| | | | How Trump spent his MLK Day holiday weekend | | Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. On Friday, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.
So how did Trump spend the run-up to this historic week? First, he attacked Georgia Rep. John Lewis on Twitter, responding to the civil rights hero's comment that Trump would not be a "legitimate president" in his eyes.
In a pair of Saturday morning tweets, Trump wrote, "Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to...... mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!"
About 12 hours later, he added: "Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get!"
The "all talk" line fell flat with critics on both sides of the partisan divide, many of whom shared disturbing iconic images of Lewis, then a young activist, being beaten by Alabama state troopers and police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. By Saturday night, there had been a run on Lewis' 1999 memoir.
On Sunday morning, Team Trump came out to defend the boss. In separate interviews, Vice President-elect Mike Pence told Fox News that Trump has "the right to defend himself," while incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus, in an interview with ABC News, called on President Obama to "step up" and quiet Democrats. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" that Lewis should not be "immune" to criticism.
Worth noting: Obama in his farewell address last week, along with his chief of staff Denis McDonough on Sunday via "State of the Union," both very clearly stated -- two times in the Obama speech -- the White House's view: Trump was "freely elected" and legit.
Keeping count: A growing number of Democrats are now opting to sit out or boycott Friday's inauguration -- here's a running count. | | Democrats rally across country to save Obamacare | | Democrats launched rallies and town hall meetings around the country -- about 40, from Maine to California -- this weekend as they sought to turn up the heat on Republicans seeking to pick apart President Obama's 2010 health care law.
In Michigan, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer headlined a gathering that attracted thousands. The rally, in Macomb County, which voted for Trump in November, was the largest and, per Sanders, the first of many. A day earlier, a GOP congressman's regular meeting with constituents went haywire when he reportedly sneaked out early amid some testy questions about his Obamacare repeal vote.
So what are Republicans thinking? Or better, what are they doing? Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has repeatedly insisted that his colleagues pass a replacement bill on the same day as the repeal. On Sunday morning, he was previewing his plan on CNN with Tapper.
Here's one key line from Paul: "The replacement bill that we put together, our goal is to insure the most amount of people, give access to the most amount of people, at the least amount of cost." Insuring people is not the same as providing access for people to buy insurance -- and that is the ideological crux of the debate here.
More on his plan -- and his (extremely unlikely) idea for preserving Medicaid expansion -- right here. | | "They are the opposition party. I want 'em out of the building. We are taking back the press room." | | | Satire is not dead... yet.
Saturday Night Live spoofed Trump's raucous Wednesday press conference and Alec Baldwin reprised his now staple take on the President-elect. | | The Democrats plot their rise in Phoenix | | The race to take over the Democratic National Committee began to sharpen this weekend -- even as the leading candidates to take over the chairmanship mostly played nice during a gathering in Arizona.
As CNN's Eric Bradner reported from Phoenix -- check out his Twitter feed here -- this is a three-horse race: Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison and Pete Buttigieg, the 34-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
Though many have viewed the race as a proxy fight between the Clinton/Obama wing of the party (repped by Perez) and the Bernie Sanders movement (which loves Ellison), the front-runners all played down their differences in an effort to put the focus on Trump. Eric's there and filed this report. | | 
Conservative commentator and Trump ally Laura Ingraham used this image of a really clean, lovely sidewalk to illustrate that garbage is "everywhere" in Mayor Bill de Blasio's New York. She's right that the homeless population is growing. Not mentioned here: The city is safe and getting safer. Total shootings fell below 1,000 in 2016, the smallest number since 1993. | | Put that in your pipe and (don't!) smoke it | | 1. David Martosko, the US political editor at the Daily Mail, reportedly interviewed to be Trump's press secretary in December.
2. Page Six's Richard Johnson reported on Friday that one of the candidates for the job, which eventually went to Sean Spicer, suggested drug testing members of the press.
And...
3. On Sunday, BuzzFeed's Matthew Champion reported that it was, in fact, Martosko who wanted to require his colleagues be the subjects of those random tests. Martosko, currently traveling in Africa, declined to comment, according to BuzzFeed. | | | From CNN Money -- Mexico warns Trump on tariffs: We'll respond immediately. The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik argues that the absence of high-profile musicians from the Trump inaugural festivities is more meaningful than you might have thought ... Breitbart alumni are banding together to form a pro-Trump advocacy/investigative journalism group they're calling the America First Project, per The Atlantic's Rosie Gray ... and in The New York Times, the critic Vanessa Friedman goes deep on first lady Michelle Obama's wardrobe and why it mattered. | | | 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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