| | | | Trump taps Goldman Sachs veteran Mnuchin for Treasury | | President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker who profited from the housing meltdown and was the Trump campaign's finance chair, as his Treasury secretary, CNN's Chris Isidore and Phil Mattingly report.
What's Mnuchin's resume? Like his father before him, Mnuchin was a partner at Goldman Sachs. He worked for the firm for 17 years, joining at age 22 and leaving just before his 40th birthday, in 2002. He briefly joined the hedge fund of his college roommate and then left to work for the hedge fund of liberal billionaire George Soros. Mnuchin started his own hedge fund in 2004. The 53-year-old later ran a series of eclectic businesses -- including his own hedge fund and a West Coast consumer bank. In recent years, he has been a Hollywood movie producer, working on films including "American Sniper."
How does his job work? Mnuchin would be the face of the American economy around the world. The Treasury Department has expansive responsibility over business and oversees banking regulations, financial markets and the IRS. It has about 100,000 employees, an estimated 91,000 of them at the IRS. Besides co-signing the currency, the Treasury secretary is Uncle Sam's banker, paying the bills, collecting taxes, managing the federal government debt and selling billions of dollars a year in Treasury bonds.
Another economic announcement: Wilbur Ross is Trump's pick for Commerce secretary. The nomination is expected to be rolled out as part of an economic team announcement tomorrow. | | Transition watch: Trump picks Chao; dining with Romneys | | Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, are dining tonight with Mitt and Ann Romney -- his second meeting with Romney as Trump feels out the 2012 GOP nominee-turned-Trump critic for the role of secretary of state. Also attending tonight: Reince Priebus, who chaired the RNC during both the 2012 and 2016 campaigns and will be Trump's chief of staff.
It's Elaine Chao for Transportation secretary. Trump picked the former Labor secretary and wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for a post that could involve overseeing the massive infrastructure-building push Trump hopes to oversee. | | Is democracy in trouble? This big-picture story from The New York Times' Amanda Taub on the state of democracy globally -- and in the United States -- is troubling. Particularly this passage, where Taub writes:
"Support for autocratic alternatives is rising, too. Drawing on data from the European and World Values Surveys, the researchers found that the share of Americans who say that army rule would be a 'good' or 'very good' thing had risen to 1-in-6 in 2014, compared with 1-in-16 in 1995.
"That trend is particularly strong among young people. For instance, in a previously published paper, the researchers calculated that 43% of older Americans believed it was illegitimate for the military to take over if the government were incompetent or failing to do its job, but only 19% of millennials agreed. The same generational divide showed up in Europe, where 53% of older people thought a military takeover would be illegitimate, while only 36% of millennials agreed." | | Trump's early morning First Amendment tweet | | | Donald Trump's to-do list includes staffing a White House, selecting a Cabinet, receiving some of his first presidential-level intelligence briefings and ironing out a policy agenda to deliver to Congress. But at 6:55 a.m. ET today, this is what was on his mind: | | Why this matters: Trump hasn't held a news conference since his election -- so while we're hearing from a steady stream of advisers, Twitter is the only real indication America has of where Trump's own head is right now.
On the substance, Trump's remark ignores the fact that the Supreme Court -- including Antonin Scalia, who Trump has cited as a model justice -- ruled in 1989 (and again a year later) that flag-burning is protected expression under the First Amendment. Even more alarming is his suggestion that citizenship be stripped -- far out of step as a punishment for crimes short of treason or joining groups intent on overthrowing the government.
Standing in Trump's way if this ever becomes a serious policy debate: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican. | | A sharp swing at Trump's Twitter habits came from Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and close Trump ally. "It makes you wonder about whatever else he's doing. It undermines much more than a single tweet," he told USA Today's Susan Page.
Not talking Trump: CNN's Manu Raju caught up with Arizona Sen. John McCain -- who wasn't at all interested in talking about Trump's flag-burning comments, or anything else Trump-related. "I have not been commenting on Mr. Trump and I will continue not to comment on Mr. Trump," he said. | | "It's a First Amendment right -- but you do it in front of me, I'm going to beat the hell out of you." -- Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, talking flag-burning with Roll Call's Bridget Bowman. | | | | It's been almost 24 years since Dan Quayle was vice president -- enough for him to go largely unnoticed, even at Trump Tower. | | | Going unrecognized doesn't seem to be new for Quayle. Politico's Eliana Johnson -- formerly of Fox News -- shared this story: | | House Dem battle: Pelosi vs. Ryan set for Wednesday | | Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan says he's within "striking distance" of Nancy Pelosi ahead of Wednesday's House Democratic leadership election. "I think a lot of people are going to be surprised tomorrow. We have a lot of support," he said on CNN's "New Day" today.
The Tim Ryan profile to read comes from The Washington Post's James Hohmann.
Another Democratic race is getting more crowded. Per Politico's Daniel Strauss, New Hampshire state party chairman Ray Buckley is running for DNC chair -- joining what could be a crowded field, with many on Capitol Hill backing Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison. South Carolina chairman Jaime Harrison and former DNC chairman Howard Dean are also in the mix.
A tweetstorm worth reading on Democrats' future comes from Guy Cecil, who was chairman of the Priorities USA Action super PAC during the 2016 race. He begins it: | | North Carolina governor's race takes an ugly turn | | North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory trails Democrat Roy Cooper in the vote count -- and now, the Charlotte Observer's Colin Campbell reports, he's using his power as governor to help himself in court.
The short version: A pro-McCrory group is suing the state Board of Elections to stop the counting of votes cast by same-day registrants (which, by the way, are legal in North Carolina). The Board of Elections attempted to hire outside lawyers to help them with the lawsuit. And McCrory's office -- despite the obvious conflict of interest -- blocked the board from hiring those lawyers. | | | He's back. Donald Trump is set to kick off a tour on Thursday to visit battleground states that helped him win the presidency. The first place? Cincinnati. ... Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is mulling a run for Senate there in 2018 -- depending in part on whether Sen. Orrin Hatch retires. ... Canceled: Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon's visit to the Harvard Institute of Politics, which was set for Thursday. | | | 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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