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“After forty-three years of faithful service in uniform to our Nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights.”
— Retired Army Gen. Mark Milley said he was “deeply grateful” to receive a preemptive pardon from outgoing President Joe Biden Monday, USA Today reports.
“You have a two-seat majority, and you shot one of your members.”
— A House Republican lawmaker, quoted by Politico, on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) ousting House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner (R-OH) and making him “an enemy.”
“It’s weird to find solace in the Civil War, or the Great Depression, or the beginning of World War Two, but my whole optimistic temperament depends on saying that we will get through it and emerge stronger.”
— Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, in an interview with the Financial Times.
“The Joe Biden story is one of the great tragedies of American politics. I really mean that. He should be having a glorious, well deserved, highly acclaimed retirement. And he’s not. It’s hard to blame anybody but him.”
— Veteran Democratic political strategist James Carville, quoted by NBC News.
“A lot of people are going to get brutally scammed …. Scamming people like that is what his whole life has been around.”
— Paul Krugman, talking about the incoming Trump administration on The Daily Blast.
“Today an oligarchy is taking shape in America — of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”
— President Biden warned Americans of a “dangerous concentration of power” in the hands of a “very few ultra-wealthy people” and the impact he feared it would have on the country’s democracy as he delivered a farewell address Wednesday from the Oval Office, Bloomberg reports.
“Even though he will take office in just a few days, we have almost no idea. … That’s not because the Trump team is keeping its plans closely held, nor is it because there are major factional fights. All the evidence suggests, instead, that Trump’s economic team still doesn’t have any plans, or even concepts of plans. All it has are some half-formulated thoughts about how to cater to Trump’s prejudices without doing massive economic damage.”
— Paul Krugman
“How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night? Have any of you guys asked them to step down and resign from their jobs? And don’t tell me you haven’t seen it, because I know you have.”
— Sen. Markwayne Mullen (R-OK), quoted by the Daily Beast, defending Secretary of Defense-designate Pete Hegseth.
“I think these days of thunder starting next week are going to be incredibly, incredibly intense.”
— Steve Bannon, quoted by Politico, on the start of Donald Trump’s second term.
“The department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind,” Mr. Smith wrote in his report. “Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.”
— The New York Times: The Justice Department delivered the 137-page volume — representing half of Mr. Smith’s overall final report, with the volume about Mr. Trump’s other federal case, accusing him of mishandling classified documents, still confidential — to Congress just after midnight on Tuesday.
