December 9, 2024 - Presidential transition news

Our live coverage of the Trump administration’s transition has ended for the day. Follow the latest updates or read through the posts below.

Pete Hegseth arrives for a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on December 4.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, said Monday he would support women serving in the military, addressing previous comments he made in which he said women service members should not serve in combat roles.

Hegseth said during a Fox News interview that if he’s confirmed as defense secretary, he would support women service members, who he called “some of our greatest warriors,” while seeking to “clarify comments that have been misconstrued” about his views on the roles women military members should be allowed to hold.

Hegseth’s response comes after he said during a podcast interview last month that “we should not have women in combat roles.”

The controversy around Hegseth’s comments about women service members is one of the issues plaguing the former Fox News anchor’s embattled confirmation process, following reports of his alleged sexual misconduct and excessive drinking. Hegseth said Monday he’s eager to have his background scrutinized to clear his name amid the accusations, which he has denied.

“You know what I look forward to? I look forward to the FBI background check. I look forward to the actual under oath conversations with senators as we go through the process,” he said. “It’s the anatomy of a smear.”

Hegseth has been in meetings on Capitol Hill in recent weeks to earn support among senators. He met with Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst for the second time on Monday and told Fox News, “It was a great meeting.”

Hegseth said he plans to meet with two of the most moderate members of the Republican Senate caucus later this week. He said he will meet with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Tuesday and Maine Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday.

President-elect Donald Trump on Monday announced Harmeet K. Dhillon, a conservative attorney who has represented Trump, as his selection for assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Justice Department.

“In her new role at the DOJ, Harmeet will be a tireless defender of our Constitutional Rights, and will enforce our Civil Rights and Election Laws FAIRLY and FIRMLY,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Trump also announced that Mark Paoletta, another conservative attorney, will be rejoining his administration as the general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget.

In a Truth Social post, Trump described Paoletta as a “brilliant and tenacious lawyer” and highlighted his previous work in this same role in the first Trump administration.

The president-elect said that Paoletta will work closely with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “to cut the size of our bloated Government bureaucracy, and root out wasteful and anti-American spending.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham attends the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on online child sexual exploitation at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 31.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham was upbeat about two of President-elect Donald Trump’s more controversial Cabinet picks whom he met Monday, even as he said they have questions to answer about their past actions.

On Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s choice for director of national intelligence, Graham said she will need to explain why she amplified Russian propaganda and why she opposed the killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, among other issues.

Graham also indicated to CNN’s Manu Raju that he is open to supporting Gabbard’s confirmation despite their disagreements on key policy issues.

“We’ve had policy differences … but you know, she’ll be serving Trump. We’ll see how the hearing goes. I like her,” he said.

On Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Graham said he still has the same deep concerns related to financial mismanagement and personal misconduct that he expressed last week but said Hegseth was “candid and he gave explanations to my concerns.”

Graham said he is “predisposed to support nominees” and “we’ll see where it goes.”

Rudy Giuliani departs the US District Courthouse in Washington, DC, on December 15, 2023.

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former attorney, said he can’t find a lawyer to defend himself from being held in contempt of court, telling a federal judge that she’s the problem.

In a court filing that became available Monday, Giuliani accused Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court of being biased in matters related to Trump and said she’s the reason four attorneys have refused to take on his case.

Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, Georgia election workers who won a $150 million verdict against Giuliani because he defamed them after the 2020 election, want him to be sanctioned for continuing to spread falsehoods about them even after he agreed not to.

Giuliani asked to postpone Thursday’s contempt proceedings in DC’s federal court. Howell rescheduled the hearing for January 10.

The former New York mayor wrote in a sworn affidavit that Howell “is unreasonable and biased about Trump related matters” and that the four attorneys he spoke to about representing him in the contempt hearing wouldn’t because they believe they can’t win.

“One said it was a ‘foregone conclusion’ and ‘a no-win proposition,’” Giuliani wrote.

Howell, in moving the contempt hearing to next month, reminded him she has the power to sanction him with severe punishments at this stage, including “compensatory and coercive fines, including imprisonment.”

Some background: The contempt proceedings are separate from the continuing attempts by Freeman and Moss in court to collect the defamation judgment, which stemmed from statements Giuliani made after the 2020 election. Giuliani, working as an attorney for Trump, falsely claimed the election workers tampered with votes they were counting.

With their ongoing pursuit of his apartments, luxury jewelry, furniture and baseball memorabilia in the background, the contempt proceeding against Giuliani is the latest dire legal situation for the former mayor of New York and once one of the most powerful prosecutors in the country.

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, shared a post on X on Monday showing he visited with Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

“USA today. The future has begun! An afternoon in Mar-a-Lago with @realDonaldTrump, @elonmusk and @michaelgwaltz,” Orbán wrote in the post, which featured photos with Musk and Trump.

Some context: Trump has embraced Hungary’s far-right prime minister, touting Orbán’s backing and hosting him at Mar-a-Lago in March.

Orbán has successfully centralized power throughout his 14 years as prime minister, much to the chagrin of his critics and the European Union. In 2022, the European Parliament voted that Hungary can no longer be considered a true democracy, and the chamber has decried Orbán’s introduction of anti-LGBTQ laws, his expanded control over the judiciary and his so-called peace missions to Russia and China amid the war in Ukraine.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes the stage during a campaign rally for President-elect Donald Trump at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan, on November 1.

Dozens of Nobel Prize winners are urging the US Senate to oppose Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services, according to a letter dated Monday and published by the New York Times.

The letter – signed by 77 laureates in chemistry, economics, medicine and physics – cites Kennedy’s opposition to vaccines, his criticism of the fluoridation of drinking water, his promotion of AIDS conspiracy theories and his criticism of HHS agencies such as the US Food and Drug Administration, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US National Institutes of Health.

Kennedy has been one of the nation’s most prominent anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists for years and has frequently spread false conspiracy theories about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. He has also committed to formally recommending that states and municipalities remove fluoride from public water.

Kennedy has said he doesn’t think AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. Instead, he says, it comes from wearing down the immune system with drug use, which is not true.

Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, said Monday she agrees with President-elect Donald Trump’s statements on the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Gabbard did not answer when asked if her previous meeting with Assad was discussed in her meetings.

Some context: Gabbard, who has faced criticism for both her pro-Russia and her pro-Assad rhetoric, said as recently as 2019 that she did not regret her trip to Syria to meet with former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

In 2017, Gabbard said she was “skeptical” the Assad regime had used chemical weapons against Syrians despite Trump, who was president at the time, saying there could be “no dispute” the regime did so.

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be FBI Director Kash Patel arrives at Sen. Joni Ernst's office for a meeting in the Russell Senate Office Building on December 9, in Washington, DC.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn said Monday he is inclined to support President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for FBI director Kash Patel after the two discussed “restoring the reputation of the FBI as a non-partisan” agency.

“I assume that Mr. Patel will be confirmed as the next FBI director. We talked about the importance of restoring the reputation of the FBI as a non-partisan law enforcement investigative agency,” Cornyn of Texas said.

Cornyn said after their conversation that he is “certainly inclined to support him — barring some unforeseen circumstances.”

Putting Patel in charge of the FBI would require forcing out current director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump, before his term expires. Cornyn said he did not know what Wray’s plans were, but he expects Patel to be confirmed. He stressed that should Patel be confirmed, it is important he tell the president the truth.

Trump’s FBI director pick came across in a serious manner during his meeting with Cornyn, according to a source familiar with the meeting.

GOP Sen. Joni Ernst shared a photo on X from her meeting with Patel earlier Monday, and said he would “create much-needed transparency at the FBI.”

After speaking with Ernst in her office on Monday, Patel said that their “meeting went wonderful.”

Meanwhile, incoming Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley said Patel agreed with him on his criticism of the FBI and its current director. Earlier, the Republican from Iowa sent a letter to Wray, saying he has “no confidence” in his ability to lead the FBI. Grassley railed against Wray and FBI leadership for not “not answering our questions, letters, not appearing before committees when they’re asked to appear.”

When asked about whether he and Patel discussed Trump saying members of the January 6th committee should go to jail, Grassley declined to give further details about their discussion except to say they discussed that “congressional oversight should be respected.” An aide with Grassley said Patel did not say he would shut down the FBI building in Washington, DC.

This post has been updated with more reactions to the meetings.

GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa issued a positive statement Monday after meeting with Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the Defense Department, saying she looks “forward to a fair hearing based on truth, not anonymous sources.”

Ernst would not say if she feels confident with Hegseth’s denials over a past sexual assault allegation when pressed by CNN. She did say her meeting with Hegseth on Monday was “thoughtful” and “deep” and “it was good to have a real thorough policy discussion.”

Asked by CNN if the pressure she is facing back home to support Hegseth and primary politics played a role in her positive statement, the senator said, “We have been talking these same issues every meeting that we’ve had, and he had really thoughtful answers.” The senator said “it’s to be determined” if she will have another meeting with Hegseth.

Ernst also said Hegseth is “very supportive” of women in military, despite his previous comments that women should not serve in combat roles.

What Hegseth is saying: Earlier Monday, Trump’s defense secretary pick told CNN that he had a “very good meeting” with Ernst, after the two met again on Capitol Hill. Hegseth would not say if Ernst will back him when asked, noting instead that it was a great meeting. Ernst, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is seen as a key potential swing vote. The two also spoke over the weekend.

This post has been updated with more comments from Sen. Ernst on her meeting with Hegseth.

Pete Hegseth, center, and his wife Jennifer Rauchet arrive for meetings in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on December 9, in Washington, DC.

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick to be defense secretary, reiterated he has the support of the president-elect as he begins to make his rounds with more lawmakers on Monday.

Asked if he had spoken to Trump over the weekend about the status of his nomination, Hegseth gave a thumbs up but did not say yes or no or elaborate on a possible conversation.

Trump expressed his support for Hegseth in a Truth Social post on Friday.

Hegseth arrived on Capitol Hill on Monday for another week of working to win over lawmakers central to his confirmation.

“We are psyched to be back on Capitol Hill meeting with lots of senators this week. It’s going to be a great week,” he told reporters.

Hegseth, accompanied by his wife, did not answer questions about what he plans to speak about in his second meeting with GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, a veteran and sexual assault survivor who has not yet committed to voting for Hegseth, as he faces questions about his treatment of women.

He also didn’t answer a question about his reaction to the situation in Syria.

GOP Sen. Joni Ernst posted on X a photo of herself with Tulsi Gabbard from their meeting earlier Monday, calling President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence a “strong and proven leader.”

Gabbard is meeting with key lawmakers today alongside Trump Cabinet picks as they look to garner suppor for their Senate confirmations.

Sen. Charles Grassley speaks to reporters as he walks to a Senate luncheons at the US Capitol on November 19 in Washington, DC.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley sent a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray on Monday blasting his tenure as being marked by “fundamental” failures, laying out the case for why GOP lawmakers think Wray should be fired.

The 11-page letter states that “as we stand at the threshold of a new Congress and a new administration, with seven years of water under the bridge, you’ve failed in these fundamental duties as director.” And those failures, Grassley wrote, “are serious enough and their pattern widespread enough to have shattered my confidence in your leadership and the confidence and hope many others in Congress placed in you.”

“I therefore must express my vote of no confidence in your continued leadership of the FBI,” Grassley wrote.

Key meetings on Capitol Hill: The letter comes as president-elect Donald Trump’s pick for the next FBI director, Kash Patel, begins his first meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Wray would have to resign before his 10-year tenure is up, or be fired take make way for Patel. Trump, who has vowed to fire Wray as soon as he takes office in January, was asked again about that pledge on “Meet the Press” on NBC Sunday.

“Well, I can’t say I’m thrilled with him,” Trump said, referring to Wray.

Grassley is expected to meet with Patel later today. His letter details complaints that Republicans have publicly flung at Wray, including allegations that the FBI did not participate in the oversight process and that federal law enforcement has been weaponized against Trump.

Fresh off a week of high-stakes meetings, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense Pete Hegseth is still standing — but with his path to a confirmation still very much in flux.

For Hegseth’s team, last ended in a much stronger place than it began. Republican senators emerged uncommitted but not opposed. GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, who had a frank and direct meeting, according to a source familiar, ended the week saying she believed that Hegseth deserved a hearing. Ernst will meet again with Hegseth today.

Several Republicans, including Sens. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the incoming chair of Senate Armed Services, all signaled they could get to a yes, barring additional surprises in Hegseth’s background.

But, the upcoming week of meetings will pile on yet another challenge as Hegseth fights to hold on. The defense secretary pick will meet again with Ernst and is expected to sit down with Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, two key swing votes who have made no secret of the fact they have serious questions about Hegseth’s alleged past behavior. Trump’s transition team has been focused on the critical women senators who they will need to carry Hegseth over the finish line and have signaled concern over the former Fox News host.

Hegseth’s conversations over the course of the last several days have also demonstrated he’s got work to do. In several meetings, senators didn’t sugarcoat to Hegseth that his confirmation hearing would not be easy as Democrats and Republicans would ask questions about intimate details of his marriages and past alcohol use.

Hegseth also has some clean-up to do as some Republicans have been put off by his sometimes shifting schedule and direct style with members, something that may seem insignificant on the surface, but can put a nominee on the wrong side of a senator who views it to be a nominee’s job to accommodate their processes and schedules.

It also did not go unnoticed that Hegseth included his wife in meetings, a move that could make it awkward for members to push him on his past treatment of women.

Linda McMahon speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 18.

A judge has paused an ongoing lawsuit against Linda McMahon, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Education Department, that accuses her and the company she once led, World Wrestling Entertainment, of failing to act on allegations of sex abuse of children who helped ringside at wrestling events in the 1980s.

The move in the WWE case, from Judge James Bredar in Maryland’s federal district court, will keep the proceeding against McMahon and the company at bay until a ruling from the Maryland Supreme Court, which heard arguments in September.

The lawsuit raises questions of what McMahon knew and when at the time she was head of the professional wrestling company and a ringside announcer allegedly preyed on underage boys. The pause has the potential to delay the case through any Senate confirmation proceeding for McMahon, who denies the allegations.

The case recently arose after Maryland changed its law to lift the statute of limitations for lawsuits related to sex abuse of minors. But the Maryland Supreme Court is set to rule on a challenge to that law from other organizations that have been sued and argue they should not have to face allegations of turning a blind eye to abuse years after it occurs.

The suit alleges McMahon, her husband, the WWE and TKO Group Holdings, the league’s parent company, knowingly allowed employee Melvin Phillips Jr. to use his position as ringside announcer to sexually exploit children. Lawyers for both of the McMahons have called the accusations against them false.

World Wrestling Entertainment and its parent company asked to pause the case against them, McMahon and her husband Vince earlier this month for reasons of “judicial efficiency and economy.” They also say they plan to challenge the Maryland law allowing for the lawsuit, if the case against them were to move forward, according to the court record.

Read more about the lawsuit here.

Former GOP Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner will become the chair of the board for the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the leading super PAC for Senate Republicans, according to two sources with knowledge of the move.

The selection of Gardner comes after SLF chief executive and president Steven Law, a longtime ally of GOP Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, announced Friday he would depart the influential outside group. The move coincides with Senate Republicans elevating GOP South Dakota Sen. John Thune to serve as Majority Leader in the next Congress after the GOP flipped control of the chamber in November.

Gardner is expected to work alongside Republican operatives Johnny DeStefano and Paula Dukes to find a new CEO and president to succeed Law. Elected to the US Senate in 2014, Gardner served as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2018 midterms cycle.

The naming of Gardner as chair of the SLF board was first reported by Punchbowl News.

More on the super PAC: SLF was created a decade ago and under Law’s leadership, has become a key player in Senate races. During the 2024 election cycle, the super PAC reported raising more than $292 million and spending over $294 million, deploying its massive war chest to target the most competitive Senate races.

And according to data from the ad tracking firm AdImpact, SLF ranked as the sixth largest political advertiser in the country during the 2024 campaign. The group spent more than $240 million on ads since the start of 2023, playing a key role in Republicans’ efforts to flip the Senate and oust veteran Democratic members such as Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, and Montana Sen. Jon Tester.

SLF gets its funding from mainstay Republican megadonors, having received millions from billionaire financiers including Ken Griffin, Paul Singer, and Stephen Schwarzman – and in 2024, the group also benefited from ramped up political giving by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who gave the group $10 million in early October, ahead of the critical final sprint to Election Day.

The US Capitol building is seen from the Cannon House Office Building in July in Washington, DC.

President-elect Donald Trump’s Defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth is expected to face another round of grilling this week on Capitol Hill, when he plans to meet with Sens. Josh Hawley, Susan Collins and others.

He will be joined by another crop of Trump picks: Kristi Noem, the choice for Department of Homeland Security; Linda McMahon, the choice for the Department of Education; Howard Lutnick, whom Trump wants to oversee the Commerce department; and others chosen to run agencies who have not grabbed the same headlines.

Kash Patel, Trump’s controversial pick to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation — which has an independent director whose term is not finished — will also meet with lawmakers.

Tulsi Gabbard, tapped to be Trump’s director of national intelligence, will also be on Capitol Hill.

GOP Sen. Joni Ernst and Gabbard through the Russell basement together on Monday morning.

Gabbard ignored questions about whether she is confident she will be confirmed, and when she last spoke with Trump. Ernst also ignored questions about her conversations with Hegseth.

CNN’s Morgan Rimmer contributed reporting to this post.

This post has been updated with more details on the Cabinet picks’ meetings.

President-elect Donald Trump attends a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris as part of ceremonies to mark the reopening of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral on December 7.

President-elect Donald Trump repeated numerous false claims during an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” — including his old lie that the US is the world’s only country with birthright citizenship.

Trump reiterated his intention to try to end birthright citizenship, in which, under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, someone born in the US is granted automatic citizenship even if their parents are not citizens. And he asserted, “We’re the only country that has it.”

This is not true; CNN and various other outlets previously debunked the claim when Trump made it during his presidential campaign in 2015 and during his first presidency in 2018. About three dozen countries provide automatic citizenship to people born on their soil, including US neighbors Canada and Mexico and the majority of South American countries.

Read more fact checks from Trump’s interview here.

Flames sweep through the criminal security branch of Syria's Interior Ministry in Damascus on December 8.

US President-elect Donald Trump took to social media early Sunday morning to weigh in on the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.

“Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

“There was no reason for Russia to be there in the first place,” he said, adding “They lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine.”

“Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success,” Trump said.

The president-elect then highlighted the number of soldiers killed on both sides in Russia’s war on Ukraine and called for an end to the fighting.

“There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin,” he wrote without specifying which conflict he was referring to.

A distracted Moscow: Russia has been waging war in Ukraine for over two years, leaving it with less military might to cover Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria.

For Russia, Syria’s fall means losing its closest Middle Eastern ally and undermining its ability to project power while it fights its war in Ukraine.

You can follow CNN’s live coverage of what’s happening in Syria here.