In a recent interview, a former FBI assistant director waved the red flag about the almost unchecked power Donald Trump's pick to be the next director of the FBI will have to subvert investigations and go around the Department of Justice on a whim.
According to a report from the Guardian, Frank Figliuzzi explained there is a real concern within the department that a confirmed Kash Patel would demand everything the FBI has on Donald Trump over the years and pore over every word looking for confidential informants who have worked with investigators.
While appearing on the Highly Conflicted podcast with the Guardian's Hugo Lowell, the ex-FBI official explained, "I don’t think people truly realize how powerful an FBI director can be, unrestrained. You want to open a case and call it a threat assessment or a preliminary investigation, you can do it."
Worse still, he elaborated, "If the FBI director wants to get a press conference together, not tell the DoJ, and make pronouncements to the public about a case opening or a case closing or someone should be prosecuted, they can do it."
Then there is the matter of FBI files on the president-elect that would be ripe for Patel and his close associates to read and report back to the incoming president.
“And then going through files?" he asked rhetorically. "I imagine on the first day in office, he’s going to say, ‘I need every file that has the word Trump in it.' That should be a real concern, that Kash Patel is going through informant files and saying, ‘Look at that, this guy coughed it up on Trump.’”
A discussion on MSNBC on how insurance companies create roadblocks to Americans seeking medical care swerved into reporting that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been tabbed by Donald Trump to oversee the Department of Health and Human Services, has a key adviser who wants the polio vaccine taken off the market.
MSNBC's "The Weekend" invited on Columbia University Associate Professor Helen Ouyang to describe insurance horror stories she has encountered while working in emergency rooms.
That led co-host Alicia Menedez to bring up the cloud now over RFK Jr. about the efficacy of the polio vaccine that resulted to a major rebuke from outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who survived the deadly disease as a child.
"That's not in your insurance formula right now because we covered that," he exclaimed. "Now you got the secretary of health coming in saying, 'Guess what? We're not going to vaccinate kids for polio, we want to pull that vaccine off the shelf."
"The first polio case shows up, insurance companies, be prepared to pay for that because you got to figure that out –– that's the reality," he added.
During a segment on Donald Trump's plan to pardon Jan. 6 rioters after he is sworn into office, an exasperated MSNBC host gave up trying to make heads or tails out of comments the presidet-elect made to Time magazine.
Speaking with attorney Marc Elias, "The Weekend" co-host Alicia Menendez attempted to get a reaction from her guest by reading from the interview conducted with the president-elect that is part of the magazine's "Person of the Year" issue.
"I'm sure you saw, Marc," she began as she looked down at the article. "You had Trump talking to Time magazine about these pardons. 'I'm going to do case by case and if they were nonviolent, I think they have been greatly punished. And the answer is I will doing that, yeah, I'm going to look if there's --'"
"I can't even read this, the syntax is so bad" she told her guest. "But you get the idea, Marc. The thing we talked about is the fact that this is about a future permission structure, it's not just about punishment. It's about sending a message to people who would consider doing this again about what the consequences would be."
"Yeah," Elias replied before adding, "First of all, I have to give Time credit for one thing: not cleaning up his syntax. You're right, you read the words uncleaned up, it's incoherent."
President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration is considering major reforms to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) that include privatizing the agency, according to a new report.
The Washington Post's Jacob Bogage, Jacqueline Alemany and Jeff Stein wrote recently that Trump has expressed a "keen interest" in privatizing the USPS in conversations with transition co-chair and Commerce Secretary-designate Howard Lutnick. If he succeeds, it could result in uncertainty for both businesses that depend on the USPS and for the agency's 600,000+ member workforce.
Trump floated the idea in response to hearing of USPS' $9.5 billion in losses as of the current fiscal year ending September 30, saying the U.S. "shouldn't subsidize" the agency. But as the carrier of choice for many vendors due to its ability to deliver to far-flung, remote locations, the Post reported that privatizing the USPS may be a more difficult challenge than the president-elect and his team anticipate.
As part of the USPS' "universal service" obligation, the agency delivers to 12.6 million business addresses, and 154 million residential addresses. Many of those residential delivery points are in rural congressional districts and deep-red states, meaning Trump's plans to overhaul the Post Office could result in confrontations with Republican elected officials whose constituents treasure the USPS.
Additionally, the Post Office has already been making drastic cuts to its workforce and transportation expenditures under a 10-year modernization plan put in place by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. An agency spokesperson told the Post that it's also revamping its mail processing and delivery timetables to be more in line with private sector competitors like FedEx and UPS. Democrats, in the meantime, are warning that replacing public service with a profit motive could be destabilizing for the agency.
“With much more runway ahead of them, they may very well focus on privatization, and I think that’s our big fear," said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). "That could have disastrous consequences, because when you go private, the profit motive is everything."
Because the Post Office is governed by the independent USPS Board of Governors, any potential privatization effort would have to come from board members, rather than from Congress. President Joe Biden has three nominees — Val Butler Demings, William Zollars and Marty Walsh — who are awaiting action in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, though time is running out to confirm them. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) chairs the committee until the new Republican Senate majority is sworn in on January 3, though he has not yet announced confirmation hearings.
During an appearance on MSNBC's "The Weekend," Julián Castro, who served in President Barack Obama's administration, claimed the press missed the one of the reasons Donald Trump's camp floated Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) as a possible replacement for embattled secretary of defense nominee Pete Hegseth.
At his lowest point, the ex-Fox News personality Pete Hegseth appeared to be hours away from being dumped over allegations of sexual assault and public drunkeness, which led to the Florida lawmaker's name being leaked as a replacement to save Trump embarrassment.
According to Castro, he thinks there is more to it than was reported.
As he explained to the MSNBC hosts, "One last thing that's not as talked about, it was really fascinating when Trump felt that Hegseth's nomination might fail," Castro recalled. "He suggested Ron DeSantis as an alternate."
"I read that also as a veiled threat to the ambitious senators out there who are thinking themselves that, as soon as the 2026 midterms are done, they're going to be running for president," he continued. "And they don't want the elevation of a potential rival like DeSantis. So there are a lot of bits and pieces to this that I think are unfolding, some of them with a lot of attention and spotlight, and others without it."
During his first administration, then-President Donald Trump ordered a slew of updates to Air Force One. But aircraft manufacturer Boeing says the updates may not not be ready until his eventual successor is in the White House.
The Daily Beast reported Friday that Boeing's delayed delivery schedule has frustrated the president-elect so much that he's reportedly been berating both Boeing's CEO and his own staff. The Beast's Leigh Kimmins wrote that Trump had made revamping Air Force One his "pet project," and was supposedly livid when hearing he wouldn't personally get to use the new plane.
According to Kimmins, Trump gave a $3.9 billion contract to Boeing for two new, 747-8 jets with a new paint job and fully updated interior, with the original timeline for delivery happening between 2026 and 2027. But now, Boeing has said the updated presidential jet won't be ready until 2029, after his second term has ended.
“We take pride in this work. Our focus is on delivering two exceptional Air Force One airplanes for the country,” the company stated.
That apparently wasn't good enough for Trump, who the Beast reports "demanded answers" from Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg in a November phone call. The incoming president is also reported to have "badgered his own staff for updates" on whether the planes would be ready before the end of his presidency.
The Telegraph reported that the jets were meant to be an "extension of the Oval Office" once the updates are complete. They will be fitted with boardrooms, meetings rooms, military avionics and self-defense systems. An unnamed Air Force spokesperson told the Beast that an update on the delivery timeline is expected sometime in the spring of 2025.
Boeing's delay on the new generation of Air Force One may be due to a seven-week strike by the company's workers that ended in November. The Seattle-based company's operations were significantly hampered after 33,000 machinists went on strike over wage negotiations. The machinist union's members ultimately agreed to a contract that would increase their wages by 38% over the next four years.
During an appearance on CNN early Saturday morning, Washington Post reporter Toluse Olorunnipa stated that Donald Trump will have to tread carefully now that outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) fired a warning shot across his bow over his cabinet nominees.
Late Friday McConnell served notice that the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in peril over fears he will try and roll back vaccinations for polio if he is confirmed as the head of Health and Human Services, based on a report from the New York Times.
According to the Washington Post reporter, the fact that McConnell felt free to make a major statement on one of the president-elect's most high-profile nominees is a reminder that it is Trump's last go-around as president and the clock is ticking.
Noting the pressure campaign Trump allies has been waging to get his nominees confirmed, which has drawn the ire of some GOP senators, Olorunnipa explained on CNN, "I think the the other part of this is that Trump realizes that he has slim majorities in the Senate and definitely in the House, and if he allows, you know, one or two senators or one or two House members to tank his Cabinet picks or his legislative agenda, it's going to make him a weakened president. "
"He's already a lame duck, and he wants to make sure that his Republican party is in lockstep behind him, because it's going to be necessary in order for him to get anything done legislatively, and that's why you're seeing this pressure campaign," he added.
"So far, it seems to be working, but I know a lot of these senators are very independent-minded and they don't like being pressured and so we'll have to see whether it lasts, but right now, that seems to be the approach that Trump is taking," he concluded.
One Senate Republican who has had a tepid response to several of President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees is now in the crosshairs of some of Trump's top allies — including one from her own state.
On Friday, NBC News reported that all eyes are on Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) during next year's confirmation hearings for some of the president-elect's most controversial picks. Ernst, who is a military veteran and sexual assault survivor, has not yet stated whether Defense Secretary-designate Pete Hegseth would get her vote when his confirmation comes to the Senate floor. Her vote could be one of the few that sink him, as Republicans have just 53 seats and four Republican defections would tank a nominee's chances.
While she remains noncommittal, Ernst has warmed to Hegseth in recent days despite a looming sexual assault allegation from 2017 (which resulted in him paying the accuser an undisclosed sum of money in a 2020 settlement). NBC also spoke with several of his current and former colleagues at Fox News, who said that Hegseth had a pattern of showing up to work hung over and smelling of alcohol.
But according to Iowa-based evangelical activist Bob Vander Plaats, Ernst may face a primary challenge in 2026, when she's up for reelection, if she doesn't accommodate Trump enough to support his Cabinet nominees' confirmation.
"This is my issue: She’s not fully supportive of President Trump and his agenda and the selection of his team," he said.
One Republican who could emerge to challenge the two-term senator is conservative talk radio host Steve Deace, who hinted that he may end up formally entering the 2026 Republican primary if he gets Trump's blessing. And far-right activist Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA has said that his group would support primary challengers to challenge Republicans who aren't sufficiently pro-Trump enough for his liking.
“Donald Trump is king of the Republican Party; he conquered it, and he earned it,” Deace told NBC. “If he doesn’t want Joni Ernst to be a senator anymore, she won’t be.”
A Washington Post columnist and economics commentator jabbed President-elect Donald Trump late Friday on CNN — and did so with a snarky apology.
Catherine Rampell — who just a day earlier found herself in a spat with Republican strategist Scott Jennings — joined CNN's "NewsNight" to kick off a discussion about reporting that Trump's allies are mulling plans to weaken — or outright abolish — bank regulators, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
The FDIC, considered one of the most critical banking regulators in the United States, runs deposit insurance, a program that compensates a bank's account holders up to $250,000 if the bank fails and is unable to dispense the money in their account. Created in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression, the program exists to prevent "bank runs," or cascading panics where bank's account holders withdraw their money en masse.
Rampell shredded the plan — but acknowledged that's one way he could fulfill a campaign promise.
"I'd like to start by apologizing to our viewers because last night I was on and I said Donald Trump had no plan for bringing down prices. But if in fact he wants to get rid of the FDIC and lay the groundwork for another Great Depression-style bank run, that would do it," she said. "That's how you get deflation, that's what happened during the Great Depression."
"It's just laying the groundwork for all sorts of financial instability," she said, later exclaiming: "We just had a banking crisis last year!"
Rampell then pushed back against Pete Seat, a former White House spokesman for President George W. Bush, who tried to insist the Journal report never explicitly stated Trump's team is considering doing away with deposit insurance.
"Literally nowhere in this story," he begins to say, as Rampell interrupts: "In the Wall Street Journal it does."
"No it doesn't! It said it would be absorbed by the Department of Treasury," said Seat, pointing specifically to the Journal's report that said, "Also discussed plans to either combine or otherwise restructure the main federal bank regulators, the FDIC, OCC and Federal Reserve."
"They're asking questions," he insisted. "They're trying to figure out the art of the possible to deregulate the financial sector. Why is that a problem?"
Rampell acknowledged that while there is a patchwork of regulators, that's not what Trump allies are talking about.
"They're talking about rolling back regulations altogether. Potentially getting rid of deposit insurance. That's how I read that story," she rebutted, adding doing so would add significant risk to the financial system and taxpayers.
Rampell later clashed with Republican strategist Erine Perrine, who tried to assert no one on Trump's team is pursuing "complete bank deregulation."
"Nowhere is that case even fathomable or something they are looking at," she said.
Rampell interjected.
"Read Project 2025!" she shouted, as the panel devolved into talking over each other.
Perrine, fed-up, pointed out that Trump has repeatedly distanced himself from the right-wing transition plan, which became the subject of scorn during the campaign.
As host Abby Phillip desperately tried to regain control of the panel, Rampell shot back, "You're saying the Wall Street Journal just published clickbait?"
They clashed again shortly thereafter, when Rampell exclaimed, "I don't think Donald Trump has a mandate to crash the banking system," responding to a common Republican talking point that Trump won by such a large margin he is essentially obligated to install even the most fringe ideas in the MAGA agenda.
Perrine hit back again.
"Well good news: That isn't what he's trying to do. And the unbelievable level that I've heard at this table of just speculation and ridiculous fear-mongering about something that isn't being talked about, isn't a serious policy proposal, no one is talking about bank deregulation, be honest with the American people."
President-elect Donald Trump’s idea of naming Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a potential backup pick to lead the Department of Defense reportedly fell apart because nobody in his inner circle got behind the idea, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said.
And a call from former Fox News host Pete Hegseth persuaded Trump to allow him to make the case for his defense secretary nomination in the media and on Capitol Hill as allegations of public drunkenness and sexual assault piled up – and produced negative headlines that angered the incoming president, Haberman added.
“I think it's still true that he was tired and is tired of negative stories,” the Times reporter told CNN’s John Berman on Friday. “And what changed was a couple of things: Trump could not find a single person in his orbit – or even really outside of it – who liked this idea of making Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, the defense secretary choice.”
The reporter, who has covered Trump extensively for years, said during her CNN interview on “AC360” that the option to launch a new search with multiple candidates never emerged.
“It was Hegseth or DeSantis at that point,” Haberman said. “And so, Trump was persuaded, also after a call from Pete Hegseth, to let Hegseth go out and see if he could fight his way past some of these stories.”
Hegseth at that point had been hit with “one negative headline after another alleging problematic behavior across a broad spectrum,” Haberman added, and “had been basically a death – or near death by a thousand cuts.”
But Hegseth’s nomination path has also been aided by MAGA forces in recent weeks, Haberman noted.
“You saw this movement most significantly, John, this conservative now MAGA movement, really – really activated online on digital ads, making a target specifically of Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa to try to get her to a ‘yes.’”
Haberman added that she doesn’t believe there’s a “plan B” nominee to replace Hegseth and added that Trump’s transition team is “feeling vastly better about it today than they did a week ago.”
President-elect Donald Trumpcame out on Truth Social demanding an end to Daylight Saving Time on Friday, saying, “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.”
The issue of Daylight Saving Time and whether the clocks should be fixed permanently comes up yearly and the debate stretches back decades. In fact, the U.S. tried making Daylight Saving Time permanent in the 1970s as an energy-saving policy but reversed it quickly after public backlash.
Many commenters supported Trump's new proposal — but others weren't so sure, and still others were confused whether he really meant to abolish Daylight Saving Time, where the clocks are set for the sun to rise and set later, or abolish Standard Time, where the clocks are set for the sun to rise and set earlier.
"Just to be clear - we're making DST permanent," wrote Ohio GOP official Matt Dole. "Extra hour of sun at the end of the day permanent. Not dark at 4:30pm permanent. Right? That has to be right."
"Donald Trump comes out strongly against Daylight Saving Time but which direction does he wants to lock the clocks?" wrote GOP communications strategist Emily Miller. "Before now, he wanted Congress to make DST permanent" — which also happens to have legislative backing from key Republicans including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).
"Dude what? We want to make Daylight Savings permanent. Not abolish it," wrote businessman Spencer Hakimian. "It’s not even 3:30 PM yet and the sun is already starting to set in NYC because we’re on Standard Time in the winter. We should permanently switch to DST. I’ll easily take a little darker morning in exchange for sunlight until 6:00 PM in the wintertime."
"So today the sunrise here was 7:47 AM," wrote GOP strategist and commentator Sean Trende. "Under permanent DST, it would be 8:47. And Columbus isn't even that far north. No. Just no."
"If this means NO daylight saving time it’s a mistake and will be unpopular," wrote talk radio host Kevin Kietzman. "Most people will want to go to permanent DST. Daylight at end of day is welcome by almost all."
Trump, who sold his lease two years ago for a reported $375 million, is said to be exploring scenarios that involve the Trump Organization either buying back the lease for the historic hotel — housed in the U.S. Capitol’s Old Post Office, which is owned by the federal government — or a possible licensing deal, sources told the Post.
“Our family has saved the hotel once,” Eric Trump, the company’s executive vice president, told the Post on Friday. “If asked, we would save it again.”
The shuttered Trump International Hotel has since been turned into a Hilton-managed Waldorf-Astoria but is reportedly declining. Trump stirred controversy when he opened the hotel weeks before the 2016 election before it quickly became a gathering place for Republican lobbyists and foreign leaders visiting the president.
Republican operatives shelled out $266,000 at the hotel in its first six months alone, the Post reported, citing FEC data.
Still, he lost money on the project, and he reportedly continued to lose money on it even after unloading the lease.
“It is still ‘to be determined’ whether the Trump Organization would want to wrestle back full control of the hotel by buying back the lease it sold in 2022 or agree to a licensing deal,” a source told the Post. “Sources close to the property said the president-elect is eyeing a possible hospitality investment in the DC area," the Post said.
The publication added that “there had been no formal outreach from the Trump Organization about the Waldorf Astoria.
News that the Trump Organization is considering the hotel venture came days after Eric Trump took to social media to announce a new Trump Organization project in Saudi Arabia: Trump Tower Jeddah.
A tit-for-tat between the Canadian prime minister and President-elect Donald Trump is brewing – and Fox News hosts didn’t waste time weighing in on the international back and forth.
Canadian Prime Minister Justice Trudeau made waves in MAGA world after he declared earlier this week that he is “and always will be a proud feminist,” Fox News Digital reported. The remarks came during a speech in Ottawa where he grumbled about the United States’ failure to elect a female president for a second time, according to the network.
“How dare he mansplain to women,” Fox News host and former pro wrestler Tyrus said during a discussion about Trudeau on Friday. “How misogynistic of you.”
Tyrus joined the panel on “The Five,” where hosts Dana Perino, Jesse Watters and Jeanine Pirro piled on Trudeau.
“I’m suspicious of men who announce that they’re feminists,” Watters said. “That either tells me they are trying to get lucky. That either tells me that they’re hiding something really disgraceful in their past that they did to a woman – or they’re not real men.”
“He’s not secure in his masculinity,” he said. “He’s hiding something, he did something bad and he’s catering to women in a way that makes me uncomfortable and not trust him.”
The hosts suggested that Trudeau’s comments came as a reaction to Trump belittling him as “Governor Justin Trudeau” in a degrading late-night post a few days earlier.
Kellyanne Conway, a former senior counselor to Trump, added that Trudeau is “misreading the American election, respectfully.”
“Let me make very clear, we would love to vote for a female president, just not the two women that you’ve put up for us to consider,” Conway said. She added that it was “devastating” that Vice President Kamala Harris "won women by eight points."
