| | | | Obama. Trump. 90 minutes, alone, in the Oval Office. | | President Barack Obama welcomed President-elect Donald Trump to the White House on Thursday, as both men put past antagonisms aside in a time-honored ritual epitomizing the peaceful transfer of political power. Obama told Trump: "If you succeed, the country succeeds," as the two men sat in high-backed chairs in front of the fireplace in the Oval Office.
"Mr. President, it was a great honor being with you and I look forward to being with you many, many more times," Trump said, adding that he and Obama had spoken about some wonderful and difficult things and "some high-flying assets." It was not immediately clear what he meant. The President-elect also said he would seek "counsel" from Obama. More from CNN's Stephen Collinson and myself. | | Trump and Pence also met congressional GOP leaders | | Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and future first lady Melania Trump ate lunch at the Capitol Hill Club and then headed to the speaker's office for a meeting, CNN's Deirdre Walsh reports. Ryan rolled out the red carpet for Trump, taking him out to his balcony in his Capitol office, which overlooks the Washington Monument, and the platform under construction where Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president. Ryan also pointed out Trump's new hotel, which recently opened and was visible from the balcony.
After the brief Capitol tour with the speaker, Trump and Pence walked across the Capitol for a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who, despite tough challenges in races across the country, held onto the GOP majority in the upper chamber. McConnell said they went over the transition and "issues that we obviously agree on" and called it "a first-class meeting."
Here's where things stand on some of the tasks Trump faces:
Picking a chief of staff: Trump likes former Breitbart executive -- and Trump campaign chairman -- Steve Bannon. Others in Trump's orbit are trying to talk him out of it, but note Trump doesn't have a total bond with another oft-mentioned candidate, RNC chairman Reince Priebus, sources told CNN's Dana Bash.
'Crown jewels' of intel: Trump will receive two sets of intelligence briefings, per CNN's Barbara Starr. Trump is scheduled to begin receiving the President's Daily Brief very soon. Trump will also receive briefings on the so-called crown jewels of intelligence. These briefings will provide Trump with information on the nation's most secretive intelligence-gathering programs.
Repealing Obamacare: Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania, says it "absolutely has to get done in the first year" of Trump's presidency. | | "He may not spend very much time trying to get Mexico to pay for it, but it was a great campaign device." -- Newt Gingrich, suggesting Donald Trump wasn't serious about his promise to build a US-Mexico border wall and get Mexico to pay for it. | | | After Donald Trump's election, students at Royal Oak Middle School in Michigan -- a state Trump leads with nearly all the vote counted -- chanted "build a wall," a staple of Trump rallies, at lunch.
Fears of bigotry have turned into a reality for some Americans after Trump's election, CNN's Holly Yan and Kayla Rodgers. Messages like "whites only" and "go back to Africa" were scrawled inside a Minnesota high school's bathroom: | | Warren shows Democrats a path forward under Trump | | On the campaign trail, Donald Trump called Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" and Warren denounced Trump as a thin-skinned, woman-groping "money-grubber." Now? Warren says they can work together -- as long as congressional Republicans get on board, too. "The truth is that people have a right to be angry," the Massachusetts firebrand senator declared at the AFL-CIO today as she rolled out a list of items -- infrastructure, campaign finance reform and a Wall Street crackdown -- on which she and Trump could work together.
"When President-elect Trump wants to take on these issues -- when his goal is to increase the economic security of middle-class families -- then count me in," Warren said. "I will push aside our differences and I will work with him to achieve that goal."
Many Democrats' eyes are on Warren as the party confronts a sudden leadership void. She is seizing on parts of Trump's message -- but also driving a wedge between the President-elect and his party's leaders on Capitol Hill, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and forcing Trump to choose.
Warren and Bernie Sanders are warning against some of Trump's other campaign promises, though: | | Now, about Democrats' path forward...
Sanders made his pick for DNC chair, endorsing Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison. The problem with Ellison: He's a sitting member of Congress -- and Democrats might have learned the lesson that they need a professional political operative like the RNC's Reince Priebus, fully focused on the task, at the party's helm. Another contender could be former Vermont governor and DNC chair Howard Dean, who tweeted this evening: | | Democrats face a short-term vs. long-term problem. In the long-term, the demographic majority they've long seen emerging didn't carry Hillary Clinton -- but it did help Clinton get closer in North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona than she did in Ohio and Iowa. There's plenty of evidence the Sun Belt -- not the Rust Belt -- is the party's path back to the White House.
But before that, there's the Senate to worry about. And Democrats have a TON of vulnerable incumbents in overwhelmingly white states that Trump just won up for re-election in 2018 -- including deep-red Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia, as well as trending-red Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. Just look at this 2018 Senate map -- Democratic incumbents' seats in blue: | | | No one said staffing an administration was easy. Here's Donald Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. | | Lock Clinton up? Maybe not, Giuliani and Christie say | | From CNN's David Wright: Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie -- two Donald Trump loyalists rumored to be under consideration for top law-enforcement positions in the incoming administration -- demurred Thursday when asked about the President-elect's resolve to follow up on his campaign promise to put Hillary Clinton in jail.
Here's what Giuliani told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day" this morning: "It's been a tradition in our politics to put things behind us. On the other hand, you have to look at how bad was it? Because suppose somebody comes along a year from now and is alleged to have stolen $50,000 from a charity -- and (Clinton) was never investigated for hundreds of millions." | | Ex-Rep. Schock indicted in spending scandal | | | From CNN's Theodore Schleifer and Pamela Brown: A federal grand jury returned an indictment charging former Rep. Aaron Schock after a congressional ethics investigation revealed that he used taxpayer money to fund lavish trips and events. Schock resigned his seat in March 2015 amid scandal, which most prominently featured the Illinois Republican decorating his congressional office in the style of the popular PBS drama "Downton Abbey." He later came under scrutiny for flights on private jets -- including planes owned by key donors -- concert tickets and other entertainment expenses. He's also under fire for lapses in reporting some of his expenses. | | Barron Trump will be the first son to live in the White House since John-John. ... Gary Johnson and Jill Stein helped elect Trump. ... Ohio Gov. John Kasich says he prayed for Trump's success in his new job.
What's Hillary Clinton up to these days? Going for a hike: | | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Check out CNNMoney's Reliable Sources, an insider's look into the media brought to you by Brian Stelter. | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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