| | | | Family matters: Trump's children break the firewall | | Donald Trump's sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, are actively involved in his transition efforts, sources say -- raising questions about their dual role in his administration and businesses. Donald Trump Jr. helped vet and interview candidates for the interior secretary position, a source familiar with the process confirmed, and Eric Trump was present for at least one meeting for secretary of state between his father and Mitt Romney, CNN's Tal Kopan reports.
Here's why this matters: Trump's children have long been close professional advisers as well, rising to top executive positions at the Trump Organization. But Eric and Donald Jr. are going to keep running the family business -- which means their involvement in Cabinet picks makes it impossible to build a firewall between Trump's government actions and his family's business interests.
Most complicated of all: The role that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and the husband of Ivanka Trump (who a source told CNN's Sara Murray will have an office in the first lady's East Wing), will play. He's expected to become an adviser to Trump, but appointing him in any official, paid capacity -- or even giving him a desk in the West Wing -- would put Trump at risk of running afoul of conflict-of-interest and anti-nepotism laws. Here's my look at Kushner's business ties and what he'd have to do to work in the White House.
The most transparent transition in modern history? That's what the RNC's Sean Spicer told CNN's Kate Bolduan this has been. "Conflicts of interest arise when you're sneaky about it, when you're shady about it. If you tell everyone, here's what's going on, here's the process, here's the people who are playing a role, that's being transparent," Spicer said today. "We have a camera, for goodness sake. Every single person who enters Trump Tower, you get to see them go up, go down, they talk to the press." | | "He's like a fine wine. Every day that goes by, I get to appreciate his genius more and more."
-- President-elect Donald Trump on occasional critic-turned-ally House Speaker Paul Ryan, last night in Wisconsin.
| | | DNC chair race: Perez set to make it official | | Labor Secretary Tom Perez will announce a bid for Democratic National Committee chairman Thursday on a call with state Democratic party chairs, CNN's Dan Merica reports. Perez joins Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, New Hampshire Democratic chairman Ray Buckley and South Carolina chairman Jaime Harrison on the list of contenders.
The heavyweight fight here -- at least for now -- appears to be between Perez, who represents the Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton wing of the party, and Ellison, who represents the Bernie Sanders wing.
Ellison is no sure thing, Politico's Gabe Debenedetti and Daniel Strauss report. They surveyed all 447 DNC voting members.
How Democrats lost Dubuque: CNN's Marshall Cohen and Jeff Simon have a case study on blue-to-red Midwestern counties, and start it with the Granny Basketball League's Dubuque Courtside Cuties.
How Democrats can win again: The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza chatted with veteran Democratic operative Guy Cecil -- whose tweetstorm we told you about recently. If you care about Democrats' way out of the wilderness, their conversation is a good place to start. | | President-elect Donald Trump welcomed tech industry titans (including Peter Thiel, pictured here, as well as Apple's Tim Cook, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, SpaceX's Elon Musk and others) to Trump Tower today for a meeting.
Not included: Twitter. Politico's Nancy Scola reports it's because Twitter wouldn't allow Trump to launch a #CrookedHillary emoji during the campaign. | | Priebus says White House press briefings will change | | Reince Priebus, President-elect Donald Trump's choice for his chief of staff and Republican National Committee chairman, said major changes could be in store for White House press briefings under the incoming administration, CNN's Tom Kludt and Kevin Liptak report. "The point of all of this conversation is that the traditions, while some of them are great, I think it's time to revisit a lot of these things that have been done in the White House," he said.
But the White House seating arrangement? Priebus said that assigned seating at the briefings began under President Barack Obama. "You know, this was the first front row assigned seat issue, as I understand it, started in the Obama administration. In the Bush administration, you just took a seat, and I guess there were a couple of people that have had reserved spots," Priebus said. Priebus was wrong. Assigned seating actually dates back decades and the seating chart is currently determined by the White House Correspondents Association, not the administration. | | White House: Trump knew Russia hacks benefited him | | White House press secretary Josh Earnest cited President-elect Donald Trump's own suggestion over the summer that Moscow locate missing emails from Hillary Clinton's private server -- arguing that Trump had to know Russia was trying to tip the election against Clinton -- CNN's Julia Manchester reports. "It might be an indication that he was obviously aware and concluded, based on whatever facts or sources he had available to him, that Russia was involved and their involvement was having a negative impact on his opponent's campaign," he said.
But why didn't the White House respond sooner? The administration did not want to give Trump reason to cry foul following what they were certain would be a Hillary Clinton victory. Now it's Democrats who are suggesting the elections were stolen, in part at least, by Russian hacking efforts aimed to hurt Clinton and boost Trump. | | | President-elect Donald Trump is set to have a very white, very male Cabinet. With Trump tapping ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, he guaranteed that his four most influential departments will, if confirmed, be led entirely by white males for the first time since George H.W. Bush's first Cabinet was approved in 1989, CNN's Greg Krieg reports. | | | ExxonMobil announced that Rex Tillerson -- President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state -- is retiring by the end of the year. He'll be replaced as CEO and Chairman by Darren Woods. ... House Speaker Paul Ryan has tapped 38-year-old Jonathan Burks, a policy specialist, as his new chief of staff. | | | 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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