November 19, 2024 - Presidential transition news

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as his pick for Commerce secretary.

CNN previously reported the job would go to Lutnick, who has been co-chairing Trump’s transition effort.

Lutnick had been in battle with hedge fund manager Scott Bessent over the role of Treasury secretary after throwing his own name into the mix for the Cabinet position.

In being tapped for Commerce, Lutnick edged out Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative during Trump’s first term, and Linda McMahon, an administrator of the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019, for the role.

What the role involves: The Commerce secretary is tasked with supporting US businesses and often acts as an emissary between other nations to negotiate trade deals and increase foreign investment. There are 13 bureaus housed under the Commerce Department, including the Census Bureau, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Patent and Trademark Office.

Project 2025 — the controversial blueprint for a newly reimagined federal government that Trump tried to distance himself from during the campaign despite numerous ties to its authors — called for NOAA to be “broken up and downsized” and said the agency was part of the “climate change alarm industry.”

The Commerce secretary often works hand-in-hand with other members of the president’s Cabinet tasked with carrying out and advising on economic policy. During Trump’s first term, then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was heavily involved in the heated trade war with China and was a key advocate for levying higher tariffs on the nation.

Vice President-elect JD Vance said he and President-elect Donald Trump were interviewing candidates for the FBI director job last night at Mar-a-Lago.

The vice president-elect and Trump were interviewing people “for our government, including for FBI Director,” Vance said in a post on X.

The post was removed shortly afterward. CNN has reached out to representatives for Vance for comment.

This post was updated with more details about the Vance post.

JD Vance address members of the media on November 5 in Cincinnati.

Vice President-elect JD Vance is bringing some of Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks to Capitol Hill this week for meetings with key Republican senators who will be involved in their confirmation process, three sources familiar with the plans tell CNN.

Vance is expected to sit in on some of the meetings, including those with former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for attorney general, and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who is slated to run the Department of Defense, the sources said.

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CNN that he plans to meet with Gaetz and Vance on Wednesday.

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick to serve as the ambassador to the United Nations, as well as former Rep. Doug Collins, who he has selected to serve as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, will also meet with senators this week.

The meetings are expected to place on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Senate meetings come as both Gaetz and Hegseth are under intense scrutiny over allegations from their past, leaving questions regarding their staying power in their upcoming confirmation fights.

President-elect Donald Trump’s common strategy across his four criminal cases has been to aim to delay each one until after the election in November, and the Manhattan district attorney’s decision to agree to postpone Trump’s sentencing in the hush money case means the legal strategy “succeeded spectacularly,” CNN’s chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid said Tuesday.

This also means “there’s not going to be prison time for Donald Trump” in the “foreseeable future,” CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said

It took two-and-half years for the Department of Justice to get the indictments, at which point, “the clock’s run out,” Honig explained.

In a letter to the judge, the Manhattan district attorney argued that the judge should not dismiss President-elect Donald Trump’s conviction in the hush money case.

At the same time, the district attorney’s office acknowledged in the letter that sentencing of Trump was not likely to occur “until after the end of after the end of Defendant’s upcoming presidential term.”

A source in close to the District Attorney’s office says they are open to a four-year pause of this case.

In a statement, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung called the file “a total and definitive victory for President Trump.”

Remember: Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records over payments made to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse a $130,000 hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking out about an alleged affair before the 2016 election (Trump has denied the affair).

Donald Trump leaves the courtroom at the end of the day's proceedings in his criminal trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 14 in New York City.

The Manhattan district attorney said it would agree to postpone Donald Trump’s sentencing to give them time to litigate the president-elect’s expected motion to dismiss the hush money case.

In a letter to Judge Juan Merchan, prosecutors said they will oppose Trump’s motion to dismiss the case and suggest the judge set a deadline for their response of December 9.

Prosecutors said they don’t oppose a stay of the proceedings since they would likely be granted on appeal.

“The People believe that further proceedings before this Court should be adjourned to permit litigation of Defendants’ forthcoming motions to dismiss and, Therefore, the People would not oppose a defense motion for a stay of further proceedings before this Court while Defendant’s motion is adjudicated.”

Trump’s lawyers are likely to file a response and then the judge will decide what steps to take.

More on the case: The developments cap an historic and unprecedented turnaround for Trump’s legal and political fate. One year ago, Trump was facing four separate indictments. Now as he prepares to retake the White House, the strategy of Trump’s lawyers to try to push all of his cases beyond the 2024 election has proven wildly successful, with the two federal cases about to be wound down, the Georgia state case long dormant and the New York case poised to end without a sentence.

Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records over payments made to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse a $130,000 hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking out about an alleged affair before the 2016 election (Trump has denied the affair).

This post has been updated with more details on the Trump hush money case.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin of Illinois said that Democrats on his panel are working to get the Justice Department to hand over documents relating to their investigation into the allegations of sexual misconduct against former GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, while they still have control of the Senate.

Pressed on whether this needs to happen before they become the minority next year, Durbin told CNN, “the sooner it’s turned over the better. This is fundamental to the confirmation or lack of confirmation of this nominee.”

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, of New Jersey, who also sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, continued to push for the release of the House Ethics Committee’s report on Gaetz, arguing that it was hypocritical to withhold it, and a waste of money to force the Senate panel to carry out its own, separate investigation.

Pressed more broadly on allegations of sexual misconduct against multiple Trump nominees, including Gaetz, Booker said: “Sexual misconduct, or statutory rape in the case of Matt Gaetz, is disqualifying. To me, statutory rape should be disqualifying for any position.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to obtain records from the agency’s ICE Air Operations — which carries out deportation flights — after the agency failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a Truth Social post made by Trump Monday confirming that he would be prepared to declare a national emergency as part of his plan to deport migrants in the United States at a large scale, that could also include the use of “military assets.”

In the court filing, the ACLU characterizes the records it’s seeking to obtain as a “matter of great public concern,” and include ICE contracts regarding air and ground transportation of noncitizens domestically and abroad, the list of airfields used by the agency, and memos or guidance issued by ICE showing procedures used to stage noncitizens for deportation, including unaccompanied migrant children.

CNN reached out to Trump’s transition team for comment.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not comment on ongoing or pending litigation,” said ICE spokesperson Mike Alvarez to CNN via email.

CNN’s Katherine Sullivan contributed reporting to this post.

Sen. Chuck Grassley speaks at a news conference on July 19, 2023 in Washington, DC.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who will become the Senate Judiciary chairman next Congress, told CNN that his panel would move quicker on the nomination of former Rep. Matt Gaetz to be attorney general if the House Ethics Committee were to release its report.

Grassley noted that there are a number of Republicans who want to see the report, arguing that its release would make it easier to move ahead with confirmation hearings quickly in the new year.

“I think that if they want a speedy consideration of this nomination, there’s — we’ve got to have as much transparency as we can have,” Grassley said.

“I would suggest, if they want a speedy consideration of this – because you’ve heard my colleagues, especially on the Republican side, say that they have some questions, not only considering what you’re asking me about, but it goes beyond that to the FBI — and I think it would help faster consideration, the extent to which they would make as much available as they can,” he continued.

Grassley declined to say if he has spoken with Gaetz or Trump on the president-elect’s selection of the former Florida congressman for attorney general.

Sen. Lindsey Graham speaks during a news conference at on July 31, in Washington, DC. 

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top Senate Judiciary Republican, dismissed the allegations of sexual misconduct against former Rep. Matt Gaetz, telling CNN that “nobody should be disqualified because of a media report.”

Pressed on the fact that Gaetz was investigated by the FBI and a bipartisan House panel, Graham shot back: “And they didn’t proceed forward.”

Asked if he wanted to see the House Ethics report on Gaetz, Graham replied, “Leave it up to the House.”

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, another GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was noncommittal about whether he wanted to see the House Ethics report, and noted that it could leak even if the House panel does not vote to release it.

Kennedy said he has not spoken to Donald Trump about the president-elect’s selection of Gaetz to lead the Justice Department, but he told reporters that he is meeting with Gaetz and Vice President-elect JD Vance on Wednesday.

Matt Gaetz is calling Republican senators and urging them to keep an open mind after he was picked by President-elect Donald Trump as attorney general, according to GOP Sen. Josh Hawley — who spoke with the former Florida congressman last week.

Hawley told CNN that Gaetz urged him “to give him a shot,” and the Missouri Republican said he wants to let him address the allegations at his confirmation hearing next year.

Hawley, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, also wouldn’t say if he wanted to see the House Ethics report on Gaetz, contending he expected the information to leak one way or the other.

Republicans on the House Ethics Committee are weighing whether to bury a potentially damaging report on the former congressman after their investigation into him was shelved and the public release of the findings thrown into question.

Trump pushes for Gaetz: Trump is doubling down on his efforts to ensure Gaetz is confirmed as attorney general, calling some senators directly to discuss the Florida Republican and ask for their support, two sources familiar with the outreach told CNN.

Neither source disclosed whom Trump had reached out to, but they stressed that the president-elect had reiterated to allies how determined he is to get Gaetz confirmed.

CNN’s Kristen Holmes, Annie Grayer and Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

Howard Lutnick, chairman and chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald LP, following a Bloomberg Television interview on the opening day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024.

President-elect Donald Trump is likely to nominate Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as secretary of the Department of Commerce, a source familiar with the process told CNN.

Lutnick, the co-chair of the transition, had been in a battle with hedge fund manager Scott Bessent over secretary of Treasury after throwing his own name into the mix.

The Commerce secretary is tasked with supporting US businesses and often acts as an emissary between other nations to negotiate trade deals and increase foreign investment. There are 13 bureaus housed under the Commerce Department, including the Census Bureau, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Patent and Trademark Office. The Commerce secretary often works hand-in-hand with other members of the president’s Cabinet tasked with carrying out and advising on economic policy.

More on the selection: Lutnick edged out Robert Lighthizer and Linda McMahon for the role. Both were informed in the last day or so that Lutnick was getting the job. The move surprised several in Trump’s orbit, given McMahon had been the clear frontrunner for the role. Then, last week, Lighthizer appeared closer to getting it. And then, amid the battle for the Treasury, Trump decided to go with his transition co-chair.

For the last several months, Lutnick and McMahon have co-chaired the transition together, with Lutnick handling the personnel side and McMahon running the policy side. McMahon had become frustrated that Trump hadn’t named her to the Commerce role last week, when it became clear he was considering Lighthizer and thinking of an ambassador position for her instead. Then, she was abruptly informed that her transition co-chair was actually being awarded the Commerce job.

Read more about Lutnick and his expected role as Commerce secretary.

This post has been updated with more reporting on Lutnick and roles he has been considered for.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz told members of the House Freedom Caucus Monday night that the House Ethics Committee investigation into him was not credible, according to a member who attended.

“He said he thought it was bogus … He didn’t use that word. That was my interpretation of his comments,” GOP Rep. Morgan Griffith told CNN.

“He just said that they never actually had a report that they had a draft that was done by an Obama appointee, and that they never actually voted on a report. Actually, the committee never actually had a report, and that he was investigated by DOJ. They clearly didn’t care for him, and they came back and said no crimes had been committed,” Griffith said.

Asked if Gaetz said he’d seen the preliminary report, Griffith said, Gaetz didn’t address that.

GOP Rep. Andy Harris, who leads the caucus, said Gaetz also spoke to the group about his ideas for reforming the Department of Justice, if he were to be confirmed as attorney general.

“He was talking about reforming the Department of Justice, the well-needed reform over there,” Harris said.

“He didn’t go into it specifically. It’s obvious, it’s a weaponized Department of Justice. It needs to be completely reformed,” Harris added.

Harris said his group will likely urge the Senate to confirm Gaetz.

“I think we are probably going to urge the Senate to show the president deference in his choices for Cabinet picks,” Harris said.

President-elect Donald Trump has moved fairly swiftly in announcing his picks for his second term Cabinet, but there are still a few outstanding roles that are left to fill.

CNN is reporting that Trump has expanded his pool of contenders for Treasury secretary after jockeying among his top two candidates sent him looking for an alternative solution, according to multiple people familiar with the process.

Trump is now considering Kevin Warsh, a former investment banker and former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors whom Trump has often consulted for economic advice, and Marc Rowan, the billionaire cofounder of private equity firm Apollo Global Management, the sources said.

Treasury secretary has become a trophy position for many well-heeled Wall Street donors. The expanded slate of potential Trump picks comes after a week of bitter infighting among the top two candidates — hedge fund manager Scott Bessent and Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive Howard Lutnick, who also co-chairs the Trump transition — that led the president-elect to scrap a decision he expected to announce on last Friday after markets closed.

There are other key roles in the Cabinet that the president-elect has not announced yet, including:

CNN is tracking Trump’s Cabinet picks here.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries has been reelected on Tuesday to lead the House Democratic caucus in the next Congress.

The current House minority leader was expected to be selected again by his colleagues without facing a challenge.

More on Jeffries’ role: The Democrat from New York nearly became House speaker, but instead, is steering the Democratic Party through an identity crisis and hoping to avoid an ugly intraparty civil war.

Even without the gavel, many Democrats across Washington say House Minority Leader Jeffries — a 54-year-old New Yorker with centrist roots and messaging chops — is about to become the de facto voice of the party’s future and the face of resistance to President-elect Donald Trump.

So far, Jeffries has said little about his role in the party’s postelection rebuild. But his allies say he’s aware of the part he’s about to play. And many are making the case directly to him: Multiple Democratic donors have personally urged him to “take the lead” until the party has a new official leader, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

Read more about Jeffries and the uphill battle he faces post-2024 election.

Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey, a member of the House Ethics Committee, said Tuesday he thinks it’s important that senators get to view the panel’s report on allegations against Matt Gaetz.

Asked if he had read the report, which is now available for members, Ivey said he would “not really get into particulars.”

“It’s available. The key point is that the Senate should have a chance to look at it, not us,” he said. Asked if the general public should also be able to read the findings, Ivey said he’d be “open to that, too.”

Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar, who also sits on the committee, pointed to the statement by Ranking member Rep. Susan Wild when asked about her views. Wild told reporters on Monday evening she thinks the panel should vote on whether the report should be released and that she thinks “there will be a unanimous Democratic consensus that it should be released.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries would not answer questions about the report as he walked into the House Democratic leadership elections, where it’s expected that he’ll be selected again to lead the caucus.

Democratic Reps. Steny Hoyer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Ayanna Pressley, Summer Lee and Gregory Meeks all said emphatically they think the report should be released.

Matt Gaetz arrives at the Capitol on October 9, 2023.

Donald Trump is creating a show of force that will help define his new term as he tries to leverage Matt Gaetz into the attorney general’s office.

The president-elect has been calling senators to press them to confirm his pick early next year, even as counter pressure grows from GOP senators who want to see a House Ethics Committee report into Gaetz’s past conduct, including over an alleged sexual liaison with a minor that he has denied.

The controversy took another twist when a lawyer for two women who appeared before the committee said they testified that they were paid for “sexual favors” by the Florida Republican. The attorney, Joel Leppard, also told CNN that one of the women told the committee that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with her then-underage friend in 2017. Gaetz denies any wrongdoing and the Justice Department did not press charges after its own investigation.

The Ethics Committee report has quickly become the first big crisis of the nascent second Trump administration. A small handful of Republican senators would be needed to defect in order to block Gaetz’s nomination when the party controls the Senate majority next year.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is insisting ahead of a scheduled meeting of the Ethics Committee on Wednesday that the report should not be released since Gaetz, following his resignation last week, is no longer a member of Congress.

The escalating drama is posing a critical question: How far will Trump go in trying to force Republican senators to back his choice — even though some have deep reservations about Gaetz’s character and qualifications for the job?

Read Collinson’s full analysis.

President-elect Donald Trump will attend a SpaceX launch in Texas today, according to three people familiar with his plans.

Trump is expected to be joined there by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, in another example of Musk’s increasing role in Trump’s orbit. Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz will also join Trump and Musk for the launch, a source familiar with the plans told CNN, and he will fly with them from West Palm Beach to Texas.

More on the launch: SpaceX will launch Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, on its sixth test flight between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. ET. The flight test will include the landing of the Super Heavy booster, catching it with the launch tower “chopstick” arms back at the launchpad. Trump previously, boisterously expressed his enthusiasm for the fifth test flight.

Starship will then orbit the earth, landing in the Indian Ocean in daylight about an hour later.

This post has been updated with new details on who will be accompanying Trump at the launch.

Video Ad Feedback

Ex-FEMA employee accused of skipping pro-Trump homes speaks out

03:18 - Source: CNN

The former Federal Emergency Management Agency employee who was fired earlier this month after being accused of skipping homes of Donald Trump supporters while providing relief in Florida after Hurricane Milton told CNN she was following protocol.

Washington said FEMA’s guidelines to relief workers in Florida were to remove themselves from hostile situations if they felt threatened or unsafe.

She said all of her orders came from her task force lead.

Asked if her relief team avoided all homes with Trump signs, Washington said: “It was only selected areas where there were teammates that felt uncomfortable, they did not feel safe and they feared for their safety.”

“We registered Trump supporters, we’ve given them service as well, just we avoided the areas that were hostile,” she added.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell is set to testify on Capitol Hill Tuesday in what will likely be fiery hearings as lawmakers question her about disaster relief and whether the agency avoided providing aid to Republicans in hard hit areas.

Donald Trump is returning to the White House without many of the guardrails of his first term.

Many Never-Trump Republicans in Congress have converted or been defeated. Former economic adviser Gary Cohn and other anti-tariff voices are not likely to be welcome in the new Trump administration. Special counsel Jack Smith intends to step down. And the Supreme Court has granted presidents far-reaching immunity from prosecution.

$50 trillion guardrail: Yet there is another force that could deter Trump from some of his most extreme instincts: the $50 trillion US stock market.

During his first term, Trump obsessed over market moves, viewing the Dow Jones Industrial Average as a real-time barometer of his success. Trump regularly tweeted out even the most mundane market milestones, sharply departing from the hands-off approach his predecessors and successor took with the market.

More recently, Trump was “euphoric” over the market’s initial surge after his sweeping victory this month, sources told CNN’s Kayla Tausche.

A market meltdown triggered by a Trump policy idea – say, unthinkably high tariffs on China or a push to seriously mess with the Federal Reserve – could at least give the president pause, if not force him to back down altogether.

Read Egan’s full analysis.

Attorney General Merrick Garland addresses members of the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York on Monday in New York City.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, nearing the end of his tenure leading the Justice Department, told career prosecutors Monday that they are the “backbone” of the Justice Department, and urged them to continue to “uphold the rule of law.”

In his first public comments since President-elect Donald Trump selected former Rep. Matt Gaetz as his pick to run the Justice Department, Garland told prosecutors at the Southern District of New York to continue to protect the department’s “mission.”

Gaetz has derided the Justice Department as rife with members of the so-called “deep state” hostile to Trump. “You can’t just have the same career people who have grown up in a system that has fallen victim to political capture,” Gaetz said in an interview this summer.

On Monday, Garland sought to rally department employees as he wraps up a tenure that has been overshadowed at times by investigations involving Trump, but also has featured corruption cases against prominent Democrats such as Sen. Bob Menendez.

He continued: “The career lawyers of the Justice Department as a whole, you are the institutional backbone of this department. You are the historical memory of this department. You are the heart and soul of the department. You are the Justice Department.”

Garland has not publicly addressed Trump’s selection of Gaetz, but his comments come after shock inside the department over Gaetz’s nomination and concerns from some Justice Department officials that his appointment will cause more people to leave the department either voluntarily or as part of efforts to push out employees who aren’t seen as loyal to the incoming administration.

Donald Trump speaks along the southern border with Mexico, in Sierra Vista, Arizona, on August 22.

Duewight Garcia overstayed his tourist visa to the US in 2019 after he said run-ins with gangs and his student activism in Honduras made him feel it was unsafe to return.

Since then, Garcia, who is in his mid-30s, has worked in sheet rock and framing in the New York City area. It’s hard work, and it can be dangerous, Garcia told CNN in an interview translated from Spanish. “We do the work no one else wants to do.”

Garcia is one of many undocumented people in America who earn their living in construction. He and millions of others now face the prospect of mass deportations during President-elect Donald Trump’s term.

Trump has said that undocumented immigrants share the blame for America’s once-in-a-generation home affordability crisis, but the president-elect’s deportation plans may backfire, driving up the cost of homebuying even further.

The National Association of Home Builders estimates that at least 1.5 million homes need to be built to meet growing demand.

There is a need for more construction workers, as well: There were 282,000 construction jobs open as of September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Jim Tobin, the CEO of the NAHB, told CNN that immigrant labor has helped fill those job gaps.

Keep reading.

President Joe Biden speaks during the G20 Summit at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro on Monday.

President Joe Biden is using the last day at his final world leaders’ summit touting American steps to combat climate change, an area that President-elect Donald Trump is poised to swiftly reverse when he enters office.

In a morning session of the G20, Biden made brief remarks as the US announced a new $325 million investment in a World Bank initiative to promote clean energy projects, money that US officials said would be deposited well before Trump takes office.

“When it comes to the adoption of clean energy, we’ve made remarkable progress together, but we all know we have so much more to do,” Biden said.

While that particular pot of money seems safe from Trump’s decision-making, officials acknowledged the broader Biden initiatives were more uncertain.

They said if Trump reverses course on certain green energy initiatives, other countries will be more than happy to pick up the baton — along with the manufacturing dollars that come with it.

“Will those clean technologies be manufactured in the US, or will we throw away our leadership opportunity and the hundreds of thousands of jobs to countries like China and others around the world who would more than happily take that economic opportunity and run with it?” the official asked.

This post has been updated with remarks from Biden.

President-elect Donald Trump arrives to speak at a meeting of the House GOP conference on Wednesday, November 13, in Washington, DC.

President-elect Donald Trump is continuing to choose people for his Cabinet and positions in his administration, even as some of his picks could face a challenging confirmation process.

Most recently, Trump selected Sean Duffy to serve as the next secretary of the Department of Transportation. Check out the full list of who Trump has chosen to staff his Cabinet and administration.

Here are the latest developments:

In the nearly two weeks since he won the election, President-elect Donald Trump has been on the hunt for a Treasury secretary without much luck. He has struggled to find a candidate that he is compatible with who also has an impressive enough name and the credentials to boot, resulting in a furious search that was still underway Monday night, according to several sources familiar with the ongoing saga.

The search has generated intense infighting behind the scenes.

Trump is expected to interview Kevin Warsh, a former Federal Reserve governor who was once considered for the Federal Reserve chair during Trump’s first term. Trump went with Jay Powell at the time, a decision he later regretted and blamed on his first Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, who pushed for Powell. Now, Trump is considering Warsh alongside several other names, including Marc Rowan, the Wall Street billionaire, and Scott Bessent, who still remains in the mix.

Rowan, who previously supported South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott in the GOP primary, had lamented the 2024 race when it came down to Biden and Trump.

“It’s hard to believe with 350 million people in this country that we’re down to two,” Rowan told Bloomberg last December. “Personally, I’m disappointed.”

Trump has interviews lined up throughout the week but could make a snap decision any time, one person noted. Trump is searching for “a big name,” another said, but coming up short. He prioritizes the Treasury Department, wants to impress Wall Street and doesn’t want to rock the stock market with his announcement.

Treasury was one of few roles with relative stability during Trump’s first term.

As of Monday evening, Trump appeared unlikely to go with Howard Lutnick, his transition co-chair who made a push for the job that was so obvious, it could have been fatal for his chances. Several people in Trump’s inner circle grew irritated with Lutnick’s blatant lobbying for himself, two people said, and Trump did, too.

One person noted the race between Lutnick and Bessent could end up as a “murder-suicide,” with neither ultimately succeeding in being named as his Treasury secretary.

Matt Gaetz speaks during a news conference at the US Capitol on February 13.

Senior GOP Sens. Susan Collins and John Cornyn, along with other senior Senate Republicans, are calling for the release of the House Ethics Committee’s report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz, as they prepare to evaluate his nomination for attorney general.

Here’s what they said:

Sen. Susan Collins: “I don’t know what the House rules are. Obviously, it would be helpful for us to see it, but I believe it’s very likely that the information in that report would come out through the background check, the committee investigation and questioning at the hearings.”

Sen. John Cornyn has already said he wants the report made public. “Whether we get the ethics report or not, the facts are going to come out one way or the other, and I would think it would be in everybody’s best interest, including the president’s, not to be surprised by some information that might come out during the confirmation hearing and the background check,” Cornyn said. “So we’re going to do our job and under the Constitution and in the process, I believe, provide the president some assurance that he knows exactly what the facts are about each of his nominees.”

Sen. Kevin Cramer said he also wants the House Ethics Committee to release the report. “I do, but more importantly I want the Judiciary Committee to be able to see it prior to the hearings,” Cramer said. “And then after that, depending on what happens, then, of course, it can be released to the other members that are going to at some point have a vote.”

Sen. Joni Ernst said “Gaetz has got an uphill climb” toward confirmation.

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Sean Duffy as his choice for Transportation secretary, according to a statement.

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

His last day appearing on Fox Business was last Wednesday and he interviewed for the role of Transportation secretary later in the week, according to a source. His last day as a Fox News employee was Monday, a network spokesperson confirmed to CNN.

His own show, with a fill-in host, celebrated his appointment during the 6 p.m. hour Monday.

Trump in a statement praised Duffy as a “tremendous and well-liked public servant” and said he was “a respected voice and communicator in the Republican Conference” during his time in Congress.

Duffy resigned his congressional seat in 2019, saying in a statement at the time that he wanted to spend more time with his family ahead of the birth of his ninth child and said there had been complications with his wife’s pregnancy.

While in Congress, Duffy introduced a bill that would have expanded Trump’s presidential powers to impose tariffs — something Trump has vowed to do in his next term. The bill was disregarded by his fellow Republicans at the time but earned him praise from Trump.

Duffy was district attorney of Ashland County, Wisconsin, from 2002 to 2008, before running for office. Duffy is also formerly a professional lumberjack athlete and ESPN color commentator and was a cast member of MTV’s “Real World” reality series in the 1990’s. Duffy met his wife, Fox News contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy, through the MTV show.