November 14, 2024 - Trump transition news

Our live coverage of the Trump administration’s transition has moved here.

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch ripped into government regulations at the conservative Federalist Society on Thursday, even as he avoided discussing an incoming Trump administration that has vowed to unwind the “administrative state.”

Riffing on a theme he raised earlier this year in a new book, Gorsuch said there were far too many instances of ordinary Americans getting hammered by government regulations. Gorsuch noted that he had recently learned of one such case that caught his attention.

“Yes, I’m speaking of Peanut the Squirrel,” Gorsuch said, referring to the story of a New York man who took in a squirrel that became a social media sensation and was later euthanized. The room erupted into laugher.

Gorsuch was joined on stage by Justice Stephen Breyer, a liberal who retired from the Supreme Court in 2022. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, both of whom were also nominated by Trump, attended but did not speak.

The two jurists addressed the convention of more than 1,000 lawyers at an uncertain moment for the conservative legal movement, with many establishment figures associated with the Federalist Society unsure of their place in the incoming Trump administration. While much of the society’s membership may ultimately agree with Trump on the outcome of certain legal controversies, it’s not yet clear the two will align on tactics or approach.

Matt Gaetz stands in a sector of Cecot, flanked on either side by group cells containing prisoners that the El Salvador authorities call "the worst of the worst."

Donald Trump has picked Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general – a role that would oversee the Federal Bureau of Prisons if his appointment gets approved by the Senate.

Gaetz has visited El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where gang leaders and murderers are locked up — and from which they are never released.

“There’s a lot more discipline in this prison than we see in a lot of the prisons in the United States,” said Gaetz, who was then a congressman during the visit.

And he’s a fan of the hardline rule of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who is often berated by human rights groups for flouting norms but largely credited inside his country for returning safety to the streets.

“This is the solution” for El Salvador, Gaetz added, in a video released by Bukele.

Bukele is well aware of the emotions he stirs — both positive and negative — and has dubbed himself the “world’s coolest dictator.”

Trump has at times both praised and denounced Bukele — when he was in the White House he lauded cooperation with El Salvador’s then-new leader, but he turned critic once he was out of power and focused on immigration, saying Bukele was sending criminals to the US

But Gaetz told Time Magazine he considered Bukele a “kindred spirit,” and the pair greeted each other warmly as Gaetz led other congressmen into Bukele’s office during the July visit.

CNN visited Cecot last month. Here’s what we found.

President-elect Donald Trump gestures after speaking during an America First Policy Institute gala at his Mar-a-Lago estate, on Thursday, November 14, in Palm Beach, Florida.

President-elect Donald Trump took a victory lap Thursday, boasting of a GOP sweep of the federal government, while speaking at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida for an America First Policy Institute gala.

“In my first term, they said ‘he won the election,’ but they always followed by ‘he didn’t win the popular vote,’” Trump said. “Nobody can say that anymore about us.”

At the gala, Trump said North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum will be announced Friday as his pick for secretary of the US Department of the Interior. The president-elect also previewed his expectations for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who he named earlier today as his choice to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

Meanwhile, there have been mixed reactions from members of Congress and others to Trump’s choice of former Rep. Matt Gaetz to run the Department of Justice.

Here’s a rundown of all of Trump’s picks so far.

And here’s what else took place Thursday:

Comments at the AFPI gala:

RFK Jr.’s new role:

Matt Gaetz and the House Ethics Committee:

Donald Trump has been announcing his choices for key roles in his incoming administration as he prepares to return to the White House.

On Thursday, the president-elect said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was his pick to head the US Department of Health and Human Services.

In his first selection last week, Trump named his campaign manager Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff, the first woman to ever hold that role.

Here’s who’s been announced this week:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

This post has been updated with the recent picks.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sat quietly alongside his two deputies as several of his fellow Democrats spoke up to give their own reason for the party’s tough loss last week, according to two people in the room.

In the Democrats’ first postmortem “listening sessions,” Jeffries heard from multiple lawmakers who said the party failed to address issues like border security and crime.

That included Democrats like Reps. Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, Susie Lee of Nevada, Henry Cuellar of Texas and Scott Peters of California.

While Democrats did attempt to make a border deal with Republicans earlier this Congress, he said it happened far too late.

Cuellar’s district contains a large swath of the US-Mexico border. One of his most populous counties, which sits along the border, went Republican this election cycle for the first time in 100 years.

Although the results from a handful of races are still outstanding, Republicans retained their majority in the House by winning at least 218 seats in last week’s election.

President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum will be announced Friday as his pick for secretary of the US Department of the Interior.

It seemed for a moment that Trump was going to hold the news. While he first dropped a hint that a big announcement would be made about Burgum tomorrow, Trump seemed to change his mind in real time.

“I look forward to doing the formal announcement, although this is a pretty big announcement right now. Actually, he’s going to head the Department of Interior, and it’s going to be fantastic,” Trump said pointing him out in the audience.

This post was updated with more details from the event in Mar-a-Lago.

President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday his administration will focus on the Russia-Ukraine war.

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

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday took a victory lap at a Mar-a-Lago event in Florida, boasting about Republicans winning the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

“In my first term, they said ‘he won the election,’ but they always followed by ‘he didn’t win the popular vote,’” Trump said. “Nobody can say that anymore about us.”

After boasting about winning the popular vote, he said Republicans “won the White House, recaptured the Senate, and now, as of today, recaptured the House.”

Remember: In 2016, Trump won the 270 electoral seats needed to win the White House, but he lost the popular vote to his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said the country has been doing so well since his election last week that his term should be counted as having started on Election Day.

Groups of migrants making the journey to the US, Trump said, are “breaking up.” He also bragged about recent market gains.

President-elected Donald Trump on Thursday heralded the “common sense” of Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate who Trump recently picked to be his new director of national intelligence.

President-elect Donald Trump previewed his expectations for Robert Kennedy Jr., who he announced Thursday as his pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

The president-elect called RFK Jr. “a great mind and a great guy” and congratulated Kennedy’s family on his nomination.

President-elect Donald Trump speaks at the America First Policy Institute gala at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday, November 14.

President-elect Donald Trump is making remarks at a gala for the America First Policy Institute at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.

It follows some notable selections for positions in his administration over the last few days, including former Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, among others.

He was introduced by “Rocky” actor Sylvester Stallone.

Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during an America First Policy Institute gala at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, November 14, in Palm Beach, Florida.

Vivek Ramaswamy said Thursday that he and Elon Musk, as the leaders of a new Department of Government Efficiency, will start “mass deportations” of bureaucrats in Washington, DC.

Remember: President-elect Donald Trump announced earlier this week that he was picking Ramaswamy and Musk to helm the new department. “Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said in a statement.

Trump is also expected to speak at this gala for the America First Policy Institute at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.

Senate Majority Leader-elect John Thune appears on Fox News on Thursday, November 14.

Republicans want to get President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees approved quickly, and using recess appointments to get that done is one option, Senate Majority Leader-elect John Thune said Thursday, though he added that he hopes it doesn’t come to that.

Whether or not Senate Republicans choose to allow such appointments — temporary hirings made while the Senate is out of session, allowing a president’s nominees to bypass the typical confirmation hearings — depends on “whether Democrats want to play ball,” Thune said.

Thune, appearing on Fox News, said the Senate takes its role of consenting and advising on presidential nominees seriously, “but we also are not going to allow the Democrats to obstruct or block President Trump and the will of the American people.”

Asked whether the Senate would use a recess appointment to push through the most controversial Trump picks, such as Matt Gaetz for attorney general, Thune said, “Hopefully it doesn’t get to that, but we’ll find out fairly quickly whether the Democrats want to play ball or not.”

Thune acknowledged that getting Trump’s Cabinet approved could be contentious, saying, “none of this is going to be easy.”

The majority leader-elect said he has a good relationship Trump.

“We’re speaking regularly,” he said. “We are aligned on the things that we want to get done.”

Some background: Recess appointments were once controversial, last-ditch efforts for presidents to install their nominees after facing long confirmation odds in the Senate. But Senate leaders from both parties dating back to the George W. Bush administration have used procedural means to block the possibility of recess appointments.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum speaks with CNN at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, November 14.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum addressed what he called “rumors” of him serving in Donald Trump’s administration ahead of the America First Policy Institute gala – not ruling it out, but not revealing his hand.

Asked by CNN at Mar-a-Lago if the role of energy czar would appeal to him, Burgum said, “Yeah, there’s been a lot of lot of rumors about that. But I think the key thing is not, not the role. I’ve never been interested in a role.”

Interrupted by the sound check, Burgum paused, and continued answering the question, “It’s not about any specific role.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported last week that Burgum is under consideration for a role as energy czar. While Trump has long pushed for Burgum to take a role as the secretary of the Department of Energy, Burgum has maintained he is not interested in that position.

Asked by another reporter if there were any conversations about him serving as secretary of interior, Burgum said, “There’s been a lot of discussions about a lot of different things.”

“Nothing’s true till you read it on Truth Social,” Burgum said.

Republicans on the House Ethics Committee have canceled a scheduled meeting on Friday with Democrats that was expected to address the long-awaited report on Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, according to two sources familiar.

The Republican members on the Ethics committee huddled privately Thursday night. Those lawmakers declined to comment as they left the meeting.

Remember: The report was expected to be released as soon as Friday, those sources said. But with Gaetz’s resignation, it’s uncertain if the information will ever be made public.

The Ethics Committee had been probing allegations that Gaetz may have “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.” Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, including ever having sex with a minor or paying for sex.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks with CNN's Manu Raju on Thursday, November 14.

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene warned of backlash if the Senate rejects Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after other House Republicans said they disagree with Kennedy’s anti-vaccine positions.

“This is a mandate. I think President Trump, part of the reason why he won the popular vote, was because he had the full backing and support of Bobby Kennedy, and because of the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ agenda that they laid out,” the Georgia lawmaker said.

GOP concerns: Several House Republicans have said they disagree with Kennedy’s high-profile history of anti-vaccine activism, though they acknowledged it is Trump’s prerogative to nominate whoever he chooses.

“If I were in the Senate, I would have big questions about” his position on vaccines, said Rep. Dan Newhouse, who has had to fend off challenges to his seat by Trump allies over past criticism of the president-elect.

The Washington Republican added, “the president has the ability, the privilege of naming whoever he wants to surround him, help him with his agenda. So, has to go through the confirmation process like everybody else.”

Rep. Mike Lawler of New York noted that Trump had been signaling throughout his campaign that Kennedy would play a big role in his administration, but also said he disagrees with Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism.

Rep. Mike Bost of Illinois, meanwhile, said he is comfortable with Kennedy’s nomination. Pressed on Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views, Bost replied, “All of these committees, all of these heads will have to, you know — we have to deal with them, their budgets and everything like that.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who President-elect Donald Trump announced as his pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, laid out his priorities for the agency in his first statement since accepting the position Thursday, emphasizing the importance of ridding “corruption” from the department.

Kennedy thanked Trump in a statement on social media and detailed his plans to meet a “generational opportunity” to bring an end to “the chronic disease epidemic.”

“I look forward to working with the more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth,” Kennedy said.

“Together we will clean up corruption, stop the revolving door between industry and government, and return our health agencies to their rich tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science. I will provide Americans with transparency and access to all the data so they can make informed choices for themselves and their families.”

Some context: Kennedy has been a loud critic of public health agencies for years, suggesting pharmaceutical and agriculture companies have undue influence on public health regulations and nutrition guidelines.

He has also spread unfounded conspiracy theories about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and has shared other fringe claims about the impact of man-made chemicals in the environment.

President-elect Donald Trump has selected John Sauer for US solicitor general.

The solicitor general oversees and argues the government’s cases before the Supreme Court.

Sauer successfully argued Trump’s immunity case before the Supreme Court. The justices ultimately ruled that Trump is entitled to immunity from prosecution for official actions taken as president.