TRUMP TRANSITION WATCH: Backlash to the Bannon hire
From NBC’s Benjy Sarlin: “Steve Bannon, former president of the incendiary Breitbart News and more recently chief executive of Trump's campaign, is taking on a role as "chief strategist and senior counselor." Bannon's ascension is the clearest sign yet that Trump will maintain his ties to the populist white nationalism that helped propel him to the White House against overwhelming opposition from party leaders and traditional media.”
NBC News sums up the backlash to the Bannon pick.
Writes the New York Times: “President-elect Donald J. Trump on Sunday chose Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee and a loyal campaign adviser, to be his White House chief of staff, turning to a Washington insider whose friendship with the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, could help secure early legislative victories. In selecting Mr. Priebus, Mr. Trump passed over Stephen K. Bannon, a right-wing media provocateur. But the president-elect named Mr. Bannon his senior counselor and chief West Wing strategist, signaling an embrace of the fringe ideology long advanced by Mr. Bannon and of a continuing disdain for the Republican establishment.”
TRUMP AGENDA: Opacity on policy
Trump appeared to soften his rhetoric on immigration – but not on abortion – in his first television interview as president-elect.
POLITICO sums up his “60 Minutes” interview: “Donald Trump did what president-elects do: an extended sit-down interview with the country’s most venerated television news magazine show. But his Sunday night sit-down on "60 Minutes" did little to clear up the opacity of what his first 100 days in the White House, never mind the rest of his term, will look like from a policy standpoint.”
And the AP: “President-elect Donald Trump's tough-talking plan to rein in illegal immigration showed signs of cracking on Sunday, with the president-elect seemingly backing off his vow to build a solid wall along the southern U.S. border and the top House Republican rejecting any "deportation force" targeting people in the country illegally.”
What’s going to happen to Trump’s businesses? The Washington Post takes a look.
The Boston Globe, on Trump’s challenges: “Trump has a low attention span that, according to those who have worked with him over the years, may lead him to become frustrated at meetings with high-level officials when dealing with intractable problems he has little background in.”
The Washington Post: “The populist wave of 2016 that carried Trump to the pinnacle of international power and influence didn’t start in the United States. And it certainly won’t end there. Instead, the biggest prize yet for a global movement built on a seemingly bottomless reserve of political, economic and cultural grievance is likely to be an accelerant to even more victories for people and causes bent on upending the existing world order.”
“Donald Trump, when he enters the White House next year, will elevate with him a set of little-known, largely untested supporters who now could be in line for plum posts under the new administration,” notes the Wall Street Journal.
Dem Watch: Clinton blames Comey
Hillary Clinton is blaming James Comey’s letters as factors in her loss.
The New York Times looks at the coming consequences of “President Obama’s have-it-both-ways approach to curbing what he saw as overreaching in the war on terrorism.”
POLITICO, on how Democrats hope to counter the GOP agenda: “Though incoming leader Chuck Schumer has yet to show his hand, the outline of a Democratic strategy for dealing with Donald Trump is beginning to take shape, based on interviews with several senators and aides. Their thinking: Exploit the inevitable divisions between Trump and the increasingly conservative GOP leadership over tax policy, infrastructure spending and possibly social issues. And Senate Democrats hope to use the filibuster — the only real leverage they have to stymie Trump and congressional Republicans — sparingly.”