Tracking the Trump transition

Donald Trump has successfully won his second term, which means it’s time for him and his allies to buckle down and fervently start hiring for the incoming administration. Prior to his election, Trump announced that his transition would be chaired by former head of the Small Business Administration Linda McMahon and billionaire businessman Howard Lutnick, with assists from Trump’s sons as well as former Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.

The president-elect made his first pick for his administration on Thursday, announcing that his campaign co-manager Susie Wiles would be his chief of staff. She will be the first ever woman to hold this key White House post. During Trump’s first go-around, he made history by hiring the first woman to run a successful presidential campaign, Kellyanne Conway, and by appointing the first female CIA director, Gina Haspel. Numerous names are floating around for the cabinet positions needed to be filled. Reports say RFK Jr. expressed opposition to Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state, desiring Trump to fill the role with someone less “hawkish.” Former Trump officials Robert O’Brien, John Ratcliffe, Stephen Miller and Ric Grenell are reportedly in talks to rejoin the second administration, while new picks include, of course, RFK Jr., Elon Musk and elected officials such as Governor Doug Burgum and Representative Mike Waltz.

Notably absent? Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who played a pivotal role in the first administration on immigration policy, as well as helping to lead negotiations with the Abraham Accords. However, he frequently butted heads with Miller and other immigration hardliners who felt Kushner was sabotaging the Trump agenda. It’s unclear if Kushner might serve in some sort of external advisory capacity as Trump seeks to regain peace in the Middle East.

Trump acknowledged in his Joe Rogan interview ahead of the election that one of his biggest regrets from his first term was not putting the right people in place. He acknowledged he was not a “Washington guy” and relied on the advice of others, who might have steered him in the wrong direction. This time, he says, he knows the best people that will effectively engineer and implement America First policy.

-Amber Duke

On our radar

PENNSYLVANIA GOES RED Republican businessman Dave McCormick successfully ousted incumbent Democrat Bob Casey in the state’s senatorial election, pushing the GOP majority in the upper chamber to three seats. 

STEVE REPRIEVE The CEO of Steve Madden says they will cut nearly half of its production in China as it prepares for Donald Trump to implement harsh tariffs on companies who do business outside of the US in his second term. 

IRANIAN PLOT FOILED In an unsealed indictment, federal prosecutors revealed that Iranian agents were told by leadership within the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to “focus on surveilling, and ultimately, assassinating” former president Donald Trump before Tuesday’s election. 

HIT THE ROAD, JACK Special Counsel Jack Smith has filed for a postponement in proceedings in the Washington, DC-based case against President-elect Trump for his role in the January 6 riots.

Kamala blows a billion

What does $1 billion buy you in President Joe Biden’s America? A second-place finish if you’re Kamala Harris, whose campaign raised earth-shattering sums of soft-dollar money, only to lose to Donald Trump.

Trump had big money allies of his own, namely the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who spent tens of millions of dollars building out a robust field operation for the former and future president, and even Jeff Bezos, who ordered his underlings at the Washington Post to put the kibosh on a formal endorsement from the editorial board for Harris.

But Harris’s campaign, which ended up in debt to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, stands out for its financial mismanagement. “The Kamala campaign is the Theranos of politics,” a veteran GOP fundraiser chirped to The Spectator. “A unicorn in the speed to which they raised $1 billion is astounding, but the mismanagement is just as bad. Rather than accidentally getting some things right, they misspent a literal fortune, enriched their wealthiest vendors and donors.”

“This is a textbook definition of campaign malpractice and will be studied as a failure for a generation,” the fundraiser added. Harris’s closing days on the trail were marked by gaudy appearances with celebrities like Beyoncé, who spoke but did not sing on stage with Harris. “I can’t wait to see how much they paid Beyoncé for her appearance,” the fundraiser noted. The Washington Examiner’s Gabe Kaminsky reported that Harris even spent a cool $100,000 on designing a unique set for her appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast. 

Harris’s loss is staggering; she failed to win a single swing state. When all is said and done, New Jersey may have been closer than Texas. “I don’t understand how you raise more money than anyone else and still find a way to spend it wrong,” a GOP operative noted. “You’d think in at least one of the swing states they’d have accidentally spent it right.”

–Matthew Foldi

A DC journo ‘brain drain’? 

Who’s going to cover the new Trump administration? Some media sources are already signaling that they lack the emotional energy to attack his  White House with the fervor they did in his first term. The Guardian offered counseling to triggered staff to help them deal with Trump’s victory Tuesday night, according to a report from the New York Post. “I know the result has been very upsetting for many colleagues,” editor-in-chief Katharine Viner told employees of the left-wing British newspaper. Guardian reporters in the UK and Australia were encouraged to reach out to their US colleagues to make sure they were OK, because nothing is better for your mental health than having a coworker with a funny accent interrupt your work day for a therapy session.

CNN media reporter Brian Stelter suggested the problem might be deeper than any one outlet, though. “Will there be a journalistic brain drain in DC? A talent agent said what I’ve also heard anecdotally: A lot of reporters are ‘questioning if they have it in them to report on another Trump cycle,’” Stelter posted on X. Maybe they’ll jump on the tradwife trend and move to a raw milk farm. Give them two years and they’ll all be begging Trump and RFK to up-end the FDA.

–Cockburn