President-elect Donald Trump is setting the record straight: He’s calling the shots, not Elon Musk.
"No, he's not going to be president, that I can tell you," Trump said with a laugh at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix on Sunday, his first major speech following the November election. "And I'm safe. You know why? He can’t be. He wasn't born in this country."
The president-elect made the tongue-in-cheek comment while praising South African-born Musk as a “great guy.” Musk, along with tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, is set to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, an agency with the goal of shrinking the size of government and cutting spending.
Trump’s comments came as Democrats have sought to use Musk, the world’s richest person, as a foil, accusing him of undermining the incoming president.
Just days before, Trump — along with Musk — intervened in House Republicans’ initial government spending package, leading to chaos as Congress raced against the clock to avoid a government shutdown.
Some congressional Democrats raised concerns about Musk’s influence over congressional Republicans, and have taunted Trump by alleging that Musk is the one in charge. The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, put out a video calling Trump “vice president” to “President Musk.”
Republicans have sought to downplay any rift between the two, with Trump’s team dismissing those claims as “ridiculous.” Amid the spending bill debacle last week, Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s incoming White House press secretary, said, “President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop.”
“All the different hoaxes, and the new one is, ‘President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk,’” Trump said to the crowd on Sunday. “No, no. That’s not happening.”
Musk has been flexing his political muscles in recent months, including pouring more than $260 million into the 2024 election in support of Republicans. Last week, he said that he’s planning to fund moderate primary challengers to incumbent Democrats. Some Republicans have floated him as the next pick for speaker of the House in recent days, as Speaker Mike Johnson’s future appears shaky.
The Musk comments came toward the end of Trump’s hour-plus-long victory lap of a speech, where he touted winning the popular vote, praised his “all-star” Cabinet picks and outlined goals for his upcoming term.
Trump’s speech was similar to those he delivered on the campaign trail over the 2024 cycle. He made bold claims about lowering taxes, taking back the Panama Canal and vowed not to rename military bases, a nod to his plans to end “woke” ideology in the military.
Now, after a remarkable 605 shows over more than nine years, Axelrod is concluding his program by interviewing his fellow Chicagoan, Rahm Emanuel.
I’m sad to see “The Axe Files” go, in part because it’s more essential now than ever.
Yes, it was respectful and it generated more light than heat. There were no food fights. But I come to praise Axe, not bury him in a shroud of bygone-day nostalgia for civil discourse.
What made the program so compelling — and unique in this period — was that he had candid, deeply personal and extended interviews with the leading figures in both parties. Where else can that combination be found today? political interviews are fleeting I should disclose here that Axelrod also had on a range of figures from the media, along with other walks of life, and I sat for a session in 2016. That’s the right word because the show was always equal parts therapy session and journalistic inquiry.
Axelrod doesn’t have psychiatric training — that I know of — but he was once a superb political reporter for the Chicago Tribune. He’s got ink in his DNA and that came through in every program, when he’d try to make news or at least prompt reflection. I could always tell he hated the shows where his guests showed up with talking points. (Been there!)
These were no interrogations, though. Axelrod usually began the interviews by asking people about their backgrounds — “tell me about your folks” — and where they grew up. The son of an immigrant, Axelrod would invariably find common ground with those only a generation or two removed from freedom’s flame, no matter their politics.
Which gets to why the show was so vital. He revealed people as fully-formed, complex and, yes, contradictory humans. If you were looking for a cartoon caricature of the red or blue tribe to confirm your preferences, well, you had plenty of other options.
Axelrod is a partisan and is deeply alarmed with President-elect Donald Trump’s restoration. But I know he was proud of how many Republicans said yes, in some cases reluctantly, and sat down for a probing interview with a former Democratic strategist and the architect of Barack Obama’s political rise.
If we’re being honest, these Republicans agreed in part because Axelrod is an elite figure on the American political scene and the invitation conferred a level of status on the invitee. He has been in the proverbial smoke-filled room — plus even some in Illinois that weren’t proverbial — and political practitioners of all stripes respected that background.
Yet Republicans also said yes because Axelrod is, to borrow a word from his faith tradition, a mensch.
He’d challenge his guests but never sandbag them. The point was for people to tell their stories, reveal something of themselves and get on to the difficult business of discussing what politics is today. It was fitting that two of Axelrod’s final interviews were with two of the most prominent GOP figures from this year’s campaign: Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita and CNN commentator Scott Jennings, who has become something of an Axelrod protégé (in the personal, not political, sense, if you’re listening Kentucky Republican primary voters).
Who were these two figures so many people read about or heard about this year? Well, if you listen to their “Axe Files” appearances you’ll know a great deal about what shaped them.
There was something else that made the show, like all the best podcasts, so captivating: Axelrod respected his audience’s intelligence. This was not 101-level stuff. If you can’t understand why his having 90-year-old Abner Mikva, the legendary Chicago lawmaker and jurist, on the podcast just months before Mikva’s passing was so poignant, perhaps the show wasn’t for you.
To be unsubtle about it: The jump from so much of the TV news blather that passes as political insight to podcasts like the Axe Files was akin to the aughts and teens transition from laugh-track broadcast TV sitcoms to premium shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. Who could go back? Who would want to?
Take Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who’s a fixture of TV news. Well, you know what Sanders isn’t discussing in a seven-minute interview? How there were three names not discussed in his Brooklyn boyhood home: Hitler, Stalin and Walter O’Malley, who moved the Dodgers to Los Angeles.
Oh, and that he also wouldn’t have had the same voting record on guns had he represented his boyhood home rather than rural Vermont.
Sanders revealed as much in 2015 when he was Axelrod’s first guest. He also discussed his student civil rights activism at the University of Chicago, Axelrod’s alma mater and home to the Institute of Politics he founded.
“That pod set the tone,” Axelrod told me this week.
He also got the late Sen. John McCain to talk revealingly about all the time McCain spent visiting, chatting and reading Arizona news clips with an ailing Mo Udall, the former Arizona lawmaker who spent his final days confined in a nursing home. Unstated, because it doesn’t have to be, can you imagine a prominent Republican showing up every week to comfort a prominent Democrat gripped by disease?
Axelrod knows politics ain’t beanbag, and even though he’s out of the campaign business he’s close enough to it that he still pays a price for some grudges. Which is why you won’t find the current president in the Axe File archives: President Joe Biden was the only major Democratic contender in 2020 to skip the show, a snub rooted in the (now-revived!) hostilities between Bidenworld and Obama’s orbit.
But if Axelrod’s proximity to the top echelons of politics had some side effects on his bookings, his prominence also ensured some of his best gets.
My favorite, by far, was the remarkable 2016 conversation he had with a basketball legend, the gone-too-soon Bill Walton. I found Walton to be a great American character — his devotion to the Grateful Dead, the West and John Wooden needs no elaboration — and Axelrod met his match that day. Do yourself a favor and take in their chat. You’ll get through it and feel exhausted and satisfied — like you just played in a game of three-on-three against Big Red.
I listened to it, like I did many of Axelrod’s pods, on a long drive. The good ones passed the time. The great ones left me feeling like I had pulled up a chair at his table at Manny’s Deli and was eavesdropping over two people shooting the shit over half a Reuben and bowl of matzo ball soup.
Which is not to say Axelrod showed up like Larry King talking to Kato Kaelin, unprepared and just asking whatever came to mind while taking a few calls from Walla Walla and beyond to fill the hour.
Axelrod read deeply about his guests and often surprised them with how much he knew about their backgrounds. It took hours of work, so I get why he wants to wrap it up with over 600 under his belt. Especially when he has a separate podcast — speaking of kibitzing — with Mike Murphy and John Heilemann, Hacks on Tap.
But I’ll miss the “Axe Files” and I know others will, too.
As he introduced Emanuel on his final show, Axelrod said his goal had been to offer “one small antidote to the coarse nature of today’s politics and social media culture that so often reduces people to negative caricatures and robs us of our common humanity.”
Donald Trump is getting a rude awakening that his grip on the GOP isn’t absolute.
Over the past 48 hours, 38 House Republicans rejected the stopgap spending bill that the president-elect publicly threw his weight behind after tanking Speaker Mike Johnson’s original proposal to keep the federal government running past Friday. Their defiance came even as Trump and his allies threatened to field primary challenges against GOP members who didn’t fall in line.
Then, on Friday night and early Saturday, the House and Senate passed a different version of the spending plan — one that didn’t include Trump’s demand to extend or end the debt limit.
It’s the latest example of Trump confronting the limits of his power, especially over his own party. Senate Republicans already dealt Trump a massive blow when a handful of them made clear they wouldn’t support Trump’s first choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, leading to him withdrawing. And that was after they chose John Thune over Rick Scott for Senate GOP leader against the wishes of Trump’s allies.
Taken together, rank-and-file Hill Republicans’ early rebuffs of Trump show the party is far from total lock-step with the president-elect.
“For a long time there were always calls for ‘who in the Republican Party will ever stand up to Trump?’ And now we certainly have it. But it may not be in an ideal way,” said Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist and appointee in Trump’s first administration.
“This is an inflection point: How Trump responds from outside the caucus, how he deals with those who are not ready to make deals … this is really just prepping the battlefield and testing the waters for the next four years to come,” Bartlett said.
Trump’s push to get Republicans to accede to his demands ran headlong into longstanding GOP resistance to suspending the debt ceiling. Doing that is a huge ask of fiscal conservatives, and viewed through that lens, it’s unsurprising that the bill went down.
While Trump had hailed the reworked deal as “SUCCESS in Washington” and urged “All Republicans, and even the Democrats” to vote for the bill that he called “VITAL to the America First Agenda,” some in his party broke rank.
“Republicans campaigned on cutting spending and reducing the $35 trillion national debt. You can't achieve that by suspending the debt limit,” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) wrote on X on Thursday. “Until President-elect Trump takes office, I won't grant Joe Biden an extension on an unlimited debt ceiling.”
Rep. Greg Lopez (R-Colo.), another Republican who opposed the bill Thursday, said in a statement that he could not back a continuing resolution “that does not consider our nation's growing $36 trillion debt and removes the debt ceiling, creating an open check book for Congress to spend more money it already doesn't have.”
And Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said on X that “ending reckless spending and tackling the national debt immediately” is what will allow Trump to “shake up the status quo.”
“I understand President Trump’s concern that a debt ceiling fight will delay the implementation of his agenda but to Make America Great Again, we have to end business as usual in Washington right here, right now,” McCormick wrote.
Their resistance is an early indicator of areas in which Republicans are willing to break with Trump on policy — and a warning sign that while the incoming president has enjoyed broad sway over Johnson, that influence may not extend to every member in the party’s rank-and-file on every vote. And with such a slim majority in the House, the defiance of just a few Republicans can have an impact.
“We talk about MAGA, Freedom Caucus, etc., but there’s a sizable chunk of the conference that are OG Tea Partiers,” said Doug Heye, a GOP strategist and Hill alum. “Raising the debt ceiling tests the boundaries of what is otherwise an enormous influence over the party.”
A person close to Trump, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, characterized the outcome as a win for the president-elect because it showed the whip count within the caucus and “eliminated a bunch of the pork.”
And Johnson, speaking to reporters after the House vote, signaled that Trump was on board with the reworked spending plan. Johnson was in “constant contact” with Trump, he said, and the president-elect “knew exactly what we were doing and why.”
But Trump has been prodding Johnson to deal with the debt ceiling for over a month, the person close to the incoming president said. And in the hours after his preferred deal went down in flames, he began advocating to push out the debt ceiling even further — to 2029.
The spending debacle has left some Republicans concerned that, like in his first term, Trump may not be able to get as much done as hoped because, they say, he is focused on the wrong things.
One person close to Trump, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly, worried the president-elect’s decision to use his political capital to unsuccessfully try to pass a new funding bill suspending the debt ceiling could echo back to his failed attempts to kill Obamacare early in his first term — instead of pursuing a more popular policy such as an infrastructure overhaul.
“I’m hoping we’re not in that same spot right here,” the person said.
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
President-elect Donald Trump’s allies are opening a new front in MAGA’s war with traditionalist Republicans — feuding over the leadership of top Senate campaign groups.
Typically a little noticed and relatively drama-free affair, hiring at the National Republican Senatorial Committee and its allied GOP super PAC Senate Leadership Fund has devolved in recent weeks into bickering over whether prospective new leaders are sufficiently loyal to Trump and the movement he created.
And after initially targeting the highest positions, MAGA Republicans’ objections are now extending even to less senior hires. The latest gripe is aimed at Brendan Jaspers, who was just tapped as the NRSC’s political director for the 2026 midterms. The campaign against him has included private efforts to undermine his credentials and, publicly, some pointed social media posts from top Trump allies.
MAGA activists and consultants said their concern about Jaspers stems from his work as director of campaigns at the anti-tax Club for Growth, which opposed Trump in the 2024 primary before later making up with him.
“With all the available talent that is available,” said a top 2024 Trump adviser who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, “the NRSC seems more intent on finding people who only ran efforts against President Trump.”
The person argued that Jaspers “did just that.”
Tom Schultz, the Club’s vice president of campaigns, refuted that claim, saying Jaspers’ work centered on Senate and House races and school-choice advocacy, and that he “did not participate” in the independent expenditures opposing Trump in the primary.
Jaspers has quickly become a flashpoint in a broader struggle to gain influence in the Senate campaign apparatus. MAGA Republicans have complained about hiring choices by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the incoming NRSC chair. And privately even some GOP consultants supportive of Scott are baffled by his decisions that seem primed to antagonize Trump’s orbit.
This intraparty warfare is driven in part by the vacuum caused by Sen. Mitch McConnell’s exit from GOP leadership, in which some Trump allies have moved to gain an advantage in a post-election scramble for power.
Scott, a more traditionalist Republican, infuriated Trump allies when he attempted to bring on as the committee’s executive director a one-time adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, who became a staunch Trump critic after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
That aide, Stephen DeMaura, was just named deputy executive director, while Scott’s former chief of staff, Jennifer DeCasper was given the executive director role. NOTUS first reported the move. DeMaura was expected to assume the role of executive director — and he was introduced as such at an NRSC event last month. But his hire was not announced publicly. And after MAGA activists openly criticized him, that appeared to change, with Scott on Thursday announcing DeCasper as executive director and DeMaura as her deputy.
A spokesperson for Scott did not comment for this story. In a press release sent by the NRSC on the new hires, Scott said, “I’m excited about the organization we are building, the wins we will put on the board, and the results we will deliver for the American people." The release also touted Jaspers as having “helped elect conservative senators such as Ted Budd, Mike Lee, Bernie Moreno, and Jim Banks.” It said DeMaura "has started, led, and grown political organizations of all types across a more than 20-year career in politics and public policy."
A Scott aide pointed to posts on X celebrating the staffing moves, including from Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who called them “a strong machine of MAGA warriors.”
The recriminations haven’t stopped at Scott, who ran against Trump in the 2024 primary before becoming a devoted ally in the general election.
A consultant deemed insufficiently loyal by some in Trump’s orbit, Kevin McLaughlin, is also not a contender to lead the Senate Leadership Fund super PAC, according to two people familiar with the process, despite rumors that he was in the mix. People who spoke with McLaughlin said he told them he was in the running for the position, spurring threats from close Trump allies that they would form a competing super PAC, but it’s not clear if he was ever seriously considered.
McLaughlin told POLITICO that he had “no conversations with anyone” about taking over at SLF and he strongly disputes the suggestion that he is not loyal to Trump.
The feuding over NRSC hiring has continued, however, and spilled into public view when Chris LaCivita, Trump’s campaign co-chair, took a shot at the committee on X.
“Whoever is making decisions at the @NRSC needs their head examined,” he posted.
Meanwhile, Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who traveled on Trump’s plane during the campaign, bashed Jaspers specifically — before his position was announced — taking to X to highlight his connection to Club for Growth.
Trump and the Club for Growth have a long and complicated history. The Club, a power center for fiscal conservatives, opposed Trump in the 2024 primary. But the group’s president David McIntosh and Trump, who once called it the “Club for China Growth,” made peace in February.
Trump himself has not weighed in publicly on the recent hires at Senate GOP groups. Complaints about staffing stem from people with varying degrees of closeness to the president-elect. And it is possible that some of the disputes may be more driven by the financial interests and personal grievances of political consultants than concerns about the ideological purity of the party. According to Scott’s team, he and Trump are in contact about his staffing.
But two people with knowledge of the hires said some Trump allies wanted Dylan Lefler, a former campaign manager for MAGA ally Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), to be the group’s political director. A Trump spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
And the infighting underscores the battle to reshape the traditional GOP into a party in the mold of MAGA wing — and it marks a stark contrast from the tenure of the departing NRSC Chair Steve Daines, who judiciously courted Trump and his allies as he sought to retake the Senate majority in 2024.
Scott’s hiring moves in particular have surprised some GOP strategists, who see them as unforced errors that cause distracting fights with MAGA loyalists. Scott and Trump have a personal relationship, and he was under consideration to be vice president. But any awkwardness between their top staffers could hamper the NRSC as it seeks to grow its majority — especially because there will be so many competing demands on the president-elect’s attention to help various campaign groups with tasks such as fundraising or recruitment.
Scott makes hiring decisions at the campaign arm, but incoming Senate GOP leader John Thune will be heavily involved in staffing the SLF super PAC.
SLF was long run by top McConnell lieutenants, who played a prominent role in selecting aides for the Senate campaign groups. SLF’s current president, Steven Law, announced after the election that he would vacate the post.
The super PAC and its allied nonprofit will direct hundreds of millions of dollars of spending in Senate races. Former Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) was recently named as chair of its board but the top staff position remains open.
Chris Wilson, the founder and CEO of top Republican polling firm WPA Intelligence, was fired after company audits found he likely used firm money to pay for personal expenses, according to two people directly familiar with the matter.
It comes after his firm’s CFO was fired and charged with embezzlement earlier this year, a charge that she denies. That led people on WPAi’s leadership team to start looking into how Wilson had spent company money, according to the people.
Two outside auditing firms were hired to conduct investigations, and two business consultants were later brought on to restructure the company and restore its profitability, according to the people. Wilson, who has worked on behalf of presidential efforts for Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz, was fired on Dec. 5, according to the people, and is no longer listed on the company’s website.
The audits of the company’s finances found that over the past several years Wilson used firm money to pay for items that were likely for personal expenses, such as vacations, health charges and the use of a nanny, according to five people with direct knowledge of the situation. Wilson at times used WPAi’s money to pay large portions of his personal credit card bill, which he would also use for company business, according to two of the people. The people declined to share the audit with POLITICO.
The people in this story were granted anonymity to disclose sensitive personnel matters.
Ryan Leonard, a lawyer representing Wilson, called the allegations behind Wilson’s firing “defamatory and false.”
“Chris’s former business partners at WPAi at all times had complete transparency into all aspects of the business, including every single business transaction,” he said in a statement. “The timing of these allegations is particularly surprising given that, following completion of a recent audit, Chris was actually given a raise. While Chris recently left the company following the election, he wishes his former team members at WPAi all the best.”
In a text message to POLITICO before he was fired from WPAi, Wilson said he “was confident that my record of ethical leadership and professional achievement speaks for itself.”
“When you run a company, business and personal sometimes become intertwined,” he said, noting that he paid three full paychecks for all WPAi employees at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic out of his personal bank account so that he didn’t have to lay anyone off. (He said he didn’t reimburse himself after.)
WPAi covered some work trips for Wilson’s wife to accompany him because he had a stroke a few years ago and has been advised by a physician not to take overnight trips by himself, according to a person who has worked with Wilson.
A WPAi spokesperson said the firm couldn’t comment on what it called “ongoing litigation” but added in a statement: “[I]t’s clear that Mr. Wilson has not been forthcoming about the circumstances leading to his departure. We are focused on moving forward and are relieved that this challenging chapter is behind us.” The spokesperson declined to comment when asked about the details of the litigation.
A spokesperson for Axiom Strategies, the mega Republican consulting firm owned by Jeff Roe and one of the minority investors in WPAi, declined to comment.
Earlier this year, Wilson used WPAi money to pay an employee of his personal real estate business, Carver Management, to work a full time job for that real estate entity, according to two people familiar with the matter. A document reviewed by POLITICO also shows that the employee in question worked full-time for Carver. WPA also rents its Edmond, Oklahoma, office space from Carver Management, according to local real estate records.
Three of the people directly familiar with the matter said there had been surprise transfers from WPAi to Carver this year. In April, $40,000 was sent from WPAi to Carver, and $20,000 was sent in September, two of the people said. This year, WPAi has paid for Carver’s insurance coverage and building association dues, according to two of the people.
Wilson said that WPAi paid a “highly reduced price per square foot” for rent from his real estate firm and Carver loses money on the space every month. He also said that the employee in question was paid for Carver work by that firm, not by WPAi.
Such expenses have hurt the company’s bottom line in the last year, according to three of the people familiar with the company. Some vendors have not received payments on time, and non-sales staff received their quarterly bonuses late for several quarters and not at all in the second quarter, said one of the people. That left employees angry, the person said, since the bonuses account for a sizable portion of their election-year income.
This past cycle, WPAi, which Wilson founded in 1998, has done work for numerous Republicans, including the Congressional Leadership Fund, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Reps. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) and Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), according to FEC records.
Wilson’s dismissal comes after his CFO, Catherine Gryder, was fired from WPAi in November 2023 for her own use of company cash, according to two people familiar with the matter. She was fired a few days after her fiancé at the time had come to the firm’s office asking for a check for a painting job he had done for the office even though it didn’t need to be painted, according to one of the people. That raised alarm bells with a WPAi staffer, who then told Wilson about the incident and set off an internal investigation.
Wilson went to the police, and Oklahoma prosecutors charged Gryder in June with one felony count of embezzlement over $1,000. She pleaded not guilty and appeared in court in late November as the case winds its way through the court system, according to court records. An Edmond police report also said that Gryder had admitted to embezzling more than $11,000 from WPAi and Carver “but planned to pay it all back,” and actually did send a $16,000 check to Wilson’s attorney. The incident has not previously been reported.
Gryder’s lawyer declined to comment.
Wilson also declined to comment on specifics of the Gryder case, saying it’s an ongoing criminal matter. In a statement released before his own departure from the firm, he said: “This has been the most challenging experience of my professional career. Throughout this ordeal, I have strived to act in accordance with my faith and uphold my personal integrity. My primary focus has been, and continues to be, shielding our employees and clients from any fallout. I remain unwavering in my commitment to these principles.”
According to the police report, Gryder quietly siphoned off money, spent money on a company owned by her romantic partner and used a WPAi business account to pay for her personal insurance and phone accounts.
“There was a lot of moving money around and trying to hide what she was doing,” said Bill Simmons, who was COO of WPAi at the time and left at the end of August.
This was the second time that Gryder had allegedly done this to a firm owned by Wilson. In 2019, according to the police report, she charged around $17,000 to $18,000 in items from Apple’s music store to a business credit card owned by a firm of Wilson’s.
“Chris, being who he is, tried to work with this person, offer a sense of forgiveness and try to keep moving forward, but the second time was so egregious, there was just no opportunity,” said Simmons. “So once we discovered it, she was fired immediately.”
Gryder’s sparse LinkedIn profile, which still carries her maiden name Catie Ross, calls herself a “Christian. Mom. Wife. Aunt” and says she is an “experienced accountant with a demonstrated history of working in the accounting industry.”
Two decades ago, Wilson was fired by his polling firm’s then-parent company Qorvis and sued for allegedly “stealing corporate secrets and cash while plotting to launch a competing firm,” accusations that he denied, in a case that was eventually settled. Wilson was also sued in 2021 by his ex-wife, who claimed he had continued to improperly use a data software platform to collect voter data that she had gotten in the divorce.
Wilson is disputing the allegations in court and Leonard, his lawyer, said “the lawsuit has no bearing” in facts.
Federal officials say they’re worried about sharing documents via email with Donald Trump's transition team because the incoming officials are eschewing government devices, email addresses and cybersecurity support, raising fears that they could potentially expose sensitive government data.
The private emails have agency employees considering insisting on in-person meetings and document exchanges that they otherwise would have conducted electronically, according to two federal officials granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation. Their anxiety is particularly high in light of recent hacking attempts from China and Iran that targeted Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and other top officials.
“I can assure you that the transition teams are targets for foreign intelligence collection,” said Michael Daniel, a former White House cyber coordinator who now leads the nonprofit online security organization Cyber Threat Alliance. “There are a lot of countries out there that want to know: What are the policy plans for the incoming administration?”
Trump — who attacked his then-opponent Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server for official business during his first presidential run — is overseeing a fully privatized transition that communicates from an array of @transition47.com, @trumpvancetransition.com and @djtfp24.com accounts rather than anything ending in .gov, and uses private servers, laptops and cell phones instead of government-issued devices.
This break with tradition stems from the Trump team forgoing federal funding and the ethics and transparency requirements that come with it.
While it’s unclear how the decision is impacting a transition that is already behind, with fewer than five weeks remaining until Inauguration Day, one person familiar with the collaboration between the Biden administration and the Trump transition team, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive discussions, said it is further hampering the process.
The dynamic is slowing efforts to share government materials with members of Trump’s landing teams, the person said, referring to the groups of transition officials assigned to meet with federal agencies ahead of the inauguration.
The White House has sent guidance to federal agencies to be cautious when communicating with the Trump transition, a spokesperson said, reminding them that they can elect to “only offer in person briefings and reading rooms in agency spaces” if they’re uncomfortable sending something electronically.
They also advised federal employees that they can require transition officials to “attest” that their private technology complies with government security standards.
“Because they don’t have official emails, people are really wary to share things,” said a State Department employee granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. “I’m not going to send sensitive personnel information to some server that lives at Mar-a-Lago while there are so many fears of doxxing and hacking. So they have to physically come and look at the documents on campus, especially for anything with national security implications.”
The Trump transition confirmed its reliance on private emails, with spokesperson Brian Hughes saying in a statement that “all transition business is conducted on a transition-managed email server.”
“We have implemented plans to communicate information securely as necessary,” he added, but declined to say what those plans entail. In a statement in late November, transition co-chair Susie Wiles similarly cited unspecified “security and information protections” the team has in place, arguing that they replace the need for “additional government and bureaucratic oversight.”
The transition’s landing teams began arriving this week at some government agencies — more than a month later than past administrations have deployed them — to get up to speed on all of the resources and problems they will soon inherit. It’s a particularly vulnerable time for national security, stressed Daniel, adding that by rejecting government transition support, the Trump team is also opening itself up to hacking once it's in power.
“Once someone gets access to some of their information, they can think of ways to send better phishing emails down the road, because they learn more about you,” he explained. “And if you bring that device into a government space, hook it up to a government network, and access it through that account, they're able to steal your credentials and use that to log on and look like you — look like a legitimate user — and it becomes much harder to detect from a security standpoint.”
History is rife with examples of crises that came early in a new administration and were made worse by challenges passing information from an outgoing to an incoming president and his team, from the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in the 1960s to the Waco standoff in the 1990s.
CUNY John Jay College associate professor Heath Brown, who wrote a book about Joe Biden's transition, said modern technology only makes that dynamic more risky and complicated.
“In 2020, it was maybe the single most important worry of the transition team, that they would be hacked, and all of this information, including intelligence information, personnel information about job applicants, the whole procedure would be threatened if there was a hack of the transition team,” Brown said. “The [General Services Administration] is in a position to help with that, but saying no to that help raises questions about whether they have put in place a secure system, as is needed in these situations.”
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NEW YORK — New York City’s defiant Democratic mayor ran into one hurdle after another Monday — facing mounting fallout from the investigations into him and his inner circle just as he tries to improve his precarious political standing.
The city’s Campaign Finance Board voted Monday morning to deny Mayor Eric Adams $4.5 million in public funds for his reelection. Ninety minutes later, his longest-serving, closest aide — Ingrid Lewis-Martin — and her lawyer announced the Manhattan district attorney will soon indict her on alleged corruption charges. More than 1,200 miles away, President-elect Donald Trump said he would consider pardoning the mayor in his federal bribery case — a legal lifeline that carries great political risk in a New York City Democratic primary.
The cascade of bad news comes as Adams faces attacks from a bevy of lesser-known Democrats running to unseat him next year, as well as the prospect of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo jumping into the primary. The mayor has been aggressively trying to change his circumstances lately — alleging he was targeted for his criticisms of outgoing President Joe Biden, lambasting local reporters for their negative coverage and pushing out a string of positive announcements about public safety, tax relief and affordable housing.
None of that was enough to help him navigate the bad news Monday, which culminated in a combative news conference in which his staff tried to cut off reporters as they asked questions about the pressing stories.
In denying Adams matching funds, the local board condemned him to another six months of fundraising ahead of next June’s Democratic primary, a significant setback for any incumbent — though it is one he can appeal.
The board partially based its decision on a five-count federal indictment alleging Adams participated in a bribery scheme involving the Turkish government. The mayor has pleaded not guilty and will face trial in April.
On top of that, with its decision Monday, the board hand-delivered a line of attack that’s sure to dog the mayor throughout his campaign.
“There is now even less of a shot of Mayor Adams winning reelection,” said Democratic strategist Trip Yang, an adviser to Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a potential Adams challenger. “He could raise more contributions, but it will require a lot of effort and time. And this adds to the litany of credibility arguments that could be used against him for the Trump-averse Democratic primary electorate.”
Adams noted at his press conference that while several of his potential competitors did not qualify for matching funds, the board could change its mind going forward. He did not, however, mention that his rivals were denied for different reasons.
“We’re going to continue to work with CFB to answer any questions that they have so we can continue to get the funding,” Adams said. “Even without the funding, we have out-raised substantially everyone else that’s in the race."
He also had to contend with pending troubles for Lewis-Martin, who abruptly resigned Sunday ahead of expected criminal charges this week. She has been Adams’ closest and most loyal adviser for decades — and is departing his ranks during one of the most tenuous chapters in his political career.
The mayor addressed the loss — which came as the two have been reportedly feuding — in deeply personal terms Monday.
"Whenever I walked on stage to do a State of the City, or go to a debate, no matter what I did, she would walk in the room, ask everyone to leave, and she would grab my hands and she would pray for me,” Adams said. “This morning I did it for her — I lifted her up in prayer.”
The mayor said she is “not only a friend but she’s my sister, and I love her so much, and I just really ask God to give her strength in the days to come.”
Lewis-Martin’s press conference at the office of her attorney, Arthur Aidala, was a reminder that investigations into Adams and his inner circle are still piling up. Aidala, a friend and donor to Adams, answered in the affirmative when asked if he believed that Manhattan prosecutors were trying to get his client to cooperate in a case against the mayor.
For Adams, those legal troubles may be alleviated by the incoming president.
The Republican has shown sympathy toward the Democratic mayor, and each insists Biden’s Department of Justice is targeting them to seek political retribution.
In Adams’ case, he publicly criticized Biden’s handling of the migrant crisis. And both Adams and Trump say that act spurred the DOJ to action.
“I said he’s going to be indicted,” Trump said Monday during a press briefing at Mar-a-Lago. “And a few months later he got indicted. So, I would certainly look into [a pardon].”
Adams referred questions about Trump’s remarks to his attorney and said he hopes the president-elect will make the DOJ less politicized.
"I think that what President-elect Trump has gone through is allowing him to see that if the Justice Department is doing what President Biden stated, such as being politicized, I believe he owes it to Americans to make sure that’s not the case,” Adams said.
A pardon from Trump would almost certainly be a political liability for Adams in a Democratic primary, in which left-of-center voters typically flock to the polls. In the last general election, Trump lost the city 68-30 — proving it remains an anti-Trump Democratic stronghold, even as he made significant gains statewide.
Whether any of Adams’ opponents can effectively wield that against him remains to be seen, but early signs show most of them are trying that line of attack — presuming voters will be turned off by any whiff of MAGA affiliation.
Adams had steered clear of criticizing Trump — or stumping for Kamala Harris — during the campaign. Since Election Day, he hosted the incoming border czar at his official residence of Gracie Mansion to discuss immigration policy, and has spoken enthusiastically about Elon Musk’s high-level role in the incoming White House.
“I should not have been charged,” Adams said at Monday’s press briefing. “God has a way of showing the irony of life: I’m just saying the same thing that President Biden said. President Biden stated his Justice Department has been politicized. President Trump stated that. I stated that.”
He was referring to Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, and the president’s subsequent statement alleging his own DOJ was engaging in politically motivated selective prosecution.
Adams’ no-good Monday came as things were starting to look up for the mayor.
Earlier this month, City Council members approvedAdams’ signature housing plan. He joined a politically influential union to announce a populist state measure to provide tax relief to low-wage workers. And the NYPD helped catch the 26-year-old suspect in the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO — with a hefty assist from a fast food worker in Pennsylvania.
Back in City Hall, Adams pushed out top advisers who were ensnared in local and federal probes at the behest of Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove him from office. That group of embattled aides — including the former police commissioner, schools chancellor and two deputy mayors — has been replaced by government veterans whom insiders generally regard as serious and competent.
Political and government insiders particularly lauded his appointmentof Maria Torres-Springer as first deputy mayor in October as a sign the administration would begin to focus on governing amid the probes and charges.
City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus said overall crime numbers have come down since Adams took office, while job numbers have increased.
“As Mayor Adams says all the time: ‘Stay focused, no distractions, and grind,’” she said in a statement. “The best way to serve New Yorkers is to continue keeping our eyes on the goal of improving this city and let the results speak for themselves.”
Joe Biden will leave the White House in January as only the second Catholic to occupy it. But a number of Catholics are expected to soon fill the ranks of Donald Trump's administration.
Trump, who was raised as a Presbyterian but now considers himself non-denominational, has nominated at least a dozen Catholics to top positions in his administration, including his own vice president JD Vance, a Catholic convert, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his pick for Health and Human Services Secretary. Their faith could play a direct role in shaping public policy, from pro-union policies and new tariffs to expanding the child tax credit and more tightly regulating the food and drug industries — and also help carve a new path forward for the Republican Party.
In interviews, several conservative practicing Catholic leaders said they see a close alignment between many of Trump’s second-term policy priorities and a conservative read of Catholic social teaching, which goes far beyond abortion. It’s also focused on promoting marriage and having children, giving parents wide discretion on everything from school content to health care and empowering non-governmental institutions like churches and nonprofit organizations for social support.
“No one’s walking into the administration ready to mount a crusade or anything,” said Rachel Bovard, vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank. But “there’s a very specific sort of Catholic paradigm that you may begin to see.”
It comes after decades of influence of a more individualistic evangelical Protestantism on the Republican Party that, among other things, strongly embraced individual liberty and free market capitalism.
“The market is not an end unto itself. The market has a purpose — and that is to create a free and flourishing society. If the family is not doing well, society is not doing well. We need to make sure our public policy is helping family to function,” Bovard added.
A spokesperson for the Trump transition did not respond to a request for comment.
In his nearly decade of political prominence, Trump has already dramatically reshaped the GOP, and it’s clear that the Republican Party's future likely won’t be found in Ronald Reagan’s three-legged stool of conservatism, which was fiscally conservative, socially conservative and hawkish.
Where Republicans have long been skeptical of government intervention, some in the party increasingly see the government as a tool to reshape social policy. Republicans who long embraced “pro-life” policies, like restricting abortion access and supporting crisis pregnancy centers, are now leaning into a broader set of what they call pro-family policies that range from tax policies encouraging people to get married and have children to restrictions on kids accessing online porn. They are also now starting to turn a skeptical eye toward big businesses, including Big Pharma, Big Ag and Big Tech.
“I think President Trump has put together a very pro-family platform that wants to return the family to the center of public policy again. Obviously, I think that’s very Catholic. I don’t think he’s trying to be very Catholic,” said Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project. “It just so happens to coincide with Catholic principles and Catholic teaching.”
This is, of course, not the progressive-leaning Catholicism of Biden, Nancy Pelosi and other prominent Democrats, which has honed in on social justice, climate change and health care access among its top causes. Their definition of Catholicism would bristle at the idea of turning away migrants or curtailing Medicaid access.
Catholics are the largest group of Christians worldwide, and Catholics from both parties have long held prominent positions not only in the White House but across Washington. Six of them sit on the nine-member U.S. Supreme Court; they make up a quarter of Congress, where they are overrepresented compared to the American population; and Biden appointed a similarly sizable number of Catholics to his Cabinet.
But conservative Catholic leaders see in the GOP’s embrace of populism a turn toward what they call a common-good conservatism that is less focused on individual rights and more focused on families and the community. It trades a pro-business focus for a “pro-family” one. And it’s one they see non-Catholics leaning into. Trump, in a recent interview with TIME Magazine, declared that the GOP has “become the party of common sense.”
“What does Catholic social teaching say about these things? Well, it says the aim of politics is the common good,” said Brian Burch, president of the conservative Catholic Vote. “And right now we have a huge swath of our population, especially families, that are not flourishing.”
Trump's performance with Catholics is only getting better — likely due in part to his dramatic improvement among Latino voters. This year, he won 59 percent of the Catholic vote, a group he carried with 50 percent support in 2016 and that Biden won with 52 percent in 2020, according to CNN exit polling.
Some conservative Catholics are particularly intrigued by Kennedy, whose uncle, John F. Kennedy, was the nation’s first Catholic president. While Kennedy comes from a storied Democratic family, and himself was a registered Democrat until 2023, some of them see his concerns that food and drug companies are profiting off of sick people aligning with Catholic social teaching’s concerns around human dignity and respect, even as some of them have concerns about his shifting views on abortion.
“Bobby has talked about the commoditization of the human person, whether it’s their sickness and their health — it’s just another vaccine away from managing. Or Big Food and Big Government and Big Pharma have colluded in a way to manage people as commodities, and they’re kind of cogs in a globalist machine that we just need to manage with medicine, technology and science,” said Burch, who is close to Kennedy. “And for Catholics, we say, well, wait, no there’s something much richer and deeper and more profound about what it means to be human that we need to recapture.”
Other Catholics that Trump has nominated to his Cabinet include Marco Rubio as secretary of State, Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Labor secretary, Sean Duffy as Transportation secretary, Linda McMahon as Education secretary, Elise Stefanik as United Nations ambassador, Kelly Loeffler as SBA administrator and John Ratcliffe as CIA director.
The party’s lean toward these parts of Catholicism comes as the country grapples with high rates of income inequality, and two generations confront the reality that middle-class goals like buying a house and having kids feel increasingly out of reach. It also comes amid a growing societal discussion over gender roles, stagnating birth rates and the ubiquity of technology, social media and artificial intelligence in people, and particularly kids’, everyday lives.
Leading the charge is Vance, whose conversion as an adult to a postliberal strain of Catholicism underpins his approach to policy making. While the George W. Bush era saw an attempt to marry conservatism to certain kinds of Catholic social teaching — government intervention to meet the needs of the poor, and support for human rights abroad — it fell by the wayside as the Tea Party wave took over the Party.
Now, “in Vance, you have a figure who is trying to apply Catholic social teaching in a deeper, different way than we've seen before,” said Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “It’s just a general kind of attempt to reorient Republican economics toward families and a little bit less toward business.”
This conservative view of Catholic social teaching lines up in many ways with the party’s shifting views on a number of issues, like labor unions and trade policy. Vance, who joined a United Auto Workers picket line last year, has voiced familiarity with Pope Leo XIII’s 1901 encyclical on Christian democracy, in which he wrote that “it is only by the labor of working men that States grow rich.” Rubio has previously referenced the text in his own argument in support of labor unions, as has Robert Lighthizer, who was Trump’s trade chief during the first administration, in his arguments against “the orthodoxies of free trade religion.” (Lighthizer is unlikely to return to a Trump administration, but his close aide was chosen to be the U.S. trade representative.)
It also speaks to an increasing interest within the GOP in using the government to incentivize family creation, as countries in Europe, like Italy, Greece, Hungary and Russia, have tried to do, though so far with little success. Trump has said he wants a “significant” expansion of the child tax credit — Vance has suggested increasing it to $5,000 per child — and also promised to make in vitro fertilization available to Americans free of charge. (That policy does, however, conflict with the official Catholic Church’s position against IVF, which opposes it.)
It’s a push that comes also as there is growing movement within the anti-abortion movement to focus on these and other “pro-family” policies instead of new abortion restrictions, as much of the country remains broadly supportive of some level of abortion access.
“We’re going to be talking about [IVF],” Trump recently told NBC News’ Kristen Welker. “We’ll be submitting in either the first or second package to Congress the extension of the tax cuts. So that might very well be in there, or it’ll come sometime after that.”
Still, progressive Catholics are skeptical about the extent to which the GOP will actually prioritize these policies, when Trump has promised in his first 100 days to focus on extending tax cuts, taking action on the border, and addressing crime in cities. And it's unlikely big business, long allied with the Republican Party, will roll over easily.
“When you look at what the Republicans are talking about, they’re talking a whole lot more about cutting social provision than they are expanding it,” said E.J. Dionne, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has focused on Catholic engagement in the political arena. “The dominant strain in the party is still far more pro-business, anti-government, libertarian."
And progressive and some conservative Catholics agree that the administration’s hardline approach to immigration is likely to rankle U.S. bishops, who are already wary of Trump’s “mass deportation” proposal.
“When you’re looking at their first priority,” Dionne added, “it’s not family policy.”
President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday announced that former Ambassador to Germany and top loyalist Richard Grenell will serve as a presidential envoy for “special missions,” ending weeks of speculation about the bombastic ally’s role in the second Trump administration.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said that his former acting director of national intelligence and special envoy for dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo “will work in some of the hottest spots around the World, including Venezuela and North Korea.”
The scope of the newly created position is unclear and the Trump transition team did not respond to a request for further details. Given the apparent focus on global flashpoints, It is possible Grenell’s portfolio could include Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Haiti or any number of other crises.
The announcement solves the mystery of the role Grenell would occupy in the second Trump administration, after Grenell’s name was conspicuously absent for the torrent of early senior administration and cabinet roles. Grenell had pushed to be named secretary of State, but lost out to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, frustrating more right-leaning foreign policy voices. He also turned down the role of director of national intelligence.
In recent days, Trump had signaled the loyalist would end up with an important post. Trump on Wednesday night posted on Truth Social that: “Richard Grenell is a fabulous person, A STAR. He will be someplace, high up!”
Grenell’s position could set him up for conflict with Rubio and it was not clear from the announcement how Grenell’s role will interact with the State Department.
Trump’s post did not specify whether Grenell would face a confirmation process. Special envoys, by law, must receive Senate confirmation, but the Biden administration has at times gotten around that by tweaking job descriptions. Grenell, a pugilistic defender of the president-elect, could face some criticism from lawmakers, but is still likely to be confirmed if he faces a Senate confirmation process.
President-elect Donald Trump descended Saturday on Washington’s hometown stadium for the annual Army-Navy football game, bringing with him key allies who have been selected to join his inner circle as he returns to the White House next month.
Trump was joined in his box seats by Vice President-elect JD Vance, as well as his picks for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard; secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth; and national security adviser, Mike Waltz. Elon Musk, who Trump has tapped to set up a so-called Department of Government Efficiency alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, also made an appearance.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — a Trump foe-turned-ally whom Trump reportedly considered as a backup for defense secretary if Hegseth fails his Senate confirmation — was also at the game.
So was Daniel Penny, a Marine Corps veteran who was acquitted last week of homicide after fatally choking a subway rider named Jordan Neely. Penny came at Vance’s invitation.
Trump attended the iconic yearly showdown between West Point’s Black Knights and Annapolis’ Midshipmen when he was president-elect in 2016 and throughout his first term in the White House.
Although Trump has drawn backlash for a series of controversial comments made about service members, veterans and their families, the military has historically leaned more conservative, and veterans backed Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 by a wide margin, according to Pew Research.
Earlier Saturday, the Federal Aviation Administration banned drones around the stadium after a series of drone sightings across the Northeast prompted unsubstantiated claims that the drones were from an “Iranian mothership” — which the Pentagon has denied. On Friday, Trump suggested the drones should be shot down.
Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing contributed to this report.
President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday tapped Devin Nunes, the CEO of his social media platform Truth Social, to lead the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, an independent group within the Executive Office that oversees the U.S. intelligence community’s compliance with the Constitution.
Nunes will continue leading Trump Media & Technology Group, a public company with a nearly $8 billion market cap. Trump is the company’s largest shareholder, with nearly 115 million shares that are currently worth about $4.2 billion.
Nunes previously served as a Republican lawmaker from California and was chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
“Devin will draw on his experience … and his key role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, to provide me with independent assessments of the effectiveness and propriety of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s activities,” Trump said Saturday in a Truth Social post.
Nunes has led Trump Media since late 2021. His selection to lead the Intelligence Advisory Board further ties the company to the incoming Trump administration. Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick to lead the Education Department, and Kash Patel, who has been tapped to become FBI director, both sit on Trump Media’s board alongside the president-elect’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday tapped businessperson and major political donor Bill White to serve as U.S. ambassador to Belgium.
White is the founder and CEO of Constellations Group, a Manhattan-based consulting firm, and previously served as president of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York.
“Bill has worked tirelessly to support Great American Patriots who have given everything for our Country by raising over $1.5 Billion Dollars for our fallen heroes, catastrophically wounded, and severely burned Service Members,” Trump said Saturday in a post on Truth Social. “He is a twice recipient of the Meritorious Public Service Award for extraordinary service from the U.S. Coast Guard, and for outstanding support from the U.S. Navy.”
White abruptly stepped down from his post leading the Intrepid in 2010 amid a probe launched by New York’s then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo into a state pension scandal. White allegedly acted as a middleman for investment companies hoping to win deals with the state fund, and “secretly” amassed fees from those deals — or as Cuomo put it, “used his access to fill his pockets.” White ultimately agreed to pay a $1 million settlement.
White was a major Trump donor and surrogate to his 2024 campaign, though the millionaire investor backed President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, both Democrats, in past races. During the 2012 presidential election, White, who is openly gay, publically withdrew his support for Mitt Romney for being “on the wrong side of history” for his stance on marriage equality.
Donald Trump’s team is crafting an executive order to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, a monumental move the president-elect’s allies say is a key step in their long-term strategy: getting the issue before the Supreme Court.
The effect of Trump’s order would be to exclude the children of undocumented immigrants and short-term visitors to the U.S. from the right to citizenship by birth that is established under the 14th Amendment. And while there are few details on what exactly he would do and how sweeping the action would be, immigration restrictionists say Trump could do several things, including directing the State Department to refuse to issue passports to children without proof of the parents’ immigration status or the Social Security Administration to withhold Social Security numbers.
He could also direct agencies providing welfare and public benefits to U.S. citizens to deny these benefits to those claiming birthright citizenship, whose parents are in the country illegally. Details of the plan remain unclear, but it would deliver on a promise Trump has made over his entire political career: to restrict birthright citizenship.
Implementation would be no easy feat, but the Trump administration likely wouldn’t get far anyway — at least at first. Any move Trump makes to deny citizenship to children born in the United States to undocumented parents will be immediately challenged by pro-immigration groups and civil rights organizations. And conservative immigration groups are optimistic that the issue could eventually wind up before the nation’s highest court, which they hope will rule in their favor.
“What will happen is, the government will get sued, and it’ll go up to the Supreme Court, and we’ll finally get a final decision on this issue,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal and judicial studies fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “The last case on this was 1898, so it’s a very long time ago. And I actually think when the Supreme Court looks at this, they will realize and uphold what Trump does.”
Already, Trump’s talk of ending birthright citizenship is setting the stage for one of the first major legal battles of his second term. And his effort could be one of his first major actions to drastically reshape the immigration system upon returning to office.
When asked about the plans, Trump’s transition team referred POLITICO to the president-elect’s comments during his interview with NBC News last weekend.
The president-elect has repeatedly said he plans to end birthright citizenship in the U.S. on Day One — reiterating this promise during the interview that aired Sunday — while providing no details about how he would get around the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Birthright citizenship stems from the year after the Civil War ended when Congress wanted to ensure that children of formerly enslaved people were granted U.S. citizenship. The amendment reads that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
The accepted interpretation today, backed by a multitude of legal scholars on both sides of the political aisle, is that a child born in the United States is automatically a citizen, even if the parents do not have legal status (this excludes foreign diplomats working in the country).
But conservative immigration groups have argued that this should not apply to the children of undocumented immigrants because of the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” language, which they argue has been misinterpreted.
The Supreme Court has never directly ruled on the question, but that could change if the high court takes up any potential legal challenges. The last time justices examined the issue was during an 1898 case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, when the court ruled that a man born in San Francisco to parents from China — who were lawfully admitted into the country — was a U.S. citizen. Restrictionists interpret this ruling to mean that only those residing in the U.S. with permission meet the 14th Amendment requirement of being “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.
Immigration to the U.S. has surged in recent years, with DHS estimating that 11 million people are in the U.S. without legal authorization. Trump used fears over illegal immigration throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, both with his base and voters overall, and both Democratic and Republican state leaders have struggled to manage the influx of migrants coming to their states. When Trump said his administration may seek to end birthright citizenship in 2018, a Pew Research Center analysis of government data found that about 250,000 babies were born to undocumented immigrants in 2016, a decline from the early 2000s.
“It’ll be good to get it back in front of the Supreme Court, have it relitigated,” said Michael Hough, director of federal relations at NumbersUSA, a group that works to reduce both legal and illegal immigration. “The intention wasn’t for the system we have now, and the urgency to is that, whatever number you accept — 10 million, 15 million illegal immigrants come across — well, all the children that they’re having are going to become citizens of the United States.”
While there’s no guarantee the Supreme Court will back restrictionists’ interpretation of the 14th Amendment, conservatives hope the bench, filled with three Trump-appointed justices, would restore what they view as the intended meaning. And they’re bracing for a potentially yearslong battle in the courts to get that answer.
“In the end, this is going to be a long-term process. It’s probably one that will have to extend into the [JD] Vance administration,” said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a restrictionist group. “I mean, this is not going to be all resolved in the first 100 days.”
During Trump’s interview Sunday — in the same breath as vowing to end birthright citizenship — the president-elect also suggested he’d look for ways to allow people brought to the U.S. illegally as children to stay in the country. He tried to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program protecting them from deportation during his first term, but the Supreme Court blocked that effort.
Immigration advocates say the interview shows how the incoming president’s stance on immigration is riddled with contradictions. Over the last year, pro-immigration groups have been preparing for a second Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul the nation’s immigration system, analyzing Trump’s proposals, drafting legal briefs, coordinating messages and organizing aid for immigrants and asylum-seekers — and they don’t buy the idea that Trump is looking for compromise.
“We take Trump at his word and his track record,” said Beatriz Lopez, co-executive director of the Immigration Hub. “We recognize this set-up: It’s Lucy and the football where citizenship for Dreamers is a possibility if Democrats are willing to change the Constitution to end birthright citizenship and deport the parents of Dreamers and millions of other undocumented people. That’s not a compromise; that’s a ransom letter.”
A pollster to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign told top Democratic Party officials on Friday that they must confront President-elect Donald Trump far differently than they did during his first term, urgently pressing them not to focus on every outrage but instead argue that he is hurting voters’ pocketbooks.
The speech by Molly Murphy, which was delivered during one of the Democratic National Committee’s first post-election meetings of its leadership, amounted to a quiet indictment of much of the party’s long-standing approach to Trump. It also marked one of the most candid conversations that top party officials have aired publicly since Trump won.
“The 2025 playbook cannot be the 2017 playbook,” she said.
Speaking at a Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington D.C. to the DNC’s executive committee, she said that most Americans support Trump’s transition and that voters “don't care about who he's putting in Cabinet positions.”
She said that Trump will take office more popular than he was when he started his first term, though not as well-liked as President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama were when inaugurated. She stressed that Trump’s strength for years has been that voters approve of his handling of the economy, and that Democrats should aim in his second term to change that.
“These voters are saying, ‘I will give him a pass on the outrageous if my costs come down,’” she said.
She pointed out that key parts of the party’s base, including young people, Latinos and Black voters, drifted away from Democrats this election. And while she said that was driven by high prices, Murphy argued that working-class voters have been steadily moving away from Democrats for several election cycles, suggesting it wasn't just inflation that was to blame.
She made the case that Democrats have been focused on the wrong issues. For young people and voters of color, she said, “institutions have failed them” and “they may not embrace Trump for wanting to dismantle these institutions, but they certainly don't hold it against him.”
She likewise warned Democrats to be “cautious” while attacking Trump for violating norms, arguing that though Democratic donors and the primary electorate care about those issues, the voters the party lost in November do not.
“Norms have not worked for them, and so we certainly shouldn’t ask them to clutch their pearls,” she said. “We risk sounding like the hall monitors.”
Murphy’s talk also underscored that Democrats are making a bet that Trump will not keep his promises to quickly get down costs and that this could help them regain power. She said Democrats should reorient their messaging around Trump’s plans to cut taxes for the wealthy, implement broad-based tariffs that could result in higher costs for consumers, and provide “giveaways” to big corporations.
Murphy’s presentation is the latest sign that many Democrats across the party, from strategists to elected officials, are planning a new approach to Trump than they used when he first took office and the “resistance” took bloom.
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here’s an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
Donald Trump’s Washington is going to be packed with heavyweights from big business such as Elon Musk, Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick. They all have the inside track.
Then, there’s the traditional, powerful industries represented by another major heavyweight: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which, for much of its 100-plus year history, has been a reliable ally of the Republican Party.
But it’s no secret that in recent years, the Chamber’s partnership with the GOP has come to grief.
Part of it is political. Part of it is policy.
But in its totality, the Chamber is now facing a massive challenge: In January, Trump — a populist president vowing new tariffs and pro-union policies — will be sworn into office riding a mandate for change. Congress, meanwhile, is expected to take up a series of massive bills that will dispose of some of the Chamber’s top issues: taxes, energy permitting and immigration.
Will the Chamber even get a seat at the table? Not unless someone can patch up their recent feud with Republicans. So how do you fix that?
Well, it all begins with a good lobbyist. Someone who can open doors, butter up egos and fill a table at the Capital Grille. And that’s where former Congressman Rodney Davis comes in.
Davis, who served in the House from 2013 to 2023, has been given a big job: get the Chamber’s swagger back. Persuade his old Republican colleagues in Congress to forget — or at least forgive — their recent grudges against the Chamber, and instead recall their shared priorities, of which there are many.
Playbook co-author Rachael Bade spoke with Davis in an interview for the Playbook Deep Dive podcast on Thursday to find out how exactly he’s going to do this. In many ways, he rejected the premise, but shared telling details about how the business community is advancing its priorities in Trump’s new Washington — including what they’d like to see in a reconciliation bill — and what relationships are the most valuable for notching wins in the new Congress and in the White House.
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick of longtime loyalist Kari Lake to lead Voice of America has some Arizona Republicans breathing a sigh of relief.
Lake has for the last two election cycles dominated Republican politics in Arizona, running and losing back-to-back races for governor and Senate — and earning her the ire of some of her fellow conservatives in the state. Some Arizona Republicans had already been skeptical of her political future in the state, given the losses, though her name had been floated both for state Republican Party chair and Arizona secretary of state.
This decision now all but removes her from those conversations, creating space for other Republicans, like Karrin Taylor Robson, who ran against Lake in the Republican gubernatorial primary in 2022 but came in second, to rise to the fore.
“When you're a two-time loser and you did worse the second time around, that's a clue that maybe the voters don't want you,” said Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona. “I think it clears space for the conservative but normal wing of the Republican Party in Arizona.”
Robson has been floated as a likely Republican candidate for governor, and there was some uncertainty over whether Lake would be interested in a rematch.
“As the 2026 governor’s field on the Republican side comes into focus, the big question mark was, what’s Kari Lake going to do? … This at least partially answers that question and takes a pretty big potential name off the chessboard, at least for now,” a Republican strategist in Arizona, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the dynamics, said. “She’s certainly a name. She’s been the Republican nominee twice. It’s safe to say she would’ve been formidable. It’s a fairly big deal, I think, in terms of how that race is going to play out.”
Still, Lake, who maintains a robust social media presence and following among the MAGA crowd, is expected to remain an important presence in Arizona GOP politics. Multiple Republican political operatives in the state said had Lake run for Arizona Republican Party chair, she likely would have won.
Lake’s name had also been floated for U.S. ambassador to Mexico, a post that ultimately went to former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Ronald Johnson. Johnson is a Green Beret who spent more than 20 years at the CIA and brings significant foreign policy experience to the job.
At the federally funded broadcaster Voice of America, Lake will lead a $267 million agency that broadcasts in more than 40 languages to a global audience of more than 354 million people. Lake has more than three decades of experience in broadcast news, including 22 years working at the Fox affiliate in Phoenix.
The Voice of America director is officially appointed by the head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, a Senate-confirmed position Trump has yet to name. The VOA director needs a majority support from a seven-member advisory board of presidential appointees, who require Senate confirmation.
Trump’s previous pick to lead the Agency for Global Media, Michael Pack, was accused of using his position to amplify the Trump administration’s message. The findings of a federal investigation released last year found Pack abused his power to sideline executives he believed were insufficiently supportive of Trump, engaging in gross mismanagement and breaking laws and regulations in doing so.
In a post on Truth Social, Lake said she was “honored” Trump had asked her to lead Voice of America, which she called “a vital international media outlet dedicated to advancing the interests of the United States by engaging directly with people across the globe and promoting democracy and truth.”
“Under my leadership, the VOA will excel in its mission: chronicling America’s achievements worldwide,” Lake said.
A person close to Lake, granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the appointment, said that the position will provide Lake “the perfect platform to share America’s story and keep delivering the truth to people across the world.”
“After a three-decades long career as a trusted journalist and news anchor, she courageously walked away from the mainstream media,” the person said. “Refusing to compromise her principles or push Fake News, Kari's decision inspired countless Americans to seek the truth in a world of increasing disinformation.”
Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said Lake would work “to ensure that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY, unlike the lies spread by the Fake News Media,” calling her a “beloved News Anchor in Arizona.”
Lake is one of several candidates who have demonstrated the challenges of running on a “Make America Great Again” platform without Trump’s name. In addition to Lake, MAGA-aligned gubernatorial candidates Doug Mastriano and Tudor Dixon lost their respective gubernatorial bids in Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2022.
Lake repeatedly claimed falsely that Trump won the 2020 election, and contested the results of her own loss in 2022. She did not, however, contest the results of her 2024 loss, with Trump winning in the state even as Democrat Ruben Gallego bested her in the Senate contest.
“She’s no longer Arizona’s problem. Now, she’s the world’s problem,” Marson said.
Donald Trump has reshaped the Republican Party to embrace a brand of populism that prioritizes its working-class base and is at least outwardly skeptical of corporate power.
But since his second election last month, Trump has leaned heavily on aides and Cabinet picks who share a distinctive characteristic with him: wealth from complex business entanglements.
Trump has appointed a raft of rich business people and investors — including several billionaires and multiple Wall Street executives with complex financial interests — to fill out top roles in his administration, raising a vast array of potential conflicts of interest that could span the federal government and complicate Senate confirmations.
The billionaires set to join the second Trump administration include Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street CEO who Trump tapped to be Commerce secretary; Warren Stephens, the CEO of an Arkansas financial services firm who he picked to be ambassador to the United Kingdom; presumptive NASA administrator nominee Jared Isaacman; and deputy Defense secretary Steve Feinberg.
“It opens up the door for there being a lot more possible conflicts of interest because their personal wealth is so vast,” said Delaney Marsco, director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center.
The potential for conflicts cover a wide variety of industries from health and defense to the financial and cryptocurrency sectors.
The selections exemplify how Trump’s brand of economic populism has still carved out room for the ultra-wealthy. Despite running as a critic of corporate power and economic elites, several of the people Trump has chosen and considered for top roles come from backgrounds in business and finance.
With so many nominees presenting such conflicts of interest — and the general indifference from both Trump and his supporters — the ho-hum response to a new administration populated with so many ultra-wealthy picks is yet another example of how Trump has shattered the Overton window on ethics.
Morgan Ackley, a spokeswoman for the transition team, defended Trump’s appointments and said delivering on the campaign’s promises means “appointing respected professionals and industry leaders to usher America into a new Golden Age. These highly qualified men and women have the talent, experience, and necessary skill sets to Make America Great Again."
To be sure, the president-elect is expected to pursue policies from trade to labor to antitrust that align with the populist vision he ran on. Some selections — like presumptive Labor secretary nominee Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who is seen as an ally to unions — represent shifts from the pre-Trump GOP orthodoxy.
The wealthy picks and their potential conflicts have become an early focus for the left, including Democratic lawmakers who are fighting the nominees.
One target: Trump’s pick to run Medicare and Medicaid, heart surgeon and TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz. Democrats argued in a letter Tuesday to Oz that he has many conflicts of interest, including “deep financial ties to private health insurers” — documented in the disclosures he filed in his failed 2022 Pennsylvania Senate bid — and “previous advocacy for Medicare privatization.” The lawmakers asked him to provide assurances that he will “commit to fully divesting of any and all financial holdings related to the insurance industry if you are confirmed.”
Trump’s economic picks are also expected to face scrutiny. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is poised to become the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, has criticized Treasury pick Scott Bessent, a hedge fund executive, as having “expertise [in] helping rich investors make more money, not cutting costs for families squeezed by corporate profiteering.”
Lutnick, the Commerce pick who also co-chairs the Trump transition team, has said he will step down from his companies and divest his interests upon Senate confirmation. He has close ties through his firm Cantor Fitzgerald to a controversial foreign cryptocurrency firm called Tether. The connection could become a focus given Trump’s pledge to overhaul crypto regulations in his second term.
And then there’s Elon Musk, the world’s richest man with a net worth now estimated at more than $400 billion, who could have an opportunity to shape regulations, contracts and budgets in a way that benefits his own interests. Because his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, will be set up outside of the federal government, the Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink CEO won’t be subject to conflict of interest laws. But by deploying his own wealth to serve as the president’s political enforcer, Musk may be able to maintain his proximity to the president for some time — and to push policies that could improve his own bottom line.
Still, while several of Trump’s picks are facing questions about whether they can be confirmed by a GOP Senate that includes several moderates who will be up for reelection in 2026, conflict of interest issues haven’t been a major focus.
Sen. Mike Rounds, a moderate Republican from South Dakota who is seen as a swing vote on some controversial nominees, said Trump’s wealthy picks “have been successful and they have a different way of looking at things outside of government.”
“The founding fathers wanted folks coming from the business communities to be a part of this process, and that’s healthy,” he said. “You want individuals that get it from the inside, that understand it, and can see what’s going on in the industry. So no, I don’t have a concern in that regard.”
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Donald Trump is expected to be named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” — and to celebrate the unveiling of the cover, the president-elect will ring the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday morning, according to three people familiar with the plans granted anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge the plans.
Last year, pop superstar Taylor Swift was recognized. To mark the magazine cover reveal, Time CEO Jessica Sibley rang the opening bell.
Trump was also named Time Person of the Year in 2016 after he won the presidential election. He joins 13 other U.S. presidents who have received the recognition, including President Joe Biden.
A short list for Time Person of the Year was announced Monday on NBC’s “The Today Show” and included Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, Kate Middleton, Elon Musk and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Time already announced NBA star Caitlin Clark as Athlete of the Year, Elton John as Icon of the Year and Lisa Su of Advanced Micro Devices as CEO of the Year.
A spokesperson for Time said the magazine “does not comment on its annual choice for Person of the Year prior to publication. This year’s choice will be announced tomorrow morning, Dec. 12, on Time.com.”
The incoming president has long been fixated with being on the covers of magazines, especially Time.
The “Person of the Year” goes to a newsmaker who has had a significant impact on the year’s events, and in the past has included people ranging from Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth II to Vladimir Putin and Joseph Stalin.
Trump in 2013 called the magazine’s annual list of influential people “a joke and stunt of a magazine that will, like Newsweek, soon be dead. Bad list!”
And in 2015, Trump complained that he was not chosen for the magazine cover that instead went to then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But he went on to call being named “Person of the Year” a “great honor.”
“It means a lot, especially me growing up reading Time magazine. And, you know, it's a very important magazine,” Trump said.
Trump has been featured on the magazine cover three times this year.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), one of the staunchest critics of the American health care system writ large among U.S. lawmakers, condemned the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Tuesday — but added that people “can be pushed only so far,” in an interview with the Huffington Post.
“The visceral response from people across the country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system,” Warren said, pointing to the outcrying of support from people online in support of Luigi Mangione, who is a suspect in the killing.
“Violence is never the answer,” Warren added. “But people can only be pushed so far.”
In a statement to POLITICO after this report published Wednesday, Warren said, “Violence is never the answer. Period. I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder.”
Mangione has been charged with multiple counts in connection with the killing of Thompson, including one count of second-degree murder. On Wednesday morning, multiple outlets reported that fingerprints taken from the 26-year-old graduate of the University of Pennsylvania matched some of the prints found at the midtown Manhattan crime scene.
Written on the bullet casings at the crime scene were “deny,” “defend,” and “depose,” a possible nod to former Rutgers Law professor Jay Feinman’s 2010 book, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who, like Warren, is a steadfast critic of the health care industry, also put the murder in the larger context of Americans’ frustration with the system.
Thompson’s murder was “outrageous,” Sanders said Tuesday, according to the Huffington Post. He added that what the outpouring of anger at the health care industry “tells us is that millions of people understand that healthcare is a human right and that you cannot have people in the insurance industry rejecting needed health care for people while they make billions of dollars in profit.”
At least one Democrat was much more blunt in their condemnation of Mangione. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman called him an “asshole that’s going to die in prison,” also in an interview with HuffPost.
“Congratulations if you want to celebrate that,” he added. “A sewer is going to sewer.”
MADISON, Wisconsin — Wisconsin prosecutors filed 10 additional felony charges Tuesday against two attorneys and an aide to President-elect Donald Trump who advised Trump in 2020 as part of a plan to submit paperwork falsely claiming that the Republican had won the battleground state that year.
Jim Troupis, who was Trump’s attorney in Wisconsin, Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who advised the campaign, and Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020, all initially faced a single felony forgery charge in Wisconsin. Those charges were filed in June.
But on Tuesday, two days before the three are scheduled for their initial court appearances, the Wisconsin Department of Justice filed 10 additional felony charges against each of them. The charges are for using forgery in an attempt to defraud each of the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump that year.
Each of the 11 of the felony charges they face carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Attorneys for each of the defendants did not immediately reply to emails seeking comment.
The state charges against the Trump attorneys and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors have been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them in 2023.
There are pending charges related to the fake electors scheme in state and federal courts in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Georgia. Federal prosecutors, investigating Trump’s conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, said the fake electors scheme originated in Wisconsin.
Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, allow their electoral votes to be split between candidates.
The Wisconsin complaint details how Troupis, Chesebro and Roman created a document that falsely said Trump had won Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver to to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
In the amended complaint filed Tuesday, prosecutors said the majority of the 10 electors told investigators that they were needed to sign the elector certificate indicating that Trump had won only to preserve his legal options if a court changed the outcome of the election in Wisconsin. A majority of the electors told investigators that they did not believe their signatures on the elector certificate would be submitted to Congress without a court ruling, the complaint said.
Additionally, a majority of the electors said that they did not consent to having their signatures presented as if Trump had won without such a court ruling, the complaint said.
Troupis filed four motions to dismiss the charge against him ahead of Thursday’s hearing and before the amended complaint was filed. He argues that having Republican electors meet and cast their ballot was done to preserve their legal options in case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Trump’s favor in a lawsuit challenging the Wisconsin vote. No crime was committed by that action, therefore the complaint must be dismissed, Troupis contends.
In another motion to dismiss, he argues that federal law should take precedence in this case, and that such charges therefore can’t legally be brought in state court.
In a third motion, Troupis argues that the case should be dismissed because facts that showed no crime was committed were left out of the complaint. In a fourth motion, Troupis argues that it should be dismissed because prosecutions for election crimes can only be brought by the county district attorney, not the state’s attorney general.
The Wisconsin charges were brought by Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat. They were filed in June, five months before Trump carried Wisconsin in November. He also won the state in 2016, but lost it in 2020.
The fake elector efforts were central to a 2023 federal racketeering indictment filed against Trump alleging he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But special counsel Jack Smith moved to abandon that case last month, acknowledging that Trump’s return to the White House will preclude attempts to federally prosecute him.
Trump was also indicted in Georgia along with 18 others accused of participating in a sprawling scheme to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election there. Trump is trying to get that case dismissed, arguing that state courts won’t have jurisdiction over him when he returns to the White House next month.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the latest Donald Trump Cabinet pick facing trouble in the Senate.
At least three closely watched senators are noncommittal about confirming the vaccine critic, who’s being considered to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Those include swing votes like Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, as well as Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician who will chair a committee that could host confirmation hearings for Kennedy.
Kennedy can afford to lose only three Republicans during his confirmation if all Senate Democrats vote against him.
This group of senators closely resembles those who weren’t sold on former Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general or have questioned defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth. While Hegseth’s embattled nomination has sucked up most of the media oxygen recently, that doesn’t mean Kennedy or others will sail through the chamber smoothly.
Other nominees seem to have benefited from Gaetz’s and Hegseth’s troubles as well, flying under the radar despite potential problems. Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s future as director of national intelligence could face turbulence over her past comments on Russia, among other issues. And Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, has faced little to no criticism from senators so far, despite his stated intentions to clean house at the bureau.
“This is a week going after Tulsi Gabbard. Now, I guess they're gonna skip over Kash [Patel] and then go after RFK next week, because he’s coming,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who said he’s meeting with Kennedy next Tuesday. Tuberville broadly supports Trump’s nominees and said Kennedy has “got a lot of great ideas” and is “outside the box.”
But Kennedy’s political baggage is another problem Republicans can't ignore, as they try to remain largely deferential to the president-elect. Though many have boasted about party unity, some are increasingly anxious about giving a rubber stamp to nominees far outside the mainstream. But tanking more of Trump’s picks could end up sparking his ire, with Republicans bracing for him to boost primary challengers against those who won’t go along.
Unlike Gaetz and Hegseth, Kennedy has a lot of policy-centric issues, rather than mainly personal scandals. The former Democratic-turned-independent presidential candidate has a long history of vaccine skepticism and has espoused the debunked theory that vaccines have caused an increase in autism. He’s called sexual assault allegations against him “garbage” while also noting “I’m not a church boy.” And some of his proposals, like removing fluoride from American drinking water or reevaluating childhood vaccine recommendations, have drawn instant criticism from health experts.
“I realize Covid got to be pretty controversial, but vaccinations are an important part of our public health, starting with the requirement that kids get vaccinations before they go to school,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said, noting he has questions about Kennedy’s stance on the issue.
When asked if Kennedy’s past controversies will bog down his nomination, Cassidy said everyone wants to “predict the future” but he just wants to “let things play.”
Meanwhile, Hegseth’s issues have brought another facet of the battle into sharp focus, as he insists that he will keep fighting and not withdraw. Conservative voices have mounted intense pressure campaigns against senators who aren’t openly supporting Trump picks — Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) was particularly targeted online and on TV when she withheld her support for Hegseth. She’s sounded a more positive note on the pick to lead the Pentagon this week.
Kennedy’s meetings with senators still could change his prospects — it’ll be the opportunity for questioning that many senators have been seeking. But meetings so far have proved minimally fruitful for Trump’s most controversial nominees, like Gaetz and Hegseth.
There has been speculation that Kennedy, who ran for president as a Democrat just last year before switching to an independent and later dropping out and endorsing Trump, could find salvation among Democratic senators. Many have known him or his family long before he ran for the presidency.
But a quick survey of Democrats didn’t turn up much in the way of positive comments. A handful gave deferential answers to the nomination process, saying they looked forward to meeting with him in committee and asking him questions. Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) said he wants Kennedy to “have his chance to make his pitch.” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) similarly said he wants to talk to Kennedy directly and has “a lot of questions for him.”
Others weren’t so timid. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee member, said he doesn’t want a “denier of science” helming the nation’s top health agency.
“I get that there are quid-pro-quos in politics, but that one's a pretty naked one,” Murphy said. “I know politics is crass, but that's pretty fucking crass.”
And a GOP senator, granted anonymity to speak candidly, last week suggested Kennedy might be the next of Trump’s nominees to face problems in the Senate. They noted that goodwill from Democrats toward the nominee may even “hurt” his chances with Republicans.
Kennedy’s former party affiliation did prove a testy point with some members of the Senate GOP. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said “that's a factor, because then you’ve got to go back and figure out what’s changed.”
“I often say about him and Tulsi [Gabbard], a few weeks ago, they were both Democrats,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said. “And so we ought to tread somewhat carefully. We're all for recruitment, and we love people to come over. But you oftentimes don't put a baby convert in the pulpit.”
President-elect Donald Trump said he wants to end birthright citizenship on his first day in office next month. But he’ll likely run into trouble.
Trump has suggested, without offering details, that he could enact his plan through an executive order. Birthright citizenship, which gives U.S. citizenship to anyone born on the country’s soil, is built into law through the Constitution — and any attempt to remove it would likely face immediate legal action.
In 2018, Trump told Axios that he was planning to sign an executive order that would end the constitutional right in his first term, saying, “You can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order.” Trump never took action on the issue during his first administration.
This time around, it’s one of a slew of changes he’s pledging to roll out to curb immigration, in addition to implementing mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and clamping down on illegal border crossings.
We looked into what might happen to the president-elect’s plan if he tries to take action:
What is birthright citizenship and how is it a part of the Constitution?
Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, enacted in 1868. The amendment states that anyone born in the United States automatically becomes a United States citizen, regardless of their parents' immigration status.
The language of the 14th Amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
Can Trump end birthright citizenship through an executive order?
Not likely.
Legal experts say that no executive order can overturn the 14th Amendment because the president doesn’t have the authority to change the Constitution.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that if Trump were to issue an executive order directing the Social Security Administration to refuse to grant an identification document to a person who can't prove that both of their parents were U.S. citizens, it would likely be challenged by the courts and eventually struck down.
“There are virtually no well-respected lawyers or academics who agree with President-elect Trump, and there is no precedent that supports the theory,” Reichlin-Melnick said.
Trump could limit immigration by executive order, making it harder for people to come into the country and have children, but birthright citizenship is a constitutionally guaranteed right, said Adam Winkler, a law professor at UCLA.
“The whole reason it is in the Constitution is to take it out of the hands of politicians,” Winkler said.
So how do you change an amendment?
Trump could attempt to end birthright citizenship through a new constitutional amendment, but it would be nearly impossible because of the extensive support required for passage. A constitutional amendment requires two-thirds of support in both houses of the U.S. Congress, and the ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.
Donald Trump's transition team entered a critical week of nomination meetings on Capitol Hill with a new head of steam, emboldened by a swarm of grassroots support and a pressure campaign that has revived Pete Hegseth's hopes for Defense secretary and given them confidence about other controversial nominees, too.
In recent days, allies of Trump adopted an approach that is not novel for the president-elect and his followers: Make life extremely uncomfortable for anyone who dares to oppose him. The swarm of MAGA attacks that Sen. Joni Ernst has experienced is a warning of what's in store for others who express skepticism of his personnel choices.
Days after signaling she continued to have serious concerns about confirming Hegseth, Ernst on Monday sounded a different note. She described their conversation Monday afternoon as “encouraging,” said she would “support” Hegseth through the process, touted some of the commitments he made to her about what he would do in the role, and suggested she would only take allegations against him seriously if they come from named accusers.
The change in tune followed an aggressive push for Hegseth by top Trump allies and supporters, as well as a defiant performance by the Defense secretary nominee that has Trump’s team bullish on him getting confirmed. But it’s not just Hegseth. Trump allies believe his choice to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, and his nominee for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, are in a stronger position as well.
Hegseth “became a cause,” said a Trump ally who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “Not even for the official Trump operation, but the movement who is going apeshit for him.”
The fortunes of Hegseth and his fellow nominees could always change, people close to the president-elect caution, and Trump’s team is carefully tracking support on Capitol Hill. With a narrow Senate Republican majority, 53-47, Trump can only afford to lose three GOP votes. But the palpable shift demonstrated how grassroots pressure, combined with the influence of Vice President-elect JD Vance, helped bolster Hegseth only days after Trump was drawing up contingency plans to tap Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis instead.
People in Trump’s orbit believed that if Hegseth’s nomination was “sacrificed” to Ernst, it would become a “feeding frenzy” with the president-elect’s other controversial picks, like Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Patel.
And Vance over the last week was “super instrumental” in consolidating support among his Republican Senate colleagues behind Hegseth and getting Trump’s team to stay in the fight, said a person with knowledge of the transition process.
“(Vance) saw the game that was being played where these senators believed themselves to be more powerful than they are,” the person said. “There’s a widely understood belief that [Matt] Gaetz dropped out on his own — he knew there were going to be certain senators that were just not going to budge on him.”
With Hegseth, the person continued, Trump allies knew they had to “draw a red line here” to send a message to senators.
Just last week, Ernst and Sen. Lindsey Graham were openly questioning Hegseth’s nomination. It appeared he was about to follow in former Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz’s footsteps.
But after a frenzy of criticism from MAGA activists late last week and over the weekend, Ernst on Monday expressed optimism about Hegseth, while signaling willingness to confirm other Trump nominees also seen as potentially problematic, posting her support for Patel and another photo of her smiling with Gabbard.
“I appreciate Pete Hegseth’s responsiveness and respect for the process,” Ernst said in a statement released by her office after her “encouraging” meeting with Hegseth on Monday. She said he “committed to completing a full audit of the Pentagon and selecting a senior official who will uphold the roles and value of our servicemen and women — based on quality and standards, not quotas — and who will prioritize and strengthen my work to prevent sexual assault within the ranks.”
“As I support Pete through this process,” Ernst added, “I look forward to a fair hearing based on truth, not anonymous sources.”
For his part, Hegseth described the meeting with Ernst to reporters as “very good.”
“The more we talk, the more we’re reminded, as combat veterans, how dedicated we are to defense,” Hegseth said. “I just appreciate her commitment to the process, and I look forward to working together.”
Graham said he had “a very positive, thorough and candid meeting” with Hegseth and like Ernst, said accusations should be “supported by testimony before Congress — not anonymous sources.”
Even before her meeting with Hegseth, Trump insiders on Monday believed Ernst was viewing the situation much differently from the week before.
“Joni, I’m told,” said a Trump ally with insider knowledge of the transition process, “got the message loud and clear.”
The person said Ernst was “looking for an off ramp” from her public skepticism of Hegseth after receiving an onslaught of criticism from MAGA activists. That campaign took off last week after prominent Trump allies, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and Charlie Kirk, made social media posts critical of Ernst.
“Fix bayonets — that’s what we’re doing here to make sure that we have the back of President Trump and his nominees,” Steve Bannon said Friday on his “War Room” show.
Hegseth saved himself with Trump, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, who said the president-elect was pleased with the defiance he showed last week in interviews and in meetings on Capitol Hill. He is expected to do an interview with Trump’s friend and Fox News anchor Sean Hannity Monday night.
“He stood strong and showed up to the Hill every day and had thoughtful conversations and meetings, and I think his media blitz was highly effective in proving he's not going to back down,” said a Trump transition official.
People in Trump’s orbit emphasized that Hegseth’s fortunes are different than Gaetz’s, as there are no senators who have said they won’t support his nomination.
Allies of Trump, including Kirk, are already vowing to mount primary challenges against red-state Republican senators who don’t support his nominees — a plan that Trump’s team is hinting support for.
An op-ed written by Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird calling for senators to support Trump’s nominees was blasted out by the Republican National Committee press team. It was seen by some Republicans as a veiled primary threat against Ernst from a top Trump ally in Iowa.
“They have a window of opportunity right now to show to the base that they’re willing to play ball,” said Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Kirk. “We’re going to see where they stand.”
The bullishness spread to some of Trump’s most loyal backers in the Senate. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who was considered for Defense secretary himself, declared on X: “I expect our Republican Senate is going to confirm all of President Trump's nominees.
“Of the 72 cabinet secretary nominees since the Clinton transition,” he added, “only 2 nominees have ever received NO votes from the president-elect's party. No one should be surprised that the Republican Senate will confirm President Trump’s nominees.”
Lara Trump is stepping down as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, a role she has held since March, as some of Donald Trump’s allies continue to push for her to replace Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Capitol Hill.
In announcing her resignation on X, Lara Trump, who is the president-elect’s daughter-in-law, said “the job I came to do is now complete,” touting the RNC’s fundraising records, election integrity efforts and voter turnout.
She’s expressed openness to replacing Rubio, the president-elect’s pick to be secretary of State, in the Senate, telling The Associated Press it’s a role she “would seriously consider.”
“If I’m being completely transparent, I don’t know exactly what that would look like,” she told the AP in an article published Sunday. “And I certainly want to get all of the information possible if that is something that’s real for me. But yeah, I would 100% consider it.”
Among those supporting her as a potential Rubio replacement is billionaire Elon Musk, a close ally of the incoming president, and his mother, Maye Musk.
But as much as allies of the president-elect push for her to replace Rubio, the decision will ultimately fall on Florida Gov. Ron DeSanis.
DeSantis has said he plans to have a decision on the replacement by the beginning of January, and it would follow a process that includes “extensive vetting and candidate interviews.”
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