| | | | Hill GOP isn't following Trump on Russia hacking | | President-elect Donald Trump's insistence that the CIA is wrong in its finding that Russia hacked into Democratic emails in a bid to help Trump win isn't getting any support from majority Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Investigation coming: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged that his chamber would investigate whether Russia sought to influence the election -- while House Speaker Paul Ryan was less committal. "Let me just speak for myself: The Russians are not our friends," McConnell said at a news conference. "I think we ought to approach all of these issues on the assumption the Russians do not wish us well," he said.
Sen. John McCain talked Russia with CNN's Jake Tapper today. "The key to this is to try to find out what the Russians' intentions were. Were they intending to change the outcome of our election? If so, it's more serious," McCain said.
Trump, meanwhile, continued to side with Russia and reject the American intelligence community's finding. He tweeted this morning: | | | He also got everything wrong -- about how hackers are caught and about the reality that Russian hacking was discussed constantly, especially by Clinton's campaign, before the election -- in this tweet: | | One decision that does matter: McConnell rejected McCain's call for a bipartisan select committee to investigate the hacks -- which would have given the whole thing extra air. Instead, he said it'd be handled through the regular intelligence and foreign policy panels.
What's all this Russia talk about? Catch up with this explainer from CNN's Jeremy Diamond. | | "Had he not written that letter a week or so before the election, she would have won; we would have picked up at least two more Senate seats." -- Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, blaming FBI Director James Comey for Hillary Clinton's loss in an exit interview with CNN's Manu Raju today. | | | Exit interview: Reid throws Manchin under the bus | | Retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wasn't holding back about two of his Democratic colleagues who are meeting with President-elect Donald Trump about potential Cabinet spots in his interview with CNN's Manu Raju today. But his predictions were quite different.
Here's the warm answer, on Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-North Dakota: "I have no idea what they're going to do. I just know Heidi Heitkamp, I would doubt very seriously she being the populist that she is, that she would (join Trump's administration)."
And the cold one, on Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia: "Joe Manchin obviously is running for a Cabinet spot." | | Put a fork in the recounts -- they're done | | The Wisconsin recount is over, and the state Elections Commission says it will certify Donald Trump as the winner -- putting an end to Green Party nominee Jill Stein's only successful effort to have a state re-tabulate its results.
Earlier today, a federal judge had -- in strong, harsh words -- shut down Stein's bid for a Pennsylvania recount. A different judge had ended the Michigan recount last week.
Landslide? What landslide? Stein's recounts bombed, but Trump's claims of a landslide victory are bogus, too, write CNN's Steven A. Holmes and Eve Bower. An interesting nugget: Trump won enough states to give him 56.9% of the Electoral College vote. That places him 45th in the ranking of winning percentages going all the way back to George Washington's victory in the election of 1789. Trump is just behind Harry Truman who won 57% of the Electoral College vote in 1948 -- an election everybody went to bed on election night believing he had lost.
Now this is a blowout: Trump badly trails presidents such as Washington who won 100% in 1789 and 1792, Franklin Roosevelt who tallied 98.5% in 1936, Ronald Reagan who garnered 97.6% in 1984, Franklin Pierce who got 85.8% in 1852, and Barack Obama who earned 67.8% in 2008. | | | Donald Trump has put every CEO in America on alert: Be ready for Trump to tweet about your company -- and not in a flattering way, CNN's Paul R. La Monica writes. Today Lockheed Martin is on Trump's bad list. The company's stock dropped 4% after Trump tweeted this: | | Transition watch: Trump hires from Goldman Sachs | | From CNN's Matt Egan and Phil Mattingly: Donald Trump, who ran as an outsider and vilified Goldman Sachs during the campaign, is adding another veteran of the powerful Wall Street firm to his administration. Trump said Monday he will appoint Gary Cohn, second-in-command at Goldman Sachs, as director of the influential National Economic Council.
The job description: The leader of the NEC acts as the president's quarterback on the economy, coordinating policymaking between various agencies and programs to ensure it's in line with the administration's goals. The NEC chief works inside the White House and helps frame the debate on the biggest economic issues. Trump, in a statement, said Cohn will "design and coordinate" his administration's economic policy, working closely with the Treasury and Commerce departments. The post does not require Senate approval.
Yeah, this is a pay cut: Cohn, a 25-year Goldman Sachs veteran, made at least $123 million in total compensation since becoming the bank's sole president and chief operating officer in 2009, a review of filings shows. | | Kellyanne Conway declined press secretary job | | Kellyanne Conway, who managed President-elect Donald Trump's campaign and is now a senior adviser to the transition, says she turned down Trump's offer to become White House press secretary. It was the first time Conway had publicly acknowledged turning down the job. "I have politely declined that job," Conway said this morning on Hugh Hewitt's talk radio show. More from the Washington Examiner's Sarah Westwood.
More Conway: "As you can imagine, if it's President Trump's administration, communications will be a very important aspect of it, and there will be a number of people handling that." | | | Donald Trump is tapping Michigan's Ronna Romney McDaniel as his choice to be the next RNC chair. ... Hillary Clinton's campaign backs the idea of an intelligence briefing for Electoral College members. ... Former Rep. Aaron Schock pled not guilty to corruption charges today. In other corruption-related news, former Rep. Chaka Fattah was sentenced to 10 years in prison. | | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Check out Five Things for Your New Day, CNN's morning newsletter. Give us five minutes, and we'll brief you on all the news and buzz people will be talking about. | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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