| | | | Trump's son-in-law Kushner to become senior adviser | | Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will be senior adviser to the president, Trump's team announced today. The 35-year-old businessman-turned-political strategist played a key part in his father-in-law's presidential campaign and his new position is expected to test the limit of federal anti-nepotism rules. Ivanka Trump's title will most likely remain simply "first daughter" and -- unlike her husband -- nothing more official.
Credit for the scoop goes to Mike Allen, whose newsletter for Axios launched today.
The Kushner profile to read comes from New York Magazine's Andrew Rice.
Cabinet hearings begin tomorrow. First up: Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will vote on his nomination for attorney general. Sessions cultivated relationships that could help him win confirmation in the Senate gym, writes CNN's Dana Bash. But Matthew Shepard's mother, Judy Shepard, opposes Sessions, citing his opposition to hate crimes legislation. Here's what to watch this week. | | Progressives prepare for battle against Trump | | TUNE IN TONIGHT: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is participating in a live town hall at 9 p.m. ET on CNN, moderated by Chris Cuomo.
Read up on Sanders' CNN op-ed where he writes about issues he believes the US government should be tackling.
After two months of licking their wounds, progressive Democrats say they're ready to take on President-elect Donald Trump. Mobilized in part by the stunning primary campaign waged by Sanders, progressives now find themselves at the center of the Democratic resistance as the party navigates its way through the Trump era. With Hillary Clinton defeated and President Barack Obama counting down his final days in office, the party is increasingly reliant on Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other leading progressives to set its message -- and pick its battles.
An emerging player: Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley has taken the lead in organizing an inside-outside game, coordinating progressive organizations' activities with Democratic lawmakers, activists said.
The progressives' strategy: Fight Trump on absolutely everything. "We are now the party of opposition, and we need to act like it. Way too often, Democrats, when we get out of power, we bend over backwards trying to find ways to work with the other party -- often to the detriment of our values," said Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, the progressive grassroots group founded by Howard Dean. "And that cannot happen with this administration. We need to stand absolutely strong on our values, and uncompromising. The default is to believe that we're going to need to fight and stop just about everything that is coming down the pike." More in my story on what's next for progressives.
Happening tonight: Senate Democrats will hold a late-night protest over the GOP's Obamacare repeal plans. They'll be live-streaming it on Facebook here. | | "Is there a possibility sometime in the next 20 or 30 years we end up in Russia? Absolutely. Is it right for us right now? Probably not." -- Eric Trump, telling Argentina's La Nacion in an interview picked up by Politico that his family's business will likely avoid deals in Russia while Donald Trump is President. | | | By now you know all about Meryl Streep's Golden Globes denunciation of President-elect Donald Trump for mocking New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski's disability -- and Trump's furious early morning tweets denouncing Streep as an overrated "Hillary flunky."
Here's what's new: Trump told The New York Times' Patrick Healy he wasn't mocking Kovaleski. "I was never mocking anyone," Trump said. "I was calling into question a reporter who had gotten nervous because he had changed his story. People keep saying I intended to mock the reporter's disability, as if Meryl Streep and others could read my mind, and I did no such thing."
And then ... Trump aide Kellyanne Conway insisted to CNN's Chris Cuomo that he wasn't mocking Kovaleski's disability -- and that Cuomo owes it to Trump to take Trump's word for it. Her reasoning: "You can't give him the benefit of the doubt on this and he's telling you what was in his heart? You always want to go by what's come out of his mouth rather than look at what's in his heart."
Was Trump mocking the man's disability? You decide. The top picture is Kovaleski, on the left. The bottom picture is Trump's campaign-trail depiction of Kovaleski. The Washington Post's Callum Borchers runs through the whole episode. | | | One more nugget: In his interview with the Times' Healy, Trump offered this claim about the entertainment and movie stars who will attend his inauguration: "All the dress shops are sold out in Washington. It's hard to find a great dress for this inauguration." | | Obama's last ride: Chicago trip closes several chapters
| | President Barack Obama tomorrow will deliver his farewell speech -- and he'll do it from his home city of Chicago, a first in farewell speeches. As long as everything goes as planned, it will be Obama's last ride on Air Force One.
Here are some other details on speech preparations, from White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest today:
-- Obama is writing the speech himself. He'll dictate elements of it to his speechwriting team, led by Cody Keenan, who then puts it into a typed form. Obama then takes those drafts and marks them up in detailed, condensed longhand, leading to more drafts.
-- Obama is set to deliver what the White House is billing as a "forward-looking speech that will examine briefly the significant progress our country has made over the last eight years, but take a closer look and spend more time talking about what the President believes is necessary for us to confront the challenges that lie ahead." The themes will include fairness and justice, diversity as a strength and the ability to succeed with hard work, regardless of appearance or heritage. | | | A new photo published by National Geographic magazine on Monday shows President Barack Obama enjoying the sights of a reef while snorkeling in the Pacific Ocean. | | Trump advisers huddling with Ryan to talk tax reform | | | President-elect Donald Trump's advisers met with House Speaker Paul Ryan and his team at the Capitol to cap off Monday evening's heavy schedule, The Washington Post's Robert Costa reports. Ryan is set to walk Trump's advisers through the House Republican tax proposal that was promoted on the Republican Party's "A Better Way" agenda. | | Khizr Khan voices his opposition to Sessions as AG | | | Gold Star father and Donald Trump critic Khizr Khan is back on the political map, voicing his opposition to the President-elect's attorney general nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, CNN's Julia Manchester reports. "The most minimal standard for leading the Department of Justice must be a demonstrated commitment to pursuing justice for all Americans," he wrote in the letter. "Mr. Sessions fails to meet that standard." | | | Former GOP presidential rival Rick Santorum says President-elect Donald Trump shouldn't skip his daily intelligence briefings. ... Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice endorses former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to be Trump's attorney general. ... Secretary of State John Kerry apologized for past discrimination against LGBT employees at the State Department. ... Vice President-elect Mike Pence moved to Washington today with his wife, Karen, daughter Charlotte, and three other family members: pet cats Oreo and Pickle and pet rabbit Marlon Brando. | | | 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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