| | | | T-minus four days until Trump's inauguration | | But first: President-elect Donald Trump's pick for interior secretary, Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, will kick off this week of confirmation hearings on Tuesday at 10 a.m. ET ahead of the inauguration on Friday.
Betsy DeVos, Trump's pick for education secretary, has a hearing scheduled for 5 p.m. ET.
Coming Wednesday: Wilbur Ross, Trump's pick to be commerce secretary, will have his hearing at 10:00 a.m. ET, the same time as energy secretary pick Scott Pruitt, US ambassador to the United Nations nominee Nikki Haley and HHS nominee Rep. Tom Price.
About Price's hearing ... | | Price invested in company, then introduced bill to help it | | A scoop from CNN's Manu Raju: Rep. Tom Price last year purchased shares in a medical device manufacturer days before introducing legislation that would have directly benefited the company, raising new ethics concerns for President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services secretary.
Price bought between $1,001 to $15,000 worth of shares last March in Zimmer Biomet, according to House records reviewed by CNN. Less than a week after the transaction, the Georgia Republican congressman introduced the HIP Act, legislation that would have delayed until 2018 a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services regulation that industry analysts warned would significantly hurt Zimmer Biomet financially once fully implemented. | | Trump meets King III after feud with civil rights icon Lewis | | After a weekend clash with civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis -- which led to a growing number of House Democrats saying they'll skip the inauguration -- President-elect Donald Trump on Monday called on Americans to observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day and "celebrate all of the many wonderful things that he stood for." Trump met with Martin Luther King III at Trump Tower on Monday afternoon and afterward King said the meeting was "constructive" and that the two discussed the importance of voting accessibility. Trump didn't speak to the press.
Lewis responded indirectly to Trump at an event honoring King today, never mentioning Trump by name. He described an incident where he was beaten bloody by members of the Ku Klux Klan after attempting to enter a "white waiting room." "Many years later, in February of '09, one of the men that had beaten us came to my Capitol Hill office -- he was in his 70s, with his son in his 40s -- and he said, 'Mr. Lewis, I am one of the people who beat you and your seat mate'" on a bus, Lewis said, adding the man said he had been in the KKK. He said, 'I want to apologize. Will you accept my apology?" After accepting his apology and hugging the father and son, the three cried together, Lewis remembered. "It is the power in the way of peace, the way of love," Lewis said. "We must never, ever hate. The way of love is a better way."
Some context as we remember King and the civil rights movement: It was politically unpopular at the time, with a vast majority of whites saying African-Americans' protests were hurting their cause. | | | The first WWE Hall of Famer president: Don't miss the great story from Politico's Josh Dawsey on Trump's obsession with WrestleMania -- and love of the fake drama that professional wrestling is all about manufacturing. | | "Well, Mitt was right, and he was also right when he mentioned in one of the debates about Russia, and he said, 'Russia's our biggest problem.'" -- President-elect Donald Trump in 2014 on Mitt Romney's assessment of Russia. | | | Donald Trump's declaration to Bild and The Times of London that NATO is "obsolete" has led to "astonishment and agitation" within the alliance, Germany's foreign minister has said.
Those aren't the only foreign policy feathers Trump has ruffled. He is also feuding with CIA Director John Brennan. | | Democrats search for an identity -- and a leader | | A couple of dispatches from Phoenix, where the Democratic National Committee heard from its seven candidates for chairman at its first of four "future forums." The New York Times' Jonathan Martin writes about Democrats' trouble with Donald Trump -- including this line: "Yet just as the would-be leaders of the committee, who were assembled for the first of four officially sanctioned candidate forums, preached prudence and calculation in the Trump era, others in the party were responding with fury to the President-elect's latest Twitter outburst."
And The Wall Street Journal's Reid Epstein asked the two leading candidates, Bernie Sanders-endorsed Keith Ellison and Obama/Clinton faction favorite Tom Perez, whether Sanders should share his massive fundraising list. He writes: "Mr. Perez said Mr. Sanders should share his list. Mr. Ellison grew testy when asked. 'I would need to talk to more people to offer you an opinion on that question. I'm simply not prepared to say,' he said."
Keep an eye out in the morning for Eric's story on whether the struggling DNC can be saved.
A big part of the next DNC chairman's job is selling the party's message on TV, online and to donors. So Eric asked several of the candidates in Phoenix to deliver their rally-the-troops message for Donald Trump's inauguration week -- in a single sentence. Here's what they said:
Tom Perez, Labor secretary: "Dishonest Donald doesn't stand for your values."
Keith Ellison, Minnesota congressman: "Donald Trump opposes core American values and Americans for who they are, what they believe and the opportunities they want for themselves and their children."
Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana: "Donald Trump has not demonstrated even a fraction of the courage that John Lewis has in his little finger."
Jaime Harrison, South Carolina party chairman: "Donald Trump WILL BE -- all upper-case letters -- a one-term president."
Ray Buckley, New Hampshire party chairman: "Let's make sure America's brightest days are ahead." | | Obamas visit swing set they donated to DC shelter | | | The first family spent some of Martin Luther King Jr. Day visiting a former fixture of the White House -- and saw it getting some good use. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama visited the Jobs Have Priority Naylor Road Family Shelter in Washington where the White House donated the Obama daughters' backyard swing set earlier this month. | | Clinton Foundation shuts down Clinton Global Initiative | | | It's the end of one major part of Bill Clinton's post-presidency work: On January 12, the Clinton Foundation received news that a WARN notice was filed with the New York Department of Labor. The main office of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York would be closing, laying off 22 employees, Michael Sainato of the Observer reports. | | | A look into the Koch network's new agenda -- familiar ideas and much higher expectations. ... Monica Crowley is bowing out of Donald Trump's administration after CNN's KFile uncovered numerous examples of plagiarism in her past. | | | 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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