– Trump strategist Chris LaCivta responding to a tweet by Maryland GOP Senate candidate and former governor Larry Hogan after Trump’s guilty verdicts: “I urge all Americans to respect the verdict and the legal process. At this dangerously divided moment in our history, all leaders—regardless of party—must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship. We must reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law.”
The peninsula’s known for its palm trees and isles,
And sun-kissed sandy beaches that go on for miles.
But when the polar vortex hits Florida
You’ve got to beware of iguanas,
‘Cause when the temperature drops, it starts raining reptiles.
“After months of delay, President-elect Donald J. Trump on Friday became the first American president to be criminally sentenced. … He avoided jail or any other substantive punishment, but the proceeding carried symbolic importance: It formalized Mr. Trump’s status as a felon, making him the first to carry that dubious designation into the presidency.”
“Trump can flick Marco Rubio aside like dandruff; brush Mike Johnson off like an errant crumb; turn Pam Bondi into Nikki Haley by midnight tonight. His orbit is filled with botoxed disposables who hang upon his favor; courtiers who can be stripped of their livelihoods and status — and exiled from MAGA altogether — if they offend the Orange God King. Trump can’t fire JD Vance, but he could destroy his truckling veep’s political future with a single Truth Social post. … Not so with Elon Musk. … Musk is the world’s richest man; a cult-figure in his own right, and the master of his social media domain. Now, in part thanks to Trump’s own patronage, he also holds sway over much of his domestic agenda via DOGE. If that were not enough, Musk is rapidly fashioning himself into a global power broker — with a decidedly Trump-like flavor. … Indeed, the two men seem to be dueling for attention — vying with one another with competing distractions, as Musk conducts his own independent foreign policy.”
“To tell us we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes. To dismiss concerns about it as some kind of partisan obsession. To explain it away as a protest that just got out of hand. This is not what happened.”
— President Biden, writing in the Washington Post, warned Americans not to forget the violent attack that took place at the Capitol four years ago, and he accused President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters of trying “to rewrite — even erase — the history of that day.”
“You’ve got a bunch of people who are far from home, inadequately nourished, overly caffeinated, perhaps drinking alcohol, often sleep deprived, cranky, and constantly plunged into uncertainty about their schedule and travel.”
— Retiring Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), quoted by The Atlantic, on the problem with Congress.
A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that about 4 in 10 Democrats said it’s “not very likely” or “not at all likely” that a woman will be elected to the nation’s highest office in their lifetime. That’s compared with about one-quarter of Republicans who feel the same.
“Illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border have slowed significantly as President Biden prepares to leave office and as President-elect Donald Trump, who promised to crack down on immigration, is days away from retaking power,” the New York Times reports. “More than 46,000 people crossed the border illegally in November, the lowest number during the Biden administration.”
“Job growth was much stronger than expected in December, possibly providing the Federal Reserve less incentive to cut interest rates this year,” CNBC reports. “Nonfarm payrolls surged by 256,000 for the month, up from 212,000 in November and above the 155,000 forecast from the Dow Jones consensus.”
Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Wednesday that his budget-cutting effort on behalf of President-elect Donald Trump would most likely not find $2 trillion in savings, backtracking on a goal he set earlier as co-head of a new advisory body, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, NBC News reported. Musk told political strategist Mark Penn in an interview broadcast on X that the $2 trillion figure was a “best-case outcome” and that he thought there was only a “good shot” at cutting half that.
“President-elect Donald Trump is preparing nearly 100 executive orders for when he returns to the White House on Jan. 20,” the Washington Post reports. “Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma), appearing on Fox News, said Trump relayed plans to take action on immigration and energy, among other issues, during a meeting with Republican senators in Washington on Wednesday night.”