rest of the report from being released.

“There is neither any need nor legal basis for an injunction,” the DOJ wrote in a filing to an appeals court on Wednesday. … But to avoid any risk of prejudice to defendants Nauta and De Oliveira, the Attorney General has determined, at the recommendation of the Special Counsel, that he will not publicly release Volume Two so long as defendants’ criminal proceedings remain pending.”

Read the full story.

Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom.

Walls of fire devoured neighborhoods, forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee for their lives. But as a cataclysm fueled by windstorms charred swathes of Los Angeles, Donald Trump spotted an opportunity.

The president-elect responded to six massive blazes by reopening his long-term feud with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, landing an early jab on a Democratic governor and a state likely to emerge as a major opponent to his second term plans.

Trump and Newsom have clashed bitterly in the past, including over fire prevention, environmental policies, climate change, green vehicles and immigration.

And the incoming president wasted no time in laying the blame for simultaneous wildfires raging in the Los Angeles area that have so far killed at least five people.

Trump slammed “the gross incompetence and mismanagement of the Biden/Newscum Duo,” in a post on his Truth Social network. He claimed that California environmental policies that divert fresh water to preserve wetlands and wildlife were to blame for hydrants running dry. “I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this,” Trump wrote as part of a flurry of social media posts, later writing that Newsom should resign.

Firefighters battle the Palisades fire as it burns during a windstorm on the west side of Los Angeles, California, on January 8, 2025.

In Trump’s misinformation game, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s true that Newsom is responsible for diverting water to protect the delta smelt – “a worthless fish” in Trump’s words – and that, as a result, homes of Angelenos were burned down. The president-elect just needs enough people to believe it might be the case to inflict political damage on the governor, who’s one of the nation’s most high-profile Democrats and a possible 2028 presidential hopeful.

California is also a perfect target as a liberal state that went for Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s election. The conceit of a state and city inflicting self-defeating environmental policies is a perfect fit for Trump’s narrative that liberal governance in blue states and cities invites chaos, crime and misery.

“This is not Government. I can’t wait till January 20th!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

There will be legitimate questions about California’s and Los Angeles’ level of preparedness for the fires. Newsom and city officials will be called to account for any failures – like many politicians tested in the crucible of natural disasters. But in such dire situations, blame usually awaits the ebbing of the crisis.

Read Collinson’s full analysis here.

Tourists look at the Danish cargo ship Lars Maersk sailing through the Agua Clara Locks of the Panama Canal in Colon City, Panama, on December 28, 2024. On 31 December 2024, Panama celebrated the 25th anniversary of sovereignty over the Canal.

President-elect Donald Trump is not letting up on his suggestions that the US should retake the Panama Canal, an idea that has been rejected by the government of Panama, which has controlled the passage for decades.

In social media posts and remarks to supporters, Trump has accused Panama of charging the US “exorbitant rates” to use the canal and hinted at growing Chinese influence over the crucial waterway. And at an hour-long news conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, he said the nearly half-century-old decision by the US to hand over control of the canal was a “terrible thing to do.”

The US-built canal was opened in 1914 and controlled by the United States until a 1977 agreement provided for its eventual handover to Panama. The canal was jointly operated by both countries until the Panamanian government retained full control after 1999.

Speaking to a crowd of young conservatives in Phoenix last month, Trump said if the spirit of that agreement is not followed, “then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States. So, to the officials of Panama, please be guided accordingly.”

It’s not clear how seriously Trump is taking his threat to reclaim control over the canal. The president-elect has not clarified how he would force a sovereign, friendly country to cede its own territory, and declined on Tuesday to rule out military force to regain control of the canal.

And the Panamanian government wants nothing to do with Trump’s suggestion.

Read more about the Panama Canal and Trump’s threats here.

The casket of former President Jimmy Carter arrived at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 7. Carter will lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda before his funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral on Thursday.

It’s the world’s most exclusive fraternity, and on Thursday, all five members of the so-called presidents club will gather to honor one of their own.

Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are expected to attend the state funeral of former President Jimmy Carter, who died on December 29.

It’s an exceedingly rare convening, and it will mark the first time all of the club’s living members will come face to face since the funeral of George H.W. Bush in December 2018.

Six years later, the group has a sharply fractured dynamic that will be closely watched at the Washington National Cathedral service. The former presidents have directly, and indirectly, spoken forcefully against Trump, who mounted a successful political comeback after his defeat four years ago and who in less than two weeks will return to the White House.

“Definitely in modern history — from Kennedy on — there hasn’t been a more contentious moment between these men,” said Kate Andersen Brower, the author of “Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump.”

Linked by the shared experience of having served in what one of their predecessors, William Howard Taft, once described as “the loneliest place in the world,” the five living American presidents will gather “at a funeral for a man who always stood a bit, figuratively, apart from them,” said Brower.

The presidents club, by nature, is complicated by past rivalries and future legacies. Those complications have only intensified as Trump, who has railed against all of his fellow presidents, is returning to the White House. Yet regardless of party, the members — so far, all men — are bound by the singular experience of serving in the Oval Office.

Keep reading here about today’s funeral.