| | | | Trump visits Carrier, then kicks off 'thank you' tour | | The election is over, but Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail. The President-elect kicks off what aides are billing as a thank-you tour through battleground states on Thursday with an arena rally in Cincinnati tonight. It comes after he and Vice President-elect Mike Pence made a visit to Indianapolis to celebrate a deal with air conditioning manufacturer Carrier to keep that company from shipping more than 1,000 jobs to Mexico.
What did Carrier get to strike this deal? From Indiana, $7 million over 10 years. But that's window-dressing -- a fairly typical package of incentives that other states and municipalities offer all the time. Protecting $5.6 billion in parent company United Technologies' federal defense contracts from a President-elect who could be seeking to make an example of a company early on is the bigger achievement. Chris Isidore and I break it down.
Republicans and Democrats quickly sprinted into their usual camps. Democrats including Bernie Sanders denounced it as corporate welfare. Republicans like Paul Ryan -- who'd blasted the stimulus, the Detroit bailout, Solyndra and more when Democrats did it -- suddenly were no longer worried about government picking winners and losers. "Well, I'm pretty happy that we're keeping jobs in America -- aren't you?" Ryan told reporters.
But there were some exceptions. Such as this, from the right: | | | Then, from the left, there was this: | | | Two presidents, two Indiana trips: President Barack Obama's first trip in office was to Elkhart, Indiana, to champion the stimulus. The Huffington Post's Sam Stein writes that Obama's effort did far, far more, but Trump sold his Carrier move better. | | "I'm not going to be part of a Republican Party that will take 700,000-plus young people who've done nothing on their own -- they came here as small kids, they lived their life in America, they have no place else to go -- and just ruin their lives." -- Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to BuzzFeed's Tarini Parti. Graham is pushing a bill to shield "Dreamers" from deportation. | | | | The final numbers from the three states that cost Hillary Clinton the election are in: | | Rep. Becerra bolts Congress to become California AG | | Rep. Xavier Becerra announced Thursday he would be leaving Congress to serve as California's attorney general, accepting Gov. Jerry Brown's offer in a move that takes the senior Democrat out of Washington.
Who Becerra is replacing: Kamala Harris, who California sent to the Senate.
Why this matters: Becerra's new role could put him at the forefront of the state-level resistance to President-elect Donald Trump's immigration policies.
What Latino leaders expect: Yvanna Cancela, the executive director of the Nevada Citizenship Project and a prominent Democratic voice, said Becerra would be "a strong voice in the state but also a strong voice nationally for creative and really thoughtful policies that protect people from egregious anti-immigrant policies that might come out of D.C."
A similar take from Voto Latino president Maria Teresa Kumar: "Rep. Becerra's nomination would make him the first Latino to serve as attorney general in the state of California. In a time when there is so much uncertainty among immigrant and Latino communities, we need strong voices in statewide positions who will fight for the rights of all people, including those who are undocumented."
Keep an eye on Becerra in 2018. He'll have to decide whether to run for re-election as attorney general. And, if Sen. Dianne Feinstein retires, the Senate could also be an option. | | In a town hall with Donald Trump supporters, CNN's Alisyn Camerota was flabbergasted by their insistence that millions of undocumented immigrants voted in the 2016 election. For the record: It didn't happen.
The key moment: Camerota asked one woman where she heard that President Barack Obama said undocumented immigrants could vote. "Google it," another Trump supporter, Susan DeLemus, said. "You can find it on Facebook." | | Transition watch: Trump wants Mattis for Defense | | President-elect Donald Trump wants retired Marine Gen. James Mattis as his secretary of defense, two sources with knowledge of the transition told CNN. One of the sources said Mattis is the choice. The other official told CNN that it is headed toward Mattis but said it was not a done deal. A third Trump source also said it was not finished and did not expect the secretary of defense position to be finalized this week.
Manchin for Energy? It's a two birds, one stone deal: Trump could tap West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin for Energy secretary in a move that would show coal workers his support -- while also removing a popular Democrat from a seat Republicans hope to win in 2018. Politico's Darius Dixon has the scoop. | | | Democrats have lost by larger and larger margins in five straight elections in four states -- Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia -- for the first time in history. ... Republicans wishing to one day run for president, take note: Jennifer Horn is stepping down as the New Hampshire GOP chair. | | | 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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