• Final preparations: President-elect Donald Trump has entered his last full week before Inauguration Day on January 20, and has been making some of his final decisions on key roles for the incoming administration.
• Confirmation hearings: Some of Trump’s Cabinet selections will appear in front of the Senate in the coming days, including defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth on Tuesday and his choice for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio, on Wednesday.
We’ve wrapped up our live coverage for the day. Read more on President-elect Donald Trump’s transition here.
Attorney General Merrick Garland early Tuesday provided Congress special counsel Jack Smith’s report on his investigation into Donald Trump and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a source familiar, after a court hold blocking its release expired at midnight.
It is expected that part of Smith’s report will soon be released publicly, and it will be the special counsel’s final official word on his investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, and the actions by Trump and his associates before then to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power.
Smith brought four charges against Trump in the 2020 election probe. But the case suffered setbacks culminating in the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling last summer that set a very high bar for prosecuting a former president for his conduct in office. The special counsel dropped the case against Trump altogether after voters in November decided to return him to the White House.
The transmission of Smith’s January 6 findings came after the president-elect and his allies were unable to stop the department from releasing it. Their court maneuverings did, however, slow its release as the clock ticks toward the January 20 inauguration, as well as upend the department’s plans to release volume two of the report, which covers the classified documents investigation.
Garland does not intend to release that portion of the report publicly, but he had planned to allow a very small group of lawmakers to view it behind closed doors. US District Judge Aileen Cannon, however, extended an order that prevents him from sharing that volume to anyone outside of the department. A hearing on the matter is set for later this week.
A federal judge rejected a last-minute attempt by President-elect Donald Trump to delay the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on the election subversion investigation.
In a court filing late Monday night, Trump had asked District Judge Aileen Cannon to extend a hold on the report’s release that is set to expire at midnight.
“Yet another ‘Report’ would serve no purpose other than a baseless attempt to smear President Trump’s character,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the filing, while claiming the report would “attempt to undermine President Trump’s standing with world leaders, domestic political actors, and the public at large, serving as a major distraction and disrupting the crucial, sensitive process of Presidential transition.”
Trump said the release of the report should remain on hold so that he can put forward his arguments for blocking it in its entirety at a hearing the judge is holding Friday on Attorney General Merrick Garland’s plans for the volume dealing with the classified documents case.
Earlier Monday, Cannon said she had concluded there was “insufficient basis” for continuing to keep the parts of the report dealing with the 2020 election probe under wraps. She pointed to the Justice Department indications that it did not include evidence bearing on the case against two Trump employees who were charged alongside the president-elect in the classified documents prosecution.
According to the filing, the Justice Department communicated to the lawyers that it opposed extending her hold and that it “intends to release Volume I after midnight, when the injunction expires.”
Read more on the Trump team’s request to Cannon.
This post has been updated with additional reporting.
Speaker Mike Johnson is expected Tuesday to present a timeline for the House GOP’s plans to pass President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda, according to multiple GOP members.
Johnson will brief plans at a Tuesday conference, where lawmakers will gather for the first time since dozens of them spent the weekend with Trump at Mar-a-Lago discussing their own policy priorities.
Johnson and his GOP leadership team have not yet said much about timing, other than that they hope to pass a House version of the legislation by Easter. This week, GOP leadership has begun privately telling some members they hope to pass a budget resolution on the floor of the House by late February, according to a GOP source familiar with the discussions.
The chair of the House GOP campaign arm, Rep. Richard Hudson, told CNN that Johnson informed his leadership team at Monday night’s meetings to expect a timeline presentation on Tuesday.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth said the FBI background check for Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, was not thorough and “the past women in his life” were not interviewed, after meeting with the top Democrat who was briefed on the report.
“My understanding is that several of the witnesses were not interviewed by the FBI, even though they wanted to be,” the Illinois Democrat told reporters.
“I only know that some of the folks that — the past women in his life wanted to be interviewed, but have not been interviewed by vetters.”
Per committee practice, only Jack Reed, the Senate Armed Services ranking member, and committee Chairman Roger Wicker have been briefed on the FBI’s background investigation of Hegseth. While there have been exceptions to this practice in the past, they are rare.
Duckworth said she plans to ask Hegseth questions about his management experience, including the largest budget and number of personnel he’s managed.
“Maybe he has hidden talents that we don’t know about, but certainly he has refused to meet with me prior to the hearing, so I was not able to ask him these questions beforehand,” she said.
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, made $4.6 million as a Fox News host, a position he had held since the beginning of 2022, according to his financial disclosure, released one day before his confirmation hearing.
Hegseth also reported making approximately $1 million on speaking fees across dozens of engagements in 2023 and 2024, many of which were at conservative or Christian organizations. However, for one of those payments, a spokesperson for the American Legislative Exchange Council, where Hegseth reported being paid $150,000 for a speech in February 2023, said he only received $15,000 for the event – although he did not know where the error had been made. A transition official confirmed Hegseth was paid $15,000 for the engagement. The official said $150,000 was listed in error, and they are working on making a correction.
The former Fox News TV personality, whose deal with the network ended in November, also brought in royalties from three books he has written, including his latest book, “The War on Warriors.”
Hegseth held stock in several major defense contractors as well, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Honeywell, according to his financial disclosure. The value of the assets was relatively small, listed between $1,001 and $15,000 for each of the companies.
Hegseth also held between $15,001 and $50,000 of Bitcoin.
In the list of incomes, Hegseth disclosed that he was paid $61,000 over four engagements with Helping a Hero, a non-profit organization that builds specially designed houses for service members injured in the war on terror. Hegseth listed three engagements in 2023 and one last year. According to ProPublica, Helping a Hero had $6.4 million in revenue in 2022.
This post has been updated with additional reporting on Hegseth’s payment for a February 2023 speech at the American Legislative Exchange Council.
President-elect Donald Trump is in talks to visit Los Angeles as early as next week to survey wildfire damage and review the state’s recovery efforts, two sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.
Trump’s team has had discussions with local California officials about such a visit, the sources said, though no details have been finalized. Some Trump advisers have considered traveling to the state in the days after Trump is sworn into office.
“The president intends to go to California at some point,” a Trump adviser told CNN, adding that the specific timing is “yet to be determined. Nothing has been finalized.”
The planning comes after California Gov. Gavin Newsom sent a letter to Trump last Friday inviting him to survey the destruction.
“As you prepare to assume the presidency once more, I invite you to come to California again – to meet with the Americans affected by these fires, see the devastation firsthand, and join me and others in thanking the heroic firefighters and first responders who are putting their lives on the line,” Newsom, a Democrat, wrote in the letter.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the response by Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to the fires and has called for Newsom to resign.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Senate Republicans of trying to “rush nominations,” as Democrats continue to push for more information from several of Trump’s Cabinet picks ahead of their hearings this week.
“If these nominees have something to hide, these documents could show it. So, it’s important we don’t rush these hearings without examining the record first,” Schumer warned, calling these hearings the “opening salvo for holding the Trump administration accountable to the public.”
In particular, the top Senate Democrat noted that the allegations against Pete Hegseth, Trump’s choice to run the Pentagon, are “deeply troubling.”
“If there is any Cabinet position that needs a steady and drama-free individual, it is certainly secretary of defense, unfortunately Mr. Hegseth’s background is deeply troubling – to put it generously,” said Schumer.
Hegseth, whose Senate confirmation hearings begin January 14 in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has faced a tough confirmation process as allegations emerged related to his workplace behavior and treatment of women, including a surfaced sexual assault accusation from 2017. Hegseth has denied wrongdoing, and no charges were brought over the 2017 allegation.
Schumer added: “These are such serious accusations for such an important job. So why would the Armed Services Committee wish to rush through this hearing, particularly when the documents are not available to all the members of the committee, including the FBI background check?”
Hegseth, he said, “can expect his hearing to be tough but respectful, candid but fair,” and the “stakes will be very high.”
“Let’s hope we get real answers and real documentation before anyone votes for Mr. Hegseth for secretary of defense,” the Democrat said.
The Loadmaster garbage truck President-elect Donald Trump used to make a political point on the campaign trail will reappear at the inaugural parade next week.
Andrew Brisson, vice president of the family owned garbage truck body manufacturer in Norway, Michigan, told CNN in a phone interview that he will be driving the exact same truck Trump used in late October at the parade.
“The Trump campaign reached out, I don’t know maybe a month ago or so asking if we had a truck available for the Inauguration to put in the parade, and I kind of told them, let me see what I can do, see if I can scrounge something up and after a few phone calls and back-and-forth, I was able to find one truck to put there for the parade,” Brisson said.
After the initial call, Brisson said the Trump campaign followed up asking if they could get two more trucks for staging during Inauguration events. While he wasn’t certain on location for the other trucks, Brisson said there were talks of having one at the convention center and the Liberty Ball.
“It’s just very cool, especially with how much that blew up to see our product that’s manufactured up in little Norway, Michigan, all over the national media and the internet and everything else, is just a very, very, I don’t know, almost surreal moment,” Brisson said. “The focus was on Trump, but you could see our logo and whatnot in the background.”
Brisson said he is flying to Washington, DC, to drive in the parade and the garbage trucks are being transported by a driveaway service to their dealer in Virginia.
For context: Trump wore an orange and yellow vest and took reporter questions from a Loadmaster garbage truck the day after Biden appeared to refer to his supporters as “garbage.” Trump and his campaign immediately seized on the comments.
Biden said that his comments were misinterpreted and the White House insisted that they were directed only at a comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden event who called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.”
President Joe Biden on Monday says his administration is “pressing hard to close” an emerging deal for a ceasefire in Gaza as his presidency enters its final week.
“We’re on the brink of a proposal that I laid out in detail months ago finally coming to fruition,” Biden said in a speech Monday focused on foreign policy at the State Department.
American officials believe a ceasefire and hostage deal in the Israel-Hamas war is now in sight, sources familiar have told CNN, marking the first real sign of serious optimism inside the Biden administration in months.
“We’re pressing hard to close this,” the president said. “The deal we have structured would free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to Israel, and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians who suffered terribly in this war that Hamas started. They have been through hell.”
Read more on the emerging ceasefire agreement.
President Joe Biden on Monday said he believes history will vindicate his decisions surrounding the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, even as that deadly and disorganized withdrawal threatens to sully his foreign-policy record.
“When I took office, I had a choice. I saw no reason to keep thousands of servicemen in Afghanistan,” the president said in remarks at the State Department on Monday.
Biden said he grieves all American troops killed in Afghanistan, including the 13 service members killed in the 2021 withdrawal.
He then added: “Remember, critics said if we ended the war, it would damage our alliances and create threats to our homeland from foreign-directed terrorism out of a safe haven in Afghanistan. Neither has occurred. Neither has occurred. Our alliances have stayed strong.”
By ending the war, Biden said, the country has “been able to focus our energy and resources on more urgent challenges.”
“For all those reasons, ending the war was the right thing to do,” the president said. “And I believe that history will reflect that.”
As President Joe Biden heralded what he views as his foreign policy triumphs during a speech at the State Department on Monday, he also offered a warning for dangers ahead.
“Now, major authoritarian states are aligning more closely with one another – Iran, Russia, China, North Korea. But that’s more out of weakness than out of strength,” he said.
With one week until President-elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Biden said “the United States is in a fundamentally stronger position with respect to these countries than we were four years ago.”
“Today,” Biden added, “I can report to the American people: we are in a better strategic position in the long-term competition with China than we were when I took office.”
But, the president added, “we have managed our relationship with China responsibly. It’s never tipped over into conflict.”
The United States is “winning the worldwide competition,” President Joe Biden said from the State Department on Monday, using one of his final speeches as president to reflect on his administration’s accomplishments around the world.
“Compared to four years ago, America is stronger,” Biden said. “Our alliances are stronger. Our adversaries and competitors are weaker. We have not gone to war to make these things happen. During my presidency, I’ve increased America’s power at every dimension.”
He continued: “While our competitors and adversaries are facing stiff headwinds. We have the wind at our back because of all of you. This is what we are heading into, and over the next administration, that is what we are handing it to.”
Biden said he can report that “our sources of national power are far stronger than they were when we took office,” and the country’s economy is “booming, although we have more work to do.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming special envoy for the Middle East as important partners in efforts to secure a hostage and ceasefire resolution.
“Steve Witkoff has been a terrific partner in this, and also President-elect Trump, in making clear that he wants to see this deal go forward and go forward before January 20,” Blinken said in an interview with MSNBC Monday.
Blinken noted that parties want to make sure that that the deal that is being negotiated has the backing of the incoming president, so “creating that confidence by having Steve Witkoff’s participation, I think, has been critical.”
“This has been a very good partnership, and we hope that together we get this over the goal line,” the top US diplomat said.
Blinken said “we are closer than we’ve ever been” to a deal being reached, adding that the “ball is in Hamas’ court.”
CNN reported earlier Monday that Witkoff and National Security Council official Brett McGurk have been working very closely together in recent days and have even held joint phone calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Witkoff last week praised the Biden team, saying that they’ve been “very collaborative together.” “No one has pride of authorship. We are totally outcome oriented. Let’s get them home,” he said.
Country music star Carrie Underwood will perform “America the Beautiful” at President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to a copy of the program obtained by CNN and confirmed by a spokesperson for the inaugural committee.
Underwood said in a statement to CNN that she was honored to have been asked to perform and “humbled to answer the call.”
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is expected to administer the oath of office to Vice President-elect JD Vance, and the presidential oath of office will be administered by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the United States will take place on January 20 at the US Capitol.
CNN’s Elizabeth Wagmeister contributed to this report.
President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday that career professionals on the National Security Council (NSC) are “patriots” who are “dedicated to the interests” of the United States as the incoming administration looks to replace them with their own handpicked selections.
“They have served without fear or favor for both Democratic and Republican administrations,” Sullivan said. “And many of them have raised their hands to say, ‘I’m ready to stay and keep serving.’”
Some background: President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz has signaled he plans to remove career detailees from the NSC. He has identified others at government agencies to staff the agency instead.
That is a different approach than what Biden took upon taking office four years ago, Sullivan said.
“From my perspective, when we inherited the team from the Trump administration, I said, ‘I want those patriots. I want those people working for us, regardless of their political affiliation,’” he said. “The incoming administration will have to make its own decisions.”
Democrats on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources are asking to push back the confirmation hearing of Doug Burgum — President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Interior.
Sen. Martin Heinrich, the top Democrat on the committee, and his colleagues have asked that Burgum’s confirmation hearing be pushed by a week — arguing that they still have not received necessary documents, including his financial disclosures.
However, Chair Mike Lee has the power to unilaterally set the date for the hearing.
The hearing is currently scheduled for tomorrow morning.
Last week, Heinrich accused Lee of bypassing minority consent when scheduling Burgum’s confirmation hearing.
Heinrich argued that Lee has broken with “protocol and precedent” by scheduling the meeting over his objections.
“I am extremely disappointed that Chairman Lee has scheduled the first Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee confirmation hearing over my objection and before basic information has been given to the Committee. This is a breach of protocol and precedent, established over decades by Chairs of both parties,’ Heinrich said.
Lee defended his decision and told CNN that Burgum has submitted all his paperwork and that the committee will have a form back from the department’s ethics office before the hearing.
Some of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet selections will appear in front of the Senate in the coming days as confirmation hearings kick off this week.
A number of Trump’s selections for Cabinet positions have raised concerns, but the president-elect has stood firm in his support of them, including Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary.
Here’s a look at who is appearing before Senate committees this week:
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Judge Aileen Cannon said on Monday that she would not block the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on his investigation into Donald Trump and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The Justice Department could release that part of his final report, which comprises the first volume, as soon as midnight tonight unless another court intervenes.
However, Cannon is ordering more court proceedings with regards to the second volume of Smith’s report that deals with his investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents.
At a hearing scheduled for Friday in her Fort Pierce, Florida, courthouse, Cannon will consider Attorney General Merrick Garland’s plan to share the classified documents only with a select group of lawmakers. Garland has said that volume should not be made public while there is a possibility the prosecution of Trump’s former co-defendants could be revived.
Until she makes a final decision, Cannon says DOJ cannot share that part of the report with anyone outside of the department.
“The Court is not willing to make that gamble on the basis of generalized interest by members of Congress, at least not without full briefing and a hearing on the subject,” Cannon wrote. “Nor has the United States presented any justification to support the suggestion that Volume II must be released to Congress now, as opposed to after a reasonable period for an expedited hearing and judicial deliberation on the subject.”
Scott Bessent, the hedge-fund manager President-elect Donald Trump tapped to lead the Treasury Department, has promised to unload dozens of investments and step down from his firm if confirmed by lawmakers.
In a letter to Treasury’s ethics officials made public on Saturday, Bessent detailed what steps he would take to “avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interest” if he is confirmed by the Senate.
Ahead of his Thursday confirmation hearing, Bessent disclosed in separate filings a wide array of assets worth at least $500 million, including stocks, bonds, cash, bitcoin, real estate in the Bahamas and farmland in North Dakota.
Bessent, who would effectively quarterback Trump’s economic agenda, has agreed to resign from Key Square Group, the Connecticut-based hedge fund he founded, if he is confirmed. He also agreed to sell his partnership stake in Key Square within 90 days of confirmation and said he will not participate in matters relating to Key Square for a year, unless authorized.
Bessent has promised to divest from various interests within 90 days of confirmation, including shares in Verizon and Archer Daniels Midland, as well as currency positions and funds that invest in gold and bitcoin.
