January 12, 2025 - Presidential transition news

We’ve wrapped up our live coverage for the day. Read more on President-elect Donald Trump’s transition here.

FBI Director Chris Wray testifies before a House committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on January 31, 2024.

FBI Director Chris Wray said his decision to step down from his role at the end of the Biden administration is “one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make” but that he did it to keep the FBI from being “thrust deeper into the fray.”

“My decision to retire from the FBI, I have to tell you, is one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make. I care deeply, deeply about the FBI, about our mission, and in particular, about our people,” Wray told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired Sunday.

Last month, Wray announced he would be stepping down after as it became clear he would be forced out by President-elect Donald Trump — who has announced he will nominate Kash Patel for the soon-to-be open role, although Wray still had three years remaining on his 10-year term.

“The president-elect had made clear that he intended to make a change, and the law is that that is something he’s able to do for any reason or no reason at all. My conclusion was that the thing that was best for the Bureau was to try to do this in an orderly way, to not thrust the FBI deeper into the fray,” Wray added.

Wray said he would not weigh in on Trump’s pick of Patel, a MAGA acolyte who has joined the president-elect in vowing to use the Justice Department to target political adversaries.

Asked if he was concerned the FBI could be turned against him, Wray responded, “I’m not going to weigh in on specific people or their rhetoric from where I sit. Facts and the law drive investigations, not politics or partisan preferences.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom tour the downtown business district of Pacific Palisades, as the Palisades Fire continues to burn, in Los Angeles on January 8.

President-elect Donald Trump launched a new round of criticism Sunday targeting Democrats over their efforts to tame the Southern California wildfires, ripping rival liberal leaders as “incompetent” witnesses to “one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our Country.”

Trump’s Truth Social post is the latest in a series of attacks by the president-elect and his allies on California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

GOP critics’ argument boils down to a claim — most often asserted with little or no real evidence — that Democrats were blind to the risks of a catastrophic wildfire outbreak and ill-prepared to combat it because of their focus on pushing liberal ideological policies.

“The far left policies of Democrats in California are literally burning us to the ground. Stop voting for people who won’t use common sense water management and forest policies. I’m pissed off. You should be, too,” Richard Grenell, Trump’s incoming “envoy for special missions,” posted on X last week.

Newsom and Bass are both plainly angered by the criticism, and keen to push back, but also realize that, in a little more than a week, they will rely on the president-elect for immediate and long-term funding for what figures to be a yearslong rebuilding process.

Read more about the clashes between Trump and California Democrats here.

Vice President-elect JD Vance said he is “hopeful” a deal to release the hostages Hamas is holding in Gaza will be made in the very last days of the Biden administration, adding that it would be a result of Hamas fearing the threats President-elect Donald Trump has made.

“It’s very clear that President Trump threatening Hamas and making it clear that there is going to be hell to pay as part of the reason why we’ve made progress on getting some hostages out. We’re hopeful there’s going to be a deal that struck towards the very end of Biden’s administration, maybe the last day or two,” Vance told “Fox News Sunday.”

Vance elaborated by saying “all hell is going to break loose” if the hostages aren’t released.

“Number one, it means enabling the Israelis to knock out the final couple of battalions of Hamas and their leadership. It means very aggressive sanctions and financial penalties on those who are supporting terrorist organizations in the Middle East. It means actually doing the job of American leadership, which Donald Trump did very well for four years, and he’s going to do very well for the next four years,” Vance said.

Pete Hegseth, left, Marco Rubio and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Senate confirmation hearings set to begin this week are likely to reveal a defining trait uniting Donald Trump’s incoming Cabinet, regardless of their diverse political backgrounds and uneven qualifications: an unflinching allegiance to the president-elect.

For weeks, Trump’s handpicked nominees have undergone rigorous preparations for their high-stakes Capitol Hill appearances — including intensive studying sessions, contentious mock hearings and heavy-handed coaching from Republican senators.

What distinguishes this round of confirmations, however, is the heightened expectation that Trump’s picks will present not just their own expertise but a clear and unwavering loyalty to the president-elect’s agenda — a public display of fealty that was not always assured during his first term.

“The movement was in a very different place,” Spicer said of the days after Trump’s first election in 2016.

Indeed, hearings for Trump’s Cabinet eight years ago were defined in part by the pained efforts by some of his nominees to distance their views from the campaign declarations of the man they intended to serve.

Read more about the upcoming confirmation hearings here.

Vice President-elect JD Vance is pictured at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 6.

Vice President-elect JD Vance said Sunday the federal government has to do a “better job” on disaster relief and said President-elect Donald Trump is within his right to criticize California Gov. Gavin Newsom amid deadly wildfires in the Los Angeles area.

“President Trump is committed to doing a better job when it comes to disaster relief. That’s true for the hurricane victims and flood victims in North Carolina. It’s true for the fire victims in California,” Vance told Fox News Sunday.

He continued, “We need competent, good governance. Now that doesn’t mean you can’t criticize the governor of California for, I think, some very bad decisions over a very long period of time.”

“There is a serious lack of competent governance in California. And I think it’s part of the reason why these fires have gotten so bad,” Vance added.

Asked about the possibility of Trump withholding aid from California, Vance said that Trump “cares about all Americans.”

“President Trump cares about all Americans, right? He is the president for all Americans, and I think that he intends to have FEMA and other federal responses, much, much better and much more clued into what’s going on there on the ground,” Vance said.

Vice President-elect JD Vance said that “we don’t have to use military force” in Greenland – after President-elect Donald Trump refused to rule it out at a news conference last week – arguing there is a “real opportunity” for America to “take leadership.”

“The thing that people always ignore is we already have troops in Greenland. Greenland is really important for America, strategically. It has a lot of great natural resources,” Vance told “Fox News Sunday.”

Criticizing the Danish government’s leadership, Vance said “there’s a deal to be made” in the autonomous territory.

Incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz also stressed on Sunday that “Trump is always going to leave all options on the table” regarding interests in Greenland and the Panama Canal, which the president-elect has suggested the US should retake.

“There are elements for the US to come in and defend its critical assets in the Panama Canal, in the Panama Canal Treaty, in the neutrality treaty. And for Greenland, there’s precedent there as well, with the 1951 defense agreement that we entered,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”

National security adviser Jake Sullivan attends a press briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, on March 12.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan on Sunday defended President Joe Biden’s national security team against criticism from Rep. Mike Waltz, his incoming successor in the Trump administration, pointing out that the intelligence officials “don’t serve anyone’s particular political agenda.”

CNN’s Jake Tapper had asked Sullivan about comments from Waltz that he expected the resignation of every intelligence official who had served on Biden’s National Security Council.

“I saw his comments,” Sullivan said. “He and I have not talked about this. I don’t know what he’s actually going to do, so I’ll reserve comment until I see.”

Sullivan said he’d had “very good, substantive engagement with Congressman Waltz,” and described him as “very well informed, he has focused on the issues – we’re trying to have as smooth a handoff as possible, especially on these significant issues in Ukraine, in the Middle East.”

He said Waltz had “been working in a very professional way.”

Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for director of national intelligence, arrives for a meeting in Washington, DC, on December 10.

Republican Sen. James Lankford said he would support former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard in her effort to get confirmed as director of national intelligence after she shifted in her view on FISA Section 702 – an intelligence gathering tool passed by Congress after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

“Section 702, unlike other FISA authorities, is crucial for gathering foreign intelligence on non-U.S. persons abroad. This unique capability cannot be replicated and must be safeguarded to protect our nation while ensuring the civil liberties of Americans,” Gabbard said in a statement to CNN Friday, marking a dramatic shift from her previous attempts to repeal the same authority and comments raising deep concerns about domestic surveillance.

Read more about Gabbard’s change in tone on Section 702.

Republican Sen. Katie Britt told CNN’s Jake Tapper she hopes to see the Laken Riley Act get support in the Senate from Democrats, teeing up a potentially early Republican win.

“I’m encouraged by the number of Democrats that have come on board and those who have voiced their support for this piece of legislation, I think as we continue to debate this and talk about the merits of it, this week, it will garner more support,” the Alabama conservative said on “State of the Union” Sunday.

Britt said she expected the legislation to get 60 or more votes in the Senate. The House voted 264 to 159 to pass the legislation on Tuesday, with 48 Democrats voting with Republicans in support.

One controversial but under-the-radar provision of the legislation would give state attorneys general the authority to sue in federal court over the decisions by federal officials, including immigration judges, to release certain immigrants from detention. They could also sue to force the State Department to impose visa sanctions against countries that refuse to accept nationals that are eligible for deportation.

While the bill easily cleared its first procedural hurdle on the Senate floor, with just nine senators voting against that step Thursday, giving states new authorities to sue is emerging as a flashpoint for some Democrats, who want changes before a final vote.

The push from Democrats to amend the bill presents an early test for Senate GOP leader John Thune. Republicans support the bill in its current form and are likely to balk if Democrats push for extensive changes. The Senate GOP majority also has a packed list of agenda items competing for floor time and will not want to drag out deliberations over the bill.

Supporters of then-President Donald Trump gather in front of the Capitol building in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021.

Vice president-elect JD Vance told Fox News Sunday that those who committed violence on January 6, 2021, should not be pardoned, though he left room for a “bit of a gray area.”

“There are a lot of people, we think, in the wake of January the 6th, who were prosecuted unfairly we need to rectify that,” Vance said.

Some context: During the 2024 campaign, Trump embraced the January 6 movement and said he would “absolutely” consider pardoning every defendant, but he also hedged and said he might not do so because “a couple of them, probably, they got out of control.” He also promised to look “very favorably” and “very strongly” at “full pardons with an apology for many.”

The president-elect’s looming return has already upended hundreds of pending prosecutions against his supporters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and has disrupted the ongoing effort to arrest more rioters.

Sen. Jon Ossoff is pictured in Clarkston, Georgia, on October 24.

Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff told CNN he hopes lawmakers can reach a “bipartisan outcome” and soon pass a GOP-led bill to require the detention of undocumented migrants charged with certain crimes.

A significant number of Senate Democrats, including Ossoff, voted with Republicans on Thursday to advance the Laken Riley Act, a bill named after a Georgia student who was killed last year by an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela while she was out for a run.

Pressed on concerns within his party that the country needs more meaningful immigration reform, Ossoff pointed out that a bipartisan border security bill failed in the Senate last year after then-presidential candidate Donald Trump had urged Republicans to vote against it as he campaigned on border issues.

Ossoff is up for reelection in 2026 in what is likely to be among the country’s most competitive Senate races. Trump won Georgia by about two points in November, after narrowly losing the state to President Joe Biden in 2020.

Read about the bill here.

Conservative hardline Republicans made it clear that it will be a heavy lift to win their support for a debt limit increase as they demand deep spending cuts as part of the major policy bill to advance President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda.

Texas Rep. Chip Roy said he thinks key negotiators in the House and Senate, who are considering how best to pass a package through both chambers with narrow margins of support, are “taking it very seriously” because “they recognize that those of us who believe in the spending restraint are pretty serious about it and willing to take some arrows for it.”

Roy said he could support a debt ceiling increase “right now” if he could ensure other provisions would be included in the bill to “move the ball down the road” on reducing spending.

Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, who has never voted in support of raising the debt limit, said he’s “looking at it closely” and “crunching numbers” to determine whether he thinks he can back a reconciliation bill that would lift the debt limit.

Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, who pointed out that he had been prepared to support a Trump-backed funding bill including a debt ceiling increase last month, said he thinks passing a bill through reconciliation allows GOP lawmakers to “kind of get it done on our watch while also trying to be fiscally responsible at the same time.”

He said he thinks a bill requiring a 60 vote majority in the Senate, instead of the simple majority required in reconciliation, would have a cost amounting to “much more of the price of raising the debt ceiling.”

With several of Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks set to have their Senate confirmation hearings this week, the president-elect on Saturday named three additional people to deputy roles in the Interior and Transportation departments and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Here’s what to know about the picks:

David Fotouhi for deputy EPA administrator: At the tail end of Trump’s first term, Fotouhi was the EPA’s acting general counsel after having worked within the department for all four years. He is currently a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm, according to his LinkedIn page.

Trump has chosen former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to lead the agency. If he is confirmed, one of his first tasks will likely be starting the process to overturn several of the Biden EPA’s biggest rules on climate.

Katharine MacGregor for deputy interior secretary: MacGregor previously held this role during the last year of Trump’s first term. She worked within the department for all four years of his term, according to her LinkedIn page. MacGregor currently serves as the vice president of environmental services at NextEra Energy, a renewable energy company.

Trump has selected North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as his pick for secretary of the Department of the Interior. The agency oversees natural resources, public lands and Indian affairs.

Steven Bradbury for deputy transportation secretary: Bradbury was the Transportation Department’s general counsel during Trump’s first administration. During his confirmation hearing for that role, late Sen. John McCain refused to support Bradbury over his support of torture practices during the George W. Bush administration.

Trump has named former congressman and recent Fox Business co-host Sean Duffy as his pick to lead the Department of Transportation. The department oversees infrastructure and the Duffy, if confirmed, will inherit number of safety-related issues regarding aviation and threats of airline labor union strike.

Tom Homan at the AmericaFest 2024 conference sponsored by conservative group Turning Point USA in Phoenix on December 22.

President-elect Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan has privately told Republican lawmakers to temper their expectations for the incoming administration’s initial deportation operation, citing limited resources, according to multiple sources involved in the conversations.

While Trump’s allies have floated measures to detain and deport people residing in the US illegally, the plans largely depend on the resources and funds available to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which historically has had budget shortfalls.

“We are not having a discussion about 20 million (deportations). We are having a discussion about an order, and priority, and expectation,” GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, who was in one of the meetings with Homan, told CNN.

The discussions are part of a broader level-setting that is occurring among House Republicans, who are now coming to terms with the challenges of turning one of their key campaign promises into a reality.

Trump has vowed to launch the largest deportation operation in history, telling Time Magazine in December he believes there will be “probably 15 and maybe as many as 20 million” undocumented immigrants in the US by the time he takes office.

In recent meetings with House Republicans, Homan, a veteran of immigration enforcement, has outlined a tiered approach to Trump’s mass deportation pledge, according to lawmakers and sources involved in the discussions.

Read more here.