November 16, 2024 - Presidential transition news

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President Joe Biden did not attempt to predict what might happen to the US-China relationship once he exits office in January during his final meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Saturday.

Sullivan added in remarks to reporters after the meeting that Biden did not act as a conduit for messages between Xi and the incoming Trump administration. Sullivan acknowledged the Trump transition team “is not in the business of providing us assurances about anything.”

Instead, he said Biden in the meeting sought to underscore with Xi the importance of maintaining honest and straightforward lines of communication. Sullivan described the final meeting as “candid, constructive (and) wide ranging.”

Read more on the meeting here.

Then-Rep. Matt Gaetz attends a news conference in Washington, DC, in 2023.

President-elect Donald Trump is pressing forward with his decision to nominate former Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general, despite widespread unease on Capitol Hill about entrusting the Justice Department to a figure with limited legal experience who has recently faced investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct.

Trump’s insistence on the controversial nomination has drawn warnings from allies and lawmakers, who caution that Gaetz faces an uphill climb to secure the 51 votes needed for Senate confirmation. There is growing concern, too, that the spectacle of a Gaetz confirmation hearing might overshadow the priorities on which Trump has spent the last two years campaigning and for which he received a mandate to push through with his victory this month.

Yet the president-elect has made clear that he views Gaetz as the most important member of the Cabinet he is quickly assembling, sources with knowledge of Trump’s thinking told CNN, and he considers the nomination of the former Florida congressman an urgent priority for the new GOP majority in the Senate.

More context: Gaetz’s selection was almost immediately complicated by an House Ethics Committee probe into allegations of misconduct, including “sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.” Gaetz resigned from Congress after Trump’s announcement and shortly before the committee was expected to release details of its findings. Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, including ever having sex with a minor or paying for sex.

An attorney who represents two of the women who were witnesses in the investigation into Gaetz said on Friday that one of his clients saw the congressman having sex with a minor.

Gaetz was also the subject of a separate Department of Justice sex-crimes investigation that ultimately ended without any charges.

Read more here.

This photograph shows an exterior view of the New York Stock Exchange on at Wall Street in New York on March 20.

As President-elect Donald Trump privately considers his team to lead America’s economy, tech billionaire Elon Musk has put his thumb on the scale, urging followers on X to help make a public push for a candidate who won’t be “business-as-usual” on Wall Street.

Musk, a Trump ally who has gained significant influence in the formation of Trump’s incoming administration, posted on X Saturday that he wants Howard Lutnick, a staunch Trump supporter who runs investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, to serve as the next treasury secretary.

Scott Bessent, the founder of capital management firm Key Square, has been widely viewed as the frontrunner for the job.

Musk urged his followers to “weigh in on this for @realDonaldTrump to consider feedback.”

Both Bessent and Lutnick are respected on Wall Street and have publicly supported Trump and his economic policies — including massive and unprecedented tariffs that remain largely unpopular among mainstream economists. Both also have embraced cryptocurrencies, which Trump has backed in recent months despite initial skepticism.

But Lutnick, a leader of Trump’s transition team, demonstrates a personality that is somewhat more forceful and boasting than Bessent, whose demeanor is perhaps more typical of a treasury secretary — a position that often plays a calming role for Wall Street during times of economic or market turmoil.

Read more about Musk and the treasury position here.

President Joe Biden met for a third and final time with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday, and senior officials in Beijing are more broadly focused on what a second Trump term will bring.

With just two months until President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated, top Chinese Communist Party officials have been trying to glean from foreign policy experts whether his campaign rhetoric will translate into his real agenda, according to people involved in the conversations.

The questions Chinese officials are raising, these people say, concern everything from Trump’s proposed sweeping tariff programs, his posture toward Taiwan, his relationship with the leaders of Japan and South Korea, and the military footprint he plans to pursue in the Indo-Pacific.

Beijing has also taken stock of the China hawks with which Trump plans to staff his Cabinet, including Sen. Marco Rubio at the State Department and Rep. Mike Waltz as his top national security adviser.

And Chinese officials are openly speculating on whether alternate channels of communication to Trump — through Elon Musk, Blackstone chief executive Stephen Schwarzman, or his son-in-law Jared Kushner — might help them soften the hardline stance the personnel selections have promoted.

President Joe Biden meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, Peru, on November 16.

China’s President Xi Jinping told his American counterpart President Joe Biden that the US-China relationship would remain “unchanged” following the election of Donald Trump.

“China’s goal of a stable, healthy and sustainable China-US relationship remains unchanged,” Xi told Biden through a translator during the opening remarks of their final meeting.

“China is ready to work with the new US administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences, so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-US relationship for the benefit of the two peoples,” Xi said.

The men were meeting in Peru on the sidelines of a summit for Pacific leaders.

When it was Biden’s turn to speak, he hailed the long partnership with Xi and acknowledged they hadn’t always agreed. But he said they were frank and candid in their communications, which he called “vital.” He said open communication prevented miscommunication and prevented the countries from veering into conflict.

What happens between the US and China will impact everyone in the world, Biden said, making it their responsibility to get along.

This 2018 photo shows Chris Wright ringing a ceremonial bell to celebrate the companies IPO on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly after the opening bell in New York.

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Chris Wright, the CEO of Denver-based fracking company Liberty Energy, as the next secretary of energy, he said in a statement Saturday.

The oil executive will also serve as a member on the newly formed National Energy Council, which Trump said will consist of all agencies involved in the “permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation” of energy. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — Trump’s interior secretary pick — will be the chairman.

In addition to his company’s work on fracking oil and natural gas, Wright sits on the board of a modular nuclear reactor company and has talked about the potential of nuclear energy. Developing nuclear energy has become a big focus of the Biden administration’s Energy Department. The department also houses the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency that maintains the nuclear stockpile.

On climate change: Wright has acknowledged the link between burning fossil fuels and climate change but has expressed doubt that climate change is linked to worsening extreme weather. Scientists have said otherwise, with warming oceans contributing to more powerful hurricanes, for example.

Wright has also been a staunch supporter of fossil fuels in public interviews, saying they are necessary to lift the developing world out of poverty.

“The world runs on oil and gas, and we need that,” Wright told CNBC in a 2023 interview, saying that calls to transition off fossil fuels in a decade was an “absurd time frame.”

This post has been updated with additional details about Wright and Trump’s statement.

President-elect Donald Trump has picked William Owen Scharf to serve as assistant to the president and White House staff secretary, Trump said in a statement Saturday.

Scharf was previously a member of Trump’s legal team, and notably marks the fourth of Trump’s personal attorneys to be brought into the new administration.

“Will is a highly skilled attorney who will be a crucial part of my White House team,” Trump said in the statement.

Why this matters: The White House staff secretary is a behind-the-scenes but critical role in the West Wing, responsible for managing paper flow to the president from other areas of the administration and federal government. The person filling the job has been viewed as one of the most powerful in the building.

The staff secretary takes on particular importance in a Trump administration, as it can be a difficult job, given how quickly he demands executive orders be drawn up.

This post has been updated with details about Scharf and the position.

Elon Musk listens as President-elect Donald Trump addresses a House Republicans Conference meeting in Washington, DC, on November 13.

Iran’s foreign ministry denied that a meeting was held between the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations and Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person and close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, Iranian state media reported.

The New York Times reported the meeting took place earlier this week, citing two Iranian officials.

But Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei “categorically denied” that a meeting took place and was “surprised” by the coverage in US media, state-run IRNA said.

The Times reported that a meeting between Musk and Iran’s envoy Amir Saeid Iravani was held at a secret location in New York on Monday and lasted more than an hour, citing the Iranian officials, who reportedly described the discussion as focused on how to defuse tensions between the two countries.

CNN had reached out to Musk, Trump’s transition team and the Iranian mission at the UN for confirmation of the meeting.

More context: Musk has been exerting deepening influence during Trump’s transition and was tapped to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, along with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk was also with Trump at Mar-a-Lago when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called to congratulate the president-elect the day after the election, according to a source briefed on the call.

The U.S. Capitol is seen on November 5, 2024.

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.

Here are some key questions, answered:

How does the nomination and confirmation process work?

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.

How long does a nomination take?

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. When Trump started his first term, he had two confirmations for 26 nominees. When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he had one confirmation for 36 nominees. The slowness continues. The three presidents before Donald Trump’s first term all had more than 200 nominees confirmed by 200 days in office. Trump had 119 and Biden had 118 confirmed nominees at that point.

Is there a way around the nomination process?

Sort of. There is that mention in the Constitution of recess appointments – something Trump has said he wants to use. While his fellow Republicans who will control the Senate in January have not rejected the idea, leaders like Sen. John Thune also clearly don’t want to give away their power over oversight. Plus, recess appointments only last until the end of the next Senate session, usually around the calendar year.

Trump, frustrated with the process during his first term, appointed multiple people to be “acting” heads of agencies, but they can only serve in that capacity for a matter of months, according to law. There are also limits on who can be made an acting secretary.

Read more on the Senate’s Cabinet confirmation process here.

Democratic voters uncommitted to President Joe Biden rally outside a polling location during primary elections in Dearborn, Michigan, on February 27.

For Democratic pro-Palestinian activists, Donald Trump’s reelection delivered a bitter vindication.

Led by the Uncommitted National Movement, they spent months pushing and pleading with the Biden administration to scale back its support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

Their warning had been consistent and direct: Not only did Democrats risk collapsing support among Arab American and Muslim voters in Michigan, but the conflict — and the continuous flow of military aid to the Israeli government — could depress enthusiasm among the coalition of young, mostly progressive-minded voters who proved key to President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.

Early post-election analysis of the race suggests that those concerns were well-founded — and emblematic of a broader disconnect between party leaders and the Democratic grassroots. Arab Americans, like Latino and Black men, all moved toward Trump in the final accounting. The president-elect’s vote-share improved nearly everywhere, from the red states he’s dominated for nearly a decade to traditionally liberal electorates, where Democrats either stayed home or, to a lesser degree, backed third-party candidates.

Activists and voters who spoke to CNN over the past three days unanimously rejected any suggestion that their work was to blame for Harris’ unraveling.

Read more of what they had to say here.

The reelection of Donald Trump has left many transgender and nonbinary people across the US feeling a sense of unease — and sometimes outright fear — that his administration will accelerate the yearslong conservative campaign for states to block gender-affirming care, which is headed to the Supreme Court next month. The GOP made gender a building block of its 2024 platform, and Trump has vowed to enact a slew of federal restrictions on trans youth and adults — piling on the wave of anti-trans laws that are already being passed and proposed at the state level.

In the weeks leading up to the presidential election, CNN sent disposable cameras to 10 transgender and nonbinary people across the US to document all aspects of their lives.

Here’s what they told CNN about the current political climate:

• Taylor Alxndr: The 31-year-old has become a fixture of Atlanta’s drag scene and cofounded the nonprofit Southern Fried Queer Pride. It’s one of the organizations already mobilizing ahead of Trump’s inauguration, hoping to help transgender Southerners get access to hormone replacement therapy, name and gender changes before January.

A strip of pictures from a photo booth shows Taylor Alxndr and their husband, Lawrence, a fellow drag artist.

• Ruby Stabreit: In the wake of Trump’s victory, 19-year-old Stabreit has been helping other trans people legally change their names and gender markers ahead of Trump’s inauguration. As an aspiring wildland firefighter from Columbus, Ohio, his instinct is to go toward the problem, not away from it.

Ruby Stabreit flexes in a mirror. "I love my arms. I love them very much,” Stabreit said.

• Kellen Sapp: Trump’s reelection has left Sapp, a 21-year-old from Norman, Oklahoma, with “terrifying” doubts over what his administration may do to block trans health care, she said. She also fears the rise in anti-trans rhetoric among some conservatives may put trans people’s safety at risk.

Kellen Sapp sings in her church choir and also plays in its bell choir. “If we are fearfully and wonderfully made in God's image, then surely my transness must be part of that,” Sapp said.

See more images from the lives of queer people across the country.

Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27.

President-elect Donald Trump is set to make his return to Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, visiting the New York City landmark arena for an Ultimate Fighting Championship event.

Trump’s trip to his hometown, and the arena where he held a controversial rally less than two weeks before Election Day, is an opportunity for the president-elect to revel in his victory as his transition team pieces together his Cabinet nominees and fills out his incoming administration.

Dana White, the UFC president, is a longtime friend of Trump. He spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2016, and did so again this year in Milwaukee, days after Trump survived an assassination attempt.

White’s support for Trump came as his campaign sought to appeal to young men who are irregular voters, and particularly to improve on Republicans’ traditionally poor share of Black and Latino men.

The UFC head attended Trump’s victory party in Palm Beach, Florida, last week, where the president-elect discussed helping White secure venues early in his mixed martial arts enterprise’s existence.

Trump’s last visit to Madison Square Garden for a late October campaign rally proved controversial — particularly when comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

At the time, the remark seemed like it could damage Trump’s chances of victory, particularly because the critical swing state of Pennsylvania has a large and fast-growing Puerto Rican population. However, CNN’s exit polls showed Trump bested Vice President Kamala Harris with Latino men nationally, and he won the Keystone State.

In this September 2023 photo, migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the US from Mexico are lined up for processing by US Customs and Border Protection in Eagle Pass, Texas.

The incoming Trump administration’s plans to implement strict border measures, strike down Biden-era policies and kick off the detention and deportation of migrants at large scale are underway and starting to come into focus, according to four sources familiar with the plans.

People close to President-elect Donald Trump and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise, including reviewing metropolitan areas where capabilities exist. But they are also preparing executive actions that are a call back to his first term in office and could be rolled out as soon as Trump takes office, sources say.

Taken together, it amounts to the return of hardline immigration policies that garnered fierce criticism from Democrats and immigrant advocates during Trump’s first term — and a dramatic change for migrants and immigrants in the United States.

The executive actions and reviews underway include the return of the program informally known as “Remain in Mexico,” which requires migrants to stay in Mexico during their immigration proceedings in the US, revising asylum restrictions, revoking protections for migrants covered by Biden’s humanitarian parole programs and undoing ICE’s enforcement priorities, according to two sources briefed on transition policy discussions.

Here’s what else is being reviewed.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a ceremony in Lima, Peru, on November 14.

When President Joe Biden meets for the final time Saturday with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, his aides say the moment will be ripe for reflection on a relationship that began more than a decade ago.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House has been the overwhelming backdrop to the summit of Pacific leaders that’s been unfolding in Lima this week, as delegates discuss and strategize for an uncertain future.

Trump’s embrace of tariffs, autocrats and isolationist viewpoints runs mostly counter to the foreign policy principles Biden spent the past four years espousing on the world stage.

Yet perhaps most disconcerting for leaders gathered in Lima may be Trump’s unpredictability. That includes Xi, who regularly encourages stability above all else in his public pronouncements.

Keep reading about the two leaders’ relationship and how they’re preparing for Trump.

A destroyed house is seen after a Russian strike in Odesa, Ukraine, on November 8.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday said Russia’s war in Ukraine “will end faster” when Donald Trump takes over as US president.

Speaking in a radio interview with Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne, Zelensky admitted to a difficult situation on the battlefield, where Russia has been pressing its advantages in manpower and weaponry.

He said the war “will end faster with the policy of this team that will now lead the White House,” referring to the incoming Trump administration.

Zelensky stressed that, on Ukraine’s part, “We must do everything to ensure that the war ends next year through diplomatic means.”

Remember: Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Ukraine-Russia war would not have started if he had been president. In July, he said he could settle the war in one day — without saying how he would do so. The president-elect has also cast doubt on continued US commitment to Kyiv, and made comments that suggest the US could pressure Ukraine into an uneasy truce with Russia.

On the battlefield: Russia is making gains at key spots along the front lines of eastern and southeastern Ukraine, while unleashing wave after wave of aerial terror against Ukrainian cities.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy still appears to be slowly grinding Ukraine down. But a number of analysts have said Putin has a limited window of opportunity to achieve this goal, given the staggering losses Russia is suffering to make even the smallest advances.

The strain the conflict is putting on Russia’s economy is clearly growing. Inflation is running high, and companies are facing labor shortages. And while Russia has many more people than Ukraine, it is undergoing significant losses and recruitment of new troops is already a problem.

Two of President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for Cabinet positions are receiving intense scrutiny.

For attorney general: It remains unclear whether the House Ethics Committee will release an investigative report on alleged sexual misconduct by former Rep. Matt Gaetz, whom Trump picked for attorney general, now that Gaetz has stepped down from his seat in Congress.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said yesterday that he will request the committee not release the report. Later Friday, an attorney representing two women who were witnesses in the committee probe said one of his clients told the panel she saw Gaetz having sex with a minor. The lawyer called for the report’s release, saying, “Democracy demands transparency.”

Asked about the testimony, first reported by ABC News, a spokesperson for Gaetz told CNN that “Merrick Garland’s DOJ cleared Matt Gaetz and didn’t charge him.”

The Senate is expected to consider Trump’s picks, including Gaetz, as part of the Cabinet confirmation process, and some GOP senators are withholding support for the Florida lawmaker until they see more.

For defense secretary: Separately, the Trump transition team was caught off guard by a previous allegation of sexual assault against defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth, who had received little internal vetting, according to sources.

Several members of Trump’s team have since raised questions about the viability of his nomination, according to two people close to the situation.

Within 48 hours of Trump announcing Hegseth, the heads of the president-elect’s transition team were brought a complaint about the sexual assault allegation. The complaint aligns with an investigation by Monterey, California, police involving Hegseth on October 8, 2017.

Hegseth has not been charged in any criminal case or named as a defendant in any civil lawsuit filed in Monterey County since 2017, and his attorney has denied any wrongdoing. But the nature of the allegations caused incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles to question Hegseth during a call Thursday, a source told CNN.

President-elect Donald Trump attends the America First Policy Institute Gala held at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on November 14.

We’re starting to get a feel for Donald Trump’s vision of the incoming administration, with the president-elect naming his choices for Cabinet positions and other key roles.

On Friday, Trump formally announced his selection of North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to head the Department of the Interior.

He also added to his new staff, naming campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt as White House press secretary, and fellow campaign staff members Steven Cheung and Sergio Gor to his communications team.

Keep in mind: Trump’s picks for his Cabinet are subject to Senate approval, though he is pushing Republican leaders to buck recent norms and allow him to bypass confirmation hearings through procedural means. It presents an early test of loyalty for GOP senators.

Here are more of the officials Trump has chosen so far: