December 13, 2024 - Presidential transition news

Several of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks met with key senators this week.

Defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel, Trump’s choice to run the FBI, were on Capitol Hill. Top GOP senators have signaled support for Patel, while keeping the door open for Hegseth, who faces a series of misconduct allegations.

Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s selection for director of national intelligence, also met with lawmakers at the beginning of the week.

Here is some of what they had to say:

Next week: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, is expected to hold meetings with senators next week, according to a source familiar with the plans. Hegseth is also expected to be back on Capitol Hill, a source familiar with his plans told CNN.

The largest coalition of Democratic centrists in the House has endorsed Rep. Gerry Connolly – who is running against progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — to lead their party on the chamber’s Oversight Committee in the next Congress.

The move by the New Democrat Coalition offers a major boost to Connolly in the contested race to lead the Oversight committee, which will be a key part of Democrats’ resistance to Donald Trump’s administration next year, according to a statement obtained by CNN.

More on the endorsement: The group includes 110 center-left House Democrats. To receive the endorsement, two-thirds of the group needed to back Connolly for the top spot.

It also shows the fight for the Oversight panel is getting increasingly competitive, showcasing the divisions among congressional Democrats about its direction next year against Trump and in rebuilding their party.

Donald Trump’s transition team released a new video highlighting the president-elect’s recent trip to France for the reopening of the Notre Dame cathedral.

The video features comments from Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, his choice to be the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and his incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz.

It also features conservative commentator and CNN contributor Scott Jennings.

“The American people re-elected President Trump because they trust him to lead our country, ensure peace through strength, stand by our allies, and restore America’s reputation on the world stage. It’s clear that President Trump has already started that process with his historic visit to Notre Dame, and when he returns to the White House, he will continue to drive forward on his mission to Make America Strong Again,” Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

Daniel Penny walks at a Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on December 9.

Vice President-elect JD Vance has invited Daniel Penny to be his guest at the Army-Navy game on Saturday, and the two will join President-elect Donald Trump in his at his suite at the game, a source familiar with the invitation tells CNN.

A Manhattan jury acquitted Penny of criminally negligent homicide on Monday in the death of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway last year.

Penny, an ex-Marine, was widely embraced by right-wing political figures after being charged for fatally choking Neely earlier this year, and many of them celebrated his acquittal on Monday.

Trump previously commented on the case, telling Fox News, “It’s an awfully tough case, I think.” Vance expressed his support for Penny on Monday, posting to X, “thank God justice was done in this case. It was a scandal Penny was ever prosecuted in the first place.”

NOTUS was first to report Vance’s invitation to Penny.

Amaryllis Fox Kennedy is seen at a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign event in New York on May 1.

President-elect Donald Trump is considering putting a second Kennedy in a high-ranking role in his administration: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter-in-law.

Several sources familiar with the matter told CNN that Trump is considering naming Amaryllis Fox Kennedy as the deputy director of the CIA, where she would serve under John Ratcliffe if he’s confirmed as the director.

Fox Kennedy, who previously managed RFK Jr.’s campaign, and Trump have met to discuss the job, a source with knowledge told CNN.

Ratcliffe met with Fox Kennedy on Thursday, CNN has learned.

The position would not require Senate confirmation, but Fox Kennedy is facing strong pushback from one Trump ally: Sen. Tom Cotton.

The Arkansas Republican has urged Trump in private conversation not to name her to the role, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Cotton’s pushback is notable given he will chair the Senate Intelligence Committee in the next Congress.

CNN has reached out to Cotton’s office for comment.

Kennedy himself has long suggested the CIA was involved in the murder of his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, saying in a radio interview last year that there was “overwhelming evidence” it had been.

Kennedy will be on Capitol Hill next week to meet with senators ahead of his own confirmation hearings as Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Donald Trump, eager to turn his inauguration into a global event, is personally extending invitations to some foreign leaders, including heads of state that have clashed with the United States in the recent past.

Already, Trump has asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his swearing in, his transition team confirmed Thursday, an exceptionally rare offer extended to the communist leader of one of America’s chief geopolitical rivals.

A delegation of senior Chinese officials is expected to attend in place of Xi, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Argentinean President Javier Milei have also been invited by Trump or his team, sources confirmed to CNN. All three are close allies of Trump who have also shaken the nerves of the US and its allies at times for their embrace of strongman tactics and their far-right politics.

The offers to attend his Washington fêting have been mostly informal, a person with knowledge of the conversations told CNN, and have sometimes come in passing during discussions over the phone about other matters. The person also said that some invitations have gone through back channels, not directly leader-to-leader.

Trump has also dictated written invitations as well, a source familiar with the matter said, and had his team send them to foreign leaders.

Trump’s transition team did not respond to questions about what other leaders he invited. On Thursday, the president-elect suggested he may invite other foreign leaders people told him may be “a little risky.”

“We like to take little chances,” Trump said. “But that’s not a bad chance.”

Produce is seen for sale at an Amazon Fresh grocery store on December 12 in Federal Way, Washington.

President-elect Donald Trump says Americans not being able to afford groceries will be a relic of the past. “They’re going to be affording their groceries very soon,” he said Thursday before ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, where he was honored as Time’s “Person of the Year.”

Americans paid 22% more for groceries last month compared to when Trump left office in January 2021, per November Consumer Price Index data released earlier this week. And, compared to February 2020, before the pandemic, Americans paid 27% more for groceries in November.

On the campaign trail, Trump predominantly focused on drilling more oil as a means to help Americans afford more food. But, ahead of his return to the White House, his strategy to bring grocery prices down has shifted slightly to focus on supply chain issues in addition to drilling more oil.

“It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up”: Speaking in front of a table of packaged foods, Trump used an August press conference to draw attention to food inflation during his campaign for president. “Grocery prices have skyrocketed,” he said.

“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one,” Trump continued. “We will drill, baby, drill,” he said, referring to increasing domestic oil production. “That’s going to bring down prices of everything.”

(Economists generally prefer to see prices increase modestly across an economy rather than fall, a scenario known as deflation, because it can cause people to put off purchases. And often, when prices for goods fall significantly, it’s because more people are unemployed and the economy is in a downturn.)

Read more about Trump’s economic policies here.

Akie Abe, wife of the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on April 22 in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan.

President-elect Donald Trump is set to have a private dinner Sunday with Akie Abe, the widow of the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. The dinner will take place at Mar-a-Lago and Melania Trump is expected to attend.

Trump and Abe have maintained a close relationship ever since her husband was assassinated two years ago while delivering a political speech in his home country. Trump regularly calls her to check in on her, a source close to the president-elect confirmed, and the dinner was scheduled through direct conversations between the two, not government channels, as is often the case with diplomatic figures.

In Trump’s first term, the late Japanese prime minister was able to succeed where so many others failed in establishing strong relations with Trump — often using golf, flattery and an appeal to Trump’s instincts.

In this August 2020 photo, a person walks past the US Department of Education in Washington, DC.

President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to abolish the Department of Education.

He most recently called for a “virtual closure of Department of Education in Washington” during a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine, which published on December 12.

“You’re going to need some people just to make sure they’re teaching English in the schools. Okay, you know English and mathematics, let’s say. But we want to move education back to the states,” Trump said.

On the campaign trail, he repeatedly pointed to the agency as a symbol of federal overreach into the everyday lives of American families.

“I say it all the time, I’m dying to get back to do this. We will ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education,” he said in September during a rally in Wisconsin.

“We will drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing,” Trump said.

In 1979, then-President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat from Georgia, signed legislation making the Department of Education a Cabinet-level agency – fulfilling a campaign pledge he made to one of the country’s largest teachers’ unions, the National Education Association.

Previously, federal education programs were housed in other agencies. Trump has not said exactly how he would want to shut the department down – which would require an act of Congress – or what would happen to federally funded education programs if he did.

Read about what the Department of Education does and how eliminating it could play out here.

A delegation of senior Chinese officials is expected to attend the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in place of President Xi Jinping, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Trump personally extended an invitation to President Xi that was relayed through aides, multiple sources confirmed.

Asked on Fox News whether Xi would accept the invitation, incoming press secretary Karoline Leavitt said his attendance was “to be determined.”

Some background: After Xi delivered a congratulatory message to Trump just days after the election, the two spoke by phone — a dialogue that Trump says has become regular.

“We’ve had communication as recently as this week,” Trump said of the Chinese leader in an interview with NBC News last week.

The Chinese president has sought to maintain a stable relationship with the United States — a goal outlined clearly ahead of a meeting with US President Joe Biden in Lima, Peru, last month.

“Make the wise choice,” Xi said in an apparent warning, through a translator. “Keep exploring the right way for two major countries to get along well with each other.”

Since then, Trump has threatened to slap new tariffs on Chinese goods imported into the United States, leading Xi to issue a more stern warning to the US: “No one wins a trade war.”

The bar for President Xi to travel to the United States remains high, largely reserved for multilateral summits and official state visits, where he can count on significant time with other world leaders.

The assignment of a senior delegation to Trump’s inauguration would be seen as an olive branch of sorts: Showing support for the incoming administration while reserving the principal’s visit for a China-focused occasion. Sources cautioned that, with six weeks until inauguration, plans could change