President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team have begun orchestrating what is being described as a “hostile takeover” of the federal government from his Mar-a-Lago golf resort, according to a new report.
While the incoming president and his transition team continue to build out his next administration with unorthodox Cabinet nominations that have stunned Capitol Hill, they are also skirting many traditional rules meant to facilitate a seamless transfer of power, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
“Instead, the president-elect, who has pledged to fire thousands of civil servants and slash billions of dollars in spending, has so far almost fully cut out the government agencies his predecessors have relied on to take charge of the federal government,” according to the report.
Trump’s “unprecedented approach” includes refusing to collaborate with the General Services Administration, which makes about $7 million available for the presidential transition process. He has also engaged in calls with foreign heads of state without “the State Department, its secure lines and its official interpreters,” the Post noted.
Additionally, the publication added that Trump has relied on non-traditional avenues to vet his potential appointees without allowing the FBI to run its own inquiry.
“For Trump, who campaigned on radically reshaping the federal government by moving entire departments out of Washington, closing others and replacing scores of civil servants with political loyalists, fulfillment of that vision begins with a privately run transition from Palm Beach and nearby offices,” according to the report.
It added that Trump’s “abiding distrust and resentment of federal agencies,” is driving his unusual transition method.
“The American people rendered their verdict by putting him back in the White House,” Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project, told the Post. “He should not trust the politicized and weaponized intelligence and law enforcement agencies that hobbled his presidency the first time. It’s a hostile takeover on behalf of the American people.”
If Congressional Republicans give in to Trump's recent demand, yet another norm could be broken, according to the report — the rarely-used recess appointment process, which could help pave the way for his nominations to take office.
President-elect Donald Trump issued angry and urgent marching orders to Republican loyalist lawmakers on Tuesday.
True to form, he did it on Truth Social.
Trump told Republicans not to allow Sen. Chuck Schumer and fellow Democrats to confirm judicial nominees in a last-ditch effort to limit the power he'll hold in his second term.
"The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door," Trump declared. "Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line — No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!"
Senate Democrats, who currently hold the majority, have been "rushing to confirm" more than two dozen of President Joe Biden’s remaining nominees before Republicans take control of the chamber, the Washington Post reported Monday.
Should the Democrats succeed, Trump will have just 36 judicial vacancies to fill — a stark contrast from the 108 vacancies he had at the start of his first term, the Post reported.
Lawyer Robert Luther III recently warned the conservative Federalist Society not to expect 2017 numbers in 2025.
“I’ve studied the data and, realistically, that 108 number that we had in 2017 is probably pretty close to the number of nominations President Trump will be able to make over the entirety of his term if the Republicans keep the Senate,” he reportedly said.
Democrats, meanwhile, are raising concerns that Republican loyalists have already proven themselves too willing to hand extensive power to Trump.
"What the hell is going on here?" Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) said on the House floor Tuesday. "I blame the politicians, including the incoming administration, who have abandoned workers and who have done nothing while the rich get richer and everyone else gets screwed."
WASHINGTON — Some Republicans are trying to slow the rush to appoint President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet picks — particularly "Fox & Friends Weekend" host Pete Hegseth. Last week, Trump nominated Hegseth to serve as his Secretary of Defense.
Speaking to Raw Story on Monday evening, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) confessed that she has questions.
"They have to be vetted, and we’ll get to the bottom of it,” Ernst said. “We just need to have them thoroughly vetted.”
While Ernst urges proper vetting, CNN reported last week that Trump's transition team isn't using the FBI to do background checks on the appointees, saying they believe that would take too long.Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) called Hegseth a "good guy," noting, "I know him well."
“Did you ever know about the past sexual assault accusation?” Raw Story asked.
“Come on now,” Tuberville complained. “Come on now.”
Raw Story pointed out that the Washington Post reported that Hegseth's accuser was paid and signed a nondisclosure agreement.
Raw Story asked Tuberville: “Have you not heard about that?”
“No, I don't keep up with all that,” Tuberville replied.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) also admitted, “I know nothing."
“I’ll let the process play out," he claimed. "I don't know the individuals. I don't know the rumors. I don't know what’s being made of this."
Raw Story asked if Johnson had concerns about the vetting of the possible candidates.
“They'll be vetted,” Johnson promised.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) similarly assumed that the candidates would have a proper background check.
“I won't know anything until I see a full vetting,” Tillis said at the Capitol.
Meanwhile, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) called the allegations against Hegseth "serious" and urged an investigation be "pursued."
"That would require, I think, a very thorough FBI background that I think has to be done, and then he has to make himself available for individual questioning, and then a committee hearing that's open," the senator told Raw Story.
Trump's team has teased a recess appointment, which would allow his Cabinet picks take their positions without being confirmed by the Senate.
“The recess appointment is just terrible, and I think what it does is that — if agreed to — would forfeit our obligation to be a check and balance on the president[-elect]. A dereliction of duty," said Reed.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told Raw Story that he found it "inconceivable" that "any senator would think of confirming so many people, including [Hegseth], who are unprepared for the job, unqualified for the job by experience or by past involvements. It’s offensive."
“All of these appointments that he's made are more about his petulance than it is about their qualifications,” Hoyer said. “The country is ill-served by this irresponsibility.”
President-elect Trump's sentencing in his criminal hush money trial was put on pause Tuesday, according to a new report.
Axios reported Judge Juan Merchan adjourned the sentencing, slated to take place in New York City on Nov. 26, as he considers how to move forward after Trump's Election Day victory.
No additional details were included on the case's docket, according to the report.
Merchan is also expected to rule Tuesday on Trump's demand for a new trial, the report noted.
Merchan paused the case for a week on Nov. 12 so Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office could file to the court what prosecutors believe to be appropriate next steps.
Trump's lawyers want to see the case dismissed. Trump was found guilty in May of falsifying business records to conceal hush money paid ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
He pleaded not guilty and called the prosecution a political witch hunt.
MSNBC "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski stunned and outraged many of their viewers this week by announcing they went to Mar-a-Lago for a personal sit-down with Donald Trump — painting it as an effort to get back in the loop and into a place where they have the access to hold him accountable.
But according to CNN's "Reliable Sources," this may not be the whole story.
Rather, according to the report, the two anchors may have been trying to ingratiate themselves with the president-elect to avoid his retribution.
A pair of sources privy to the behind-the-scenes decision making told CNN that "Scarborough and Brzezinski were credibly concerned that they could face governmental and legal harassment from the incoming Trump administration. Knowing that Trump has threatened retribution against his perceived political opponents, and that Trump has promoted lies about Scarborough and Brzezinski in the past, the MSNBC hosts decided to reach out to the President-elect."
These two sources "generally agreed with Joe and Mika's impression of the situation at hand — namely, that the incoming Trump administration could use its wide-ranging powers to punish people deemed enemies."
Trump has repeatedly attacked the press for critical coverage and fact-checking, famously calling them the "enemy of the people" and even saying at a recent rally that he uses the press as human shields against assassins.
Scarborough and Brzezinski have been sharply critical of Trump during the campaign season, with Brzezinski even calling him an "aging BS artist." Trump, for his part, has often targeted them specifically in his attacks on the press, and has even pushed a baseless conspiracy theory that Scarborough murdered a staffer while he was a Republican member of Congress.
All of this comes as experts set off alarm bells over Trump's selection of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a loyalist who has often endorsed Trump's legal revenge schemes on his political enemies and has himself faced ethics investigations, to head up the Justice Department — a move that even took many Republican senators aback.
Journalists on Monday found that New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer has deleted a social media post she published on Sunday regarding Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Florida Voice News' assistant news director Eric Daugherty shared a screenshot of Mayer's now-deleted post, in which the New Yorker writer wrote: "Message to Trump Team: 'There will be no recess appointments' Sen. Mitch McConnell said tonight at a Washington gathering."
Daugherty wrote via X that "something sketchy is going on."
He added, "This news of McConnell telling Trump 'no recess appointments' has been DELETED by the D.C.-based New Yorker reporter…. AFTER a sitting US Senator (@BasedMikeLee) and basically the entirety of X got wind of the news. It is a SEVERE F-up for a reporter with a news organization to somehow devise a quote up out of nowhere and attribute it to the wrong person. The event is reportedly in DC, and this reporter is based there."
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) replied to Mayer's deleted tweet, writing, "McConnell is no longer the Senate GOP leader."
McConnell announced in February that he would step down as Senate GOP leader in November, and on Monday Senator John Thune (R-SD) was elected by his fellow Republicans to succeed the Kentucky lawmaker, according to USA Today.
The Florida Voice News staffer also questioned why the tweet has been deleted, with "no retraction or correction" included.
"Was she given a command by a higher up because of the blowback?" he asked.
A "Morning Joe" show insider claims the hosts' controversial visit with President-elect Donald Trump may have played a part in saving a free press.
Joe Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski took flak Monday after announcing they’d taken a trip to Mar-a-Lago for a face-to-face visit with the incoming president.
“They bent the knee,” one onlooker said of the pair who have spent years criticizing Trump.
But a source at the show told the Daily Beast the meeting “was f—cking worth it” — and claimed it may have caused a change in Trump’s opinion of the press.
“That doesn’t mean there are going to be earth-shaking changes,” the source said. “But the temperature has to come down.”
Trump has viciously attacked news since before he first announced his 2016 candidacy, including “Morning Joe’s” MSNBC network which he calls “MS Dem BC,” suggesting it’s connected to the Democratic Party.
But those criticizing the show’s hosts for taking the trip to Mar-a-Lago are “part of the problems we’re in,” the source said.
“You never turn down that opportunity,” they said. “That would be journalistic malpractice.”
Another NBC source told the Beast, “Any practicing journalist or news host would take an off-the-record meeting with the incoming President of the United States. End of discussion.”
The source told the Beast that Scarborough and Brzezinski’s visit could likely be credited for Trump’s apparent toning down of anti-press vitriol. On Monday, he said on Fox that it “very important, if not vital, to have a free, fair and open media or press.”
“I agreed that it would be a good thing if such meeting took place,” Trump said about the meeting, which he said Scarborough had requested.
“Many things were discussed, and I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication. In many ways, it’s too bad that it wasn’t done long ago.”
A Donald Trump plan to court-martial top military brass for their part in the withdrawal from Afghanistan was slammed as 'utter nonsense" by a retired general Monday.
The Trump transition team is reportedly crafting a list of current and former military brass involved with the withdrawal, with the proposal that they be charged with treason, NBC News reported over the weekend.
The plan claims that retired military officials would be recalled and forced back into active duty, where they would be court-martialed.
According to retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, it's never going to happen — and even if it did, he said it would make Trump look terrible for his own mistakes.
"What is not utter nonsense is this is a political attack of utmost hypocrisy. Trump ran for office saying get out of Afghanistan. He reduced the troop presence to 2,500. He negotiated directly with the Taliban."
When Biden came into office, McCaffrey said that only 2,500 troops on the ground made things difficult when they were forced to give up the U.S. Air Force base.
"The evacuation, from a tactical military viewpoint, was a brilliant success," he continued.
"... We got out of there with 100,000 Afghan civilians fleeing with us. It is just the world turned upside down.
"I think it is going nowhere, but it is a disaster signal to the armed forces. They are also talking about review boards, vetting the three and four-star officers [in the] Army, Navy, and Air Force. Firing the chairman of [Joint Chiefs of Staff]. This is a terrible beginning to a new administration."
That said, he believes "it will go nowhere" because "there is no precedent."
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction published an independent report in 2022 where it blamed both Trump and President Joe Biden's administration for the chaotic withdrawal.
An outraged Greene (R-GA) on Monday urged a national split from Democratic states whose lawmakers, and voters, have expressed criticism of President-elect Donald Trump.
"I’m still in favor of a national divorce if need be," Greene wrote. "If Democrat governors plan to commit treason against our President and the majority of Americans then let them destroy their own states."
Greene did not name names, but several Democratic governors have reportedly launched efforts to protect their states from Trump policies.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called a special state legislature session to discuss “Trump-proofing” his state and has traveled to Washington D.C. to ask for President Joe Biden’s support, the Washington Post reported Monday morning.
"We need to prepare ourselves firmly and plant our feet in case we get swept away," Newsom told Californians earlier this month. "We're going to have your back."
Governors of Illinois and Colorado last week formed a coalition to protect state-level institutions from authoritarianism and a president who vowed to govern as a dictator on “day one," the Guardian reported over the weekend.
“Hope alone won’t save our democracy,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said as he announced the formation of Governors Safeguarding Democracy. “We need to work together, especially at the state level, to protect and strengthen it.”
Greene on Monday described these actions as a threat against Trump's "mandate."
That mandate calls for actions Democratic states must accept, Greene argued, such as the mass deportation of "illegal invaders" and preventing trans children from playing sports.
"No one will want to live there," Greene predicted of post-"divorce" blue states. "And after years of being attacked by the deranged left, most of us are so sick of their crap."
Greene has made several calls for a "national divorce" in the past, arguing that the left and right have reached "irreconcilable differences." She has claimed this could be done without mass violence, though critics have called it a euphemism for civil war.
Steve Bannon's criminal trial will be postponed until next year after prosecutors introduced additional evidence in his fraud case.
The former White House chief strategist, who served a four-month prison sentence this year for contempt of Congress, was set to be tried next month on criminal fraud charges over an effort to solicit donations to build a border wall. A judge ruled it needed to be postponed for the prosecution to submit more evidence.
"We’re not changing [the date] again," said New York Supreme Court Justice April Newbauer.
The judge allowed prosecutors to introduce evidence about financial transactions involving Bannon's nonprofit organization We Build the Wall and his American Express card.
Newbauer previously ruled that Bannon and WeBuildTheWall can be tried together in the case.
Manhattan prosecutors charged Bannon in September 2022 with money laundering and conspiracy for allegedly deceiving donors who gave more than $15 million to build a border wall like Donald Trump proposed during his election campaigns and presidency.
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet in person with Donald Trump for the first time in years.
The pair had previously been friends with the former star of NBC's "The Apprentice," but their relationship soured after they repeatedly criticized Trump during his first presidency and afterward. They said they visited his private resort in Palm Beach, Florida, in an attempt to bury the hatchet.
"Over the past week, Joe and I have heard from so many people from political leaders to regular citizens deeply dismayed by several of president-elect Trump's Cabinet selections and they are scared," Brzezinski said. "Last Thursday, we expressed our own concerns on this broadcast and even said we would appreciate the opportunity to speak with the president-elect himself.
"On Friday, we were given the opportunity to do just that. Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-elect Trump. It was the first time we have seen him in seven years."
Since the last time they met, the former president accused Scarborough of murdering a congressional staffer decades ago, a conspiracy theory he heard from his attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz, and the "Morning Joe" host claims that Trump allies had threatened to arrest his producers if he was re-elected.
"We talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets," Scarborough said. "We talked about that a good bit. It will come as no surprise to anybody who watches this show, has watched it over the past year or over the past decade, that we didn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues and we told him so."
"What we did agree on was to restart communications," Brzezinski said. "My father [former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski] often spoke with world leaders with whom he and the United States profoundly disagreed. That is a task shared by reporters and commentators alike. We had not spoken to Trump since March of 2020 other than a personal call that Joe made, a call after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania. In this meeting, President Trump was cheerful and upbeat and he seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues. And for those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, why wouldn't we? Five years of political warfare has deeply divided Washington and the country."
"We have been as clear as we know how in expressing our deep concerns about President Trump's actions and words in the coarsening of public debate for nearly 80 million Americans," Brzezinski added. "Election denialism, public trials, Jan. 6 were not as important as the issues that moved them to send Donald Trump back to the White House with their vote. Joe and I realized it's time to do something different and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but also talking with him."
A source close to the former president told Scarborough that Trump might approach his second term differently because he was prohibited from running again.
"Somebody close to Donald Trump told me this past weekend, this is a president who is not seeking re-election, so maybe, just maybe now could be time for both parties to get to work," Scarborough said. "I know, given the jarring headlines that we read every day, that may seem like a stretch but think about this. Of the 150 million votes cast, Donald Trump got 50 percent, Kamala Harris got about 49 percent, so I don't know. It seems to make sense for leaders of both parties to seek common ground, if it's possible at all. I will tell you a lot of Democratic leaders we have talked to this past week since the election have told Mika and me, it's time for a new approach. When I say top Democrats, I mean top Democrats. They said we are open — this is before we talked to Donald Trump — they said, listen. We are open to working with the incoming president if the incoming president is open to working with us."
Brzezinski acknowledged that seemed unlikely, give the current political climate, but she argued that both parties should at least try to co-exist peacefully.
"The question is, though, how do we get there?" she said. "Hyperbole and personal attacks will not work. My hair on fire doesn't work, we have all seen that! What also does not work is threatening political opponents with arrest, harassment and even jail. That is a failed path. Recent history has proven that impeachments and trials turn those on trial into political martyrs and only make them more popular with the American people. Just ask Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. We know this will be a consequential presidency, the question is whether it will be constructive. It will take a new approach from all sides, from both parties, and a leader who can bring them together and only time will tell if Donald Trump can be that leader. As for us, we also let him know that we will continue to speak truth to power and push back hard when called for, as we have with all presidents."
Scarborough seemed to anticipate criticism of their visit to Mar-a-Lago and insisted they would still cover him as a potential threat to democracy.
"Don't be mistaken, we are not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump," Scarborough said. "We are here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights that are going to better equip all of us in understanding these deeply unsettling times, and I am reminded of what Marty Baron, legendary editor told his Washington Post editors back in the first term: 'We are not going to war, we are going to work.' So let's go to work now."
The man leading Donald Trump's transition team is reportedly driving the president-elect up the wall as he conducts a political "knife fight" against a powerful competitor.
Wall Street executive Howard Lutnick's chances of securing a powerful role as Treasury Secretary appear to be dwindling as he continues to irk the president-elect, the New York Times reported late Sunday.
"Lutnick, who has been running Mr. Trump’s transition operation, has gotten on Mr. Trump’s nerves lately," the New York Times reported.
" Trump has privately expressed frustration that Mr. Lutnick has been hanging around him too much and that he has been manipulating the transition process for his own ends."
Lutnick, the chief executive of the firm Cantor Fitzgerald, has been squabbling with former George Soros money manager Scott Bessent as both men vie for the job, according to the Times.
"A person familiar with the process, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the battle between Mr. Lutnick and Mr. Bessent as a knife fight, with Mr. Lutnick as the primary aggressor," the Times reported.
But Trump's annoyance reportedly has him considering unexpected candidates in former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh or Wall Street billionaire Marc Rowan, according to the Times.
One powerful ally remains on Lutnick's team and that's Elon Musk, who posted on X over the weekend that Bessent would not challenge the status quo.
"Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas [Lutnick] will actually enact change," Musk wrote. "Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another."
Karoline Leavitt, the incoming White House press secretary, declined to answer the Times' questions about a meeting Trump had with Lutnick on Sunday.
“President-elect Trump is making decisions on who will serve in his second administration," she said in a statement. "Those decisions will continue to be announced by him when they are made.”
"Commissioner Carr is a warrior for Free Speech, and has fought against the regulatory Lawfare that has stifled Americans' Freedoms, and held back our economy," Trump said. "He will end the regulatory onslaught that has been crippling America's Job Creators and Innovators, and ensure that the FCC delivers for rural America."
Trump's statement does not mention Carr's connection to Project 2025, the governance plan from which the former and incoming president has tried to distance himself since polls showed it was highly unpopular.
"Carr also wrote the FCC section of Project 2025, the agenda that the conservative Heritage Foundation sketched out for a second Trump term," according to NPR. "Trump disavowed it during the campaign but its themes have dovetailed with his public pronouncements since the election. (A call by House Democrats for Carr to be investigated for engaging in partisan activity over the report did not result in formal action. Carr said he had secured approval from FCC ethics officials to do so in his personal capacity.)"
