We begin today’s roundup with Isaac Arnsdorf at POLITICO who details how Donald Trump’s incoming administration is already facing major ethics problems:
More than a third of the almost 200 people who have met with President-elect Donald Trump since his election last month, including those interviewing for administration jobs, gave large amounts of money to support his campaign and other Republicans this election cycle.
All together the 73 donors contributed $1.7 million to Trump and groups supporting him, according to a POLITICO analysis of Federal Election Commission records, and $57.3 million to the rest of the party, averaging more than $800,000 per donor.
Donors also represent 39 percent of the 119 people Trump reportedly considered for high-level government posts, and 38 percent of those he eventually picked, according to the analysis, which counted candidates named by the transition and in news reports.
While campaign donors often are tapped to fill comfy diplomatic posts across the globe, the extent to which donors are stocking Trump’s administration is unparalleled in modern residential history, due in part to the Supreme Court decisions that loosened restrictions on campaign contributions, according to three longtime campaign experts.
The AP details Trump’s attacks on Hillary Clinton — attacks that could be used against him right now:
Then: “She doesn’t do news conferences, because she can’t,” Trump said at an August rally in Ashburn, Virginia. “She’s so dishonest she doesn’t want people peppering her with questions.”
Now: Trump opened his last news conference on July 27, saying: “You know, I put myself through your news conferences often, not that it’s fun.”
He hasn’t held one since.
Trump skipped the news conference a president-elect typically gives after winning the White House. Instead, he released a YouTube video of under three minutes. He also recently abruptly canceled plans to hold his first post-election news conference, opting instead to describe his plans for managing his businesses in tweets. “I will hold a press conference in the near future to discuss the business, Cabinet picks and all other topics of interest. Busy times!” he tweeted in mid-December.
Speaking of press conferences, Frank Sesno, director of the George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs, writes at CNN about the need for Trump to stop avoiding the press:
While there is something quaint and quirky about presidential press conferences, they show the elected official on his (or her) feet, engaged in a spontaneous exchange with a roomful of knowledgeable and, yes, often adversarial people. [...] The White House press corps can be maddening in size and tone, sometimes a proving ground for egos and ambition with a crowd mentality that can reduce issues to sound bites or political food fights. But a good White House correspondent is like a good war reporter — experienced in combat, sensitive to the complexities of conflict, attuned to change and nuance and committed to holding those in power accountable for their words and actions.
So, Mr. Trump, let journalists gather and ask you those snarky questions. Get in the ring and endure the testing and the confrontation, the sparring that defines our democracy. Show the world that the president of the United States is accessible, accountable and willing to explain, defend, convince and cajole in an open forum with people whose job it is to report his every move.
Emily Jane Fox at Vanity Fair:
But this is not figuring out if he can head to Palm Beach for winter holidays, as he did pre-election, or whether or not he really needs to be in D.C. on weekends. The conflicts of interests are, at best, a distraction from whatever work he wants to get done and an embarrassment on the world’s stage. At worst, they could be unconstitutional and could lead to impeachment. This is a consideration one would think someone entering the presidential race would have figured out, particularly after a 16-month campaign in which he was, for much of that time, the front-runner and then the nominee. But with less than a month to go and still no officially-announced plan, there is no room for stubbornly clinging onto what he’s always done as a businessman, because he is no longer a businessman. The president’s job is to make difficult decisions, ones far weightier than whether or not he will let go of a 300-room hotel. Then again, the president, until now, hasn’t had to make those decisions while also calculating how his choices will impact his financial holdings. Perhaps Trump, then, will have it doubly hard.
Turning to policy, former director of the National Economic Council Gene Sperling warns Democrats to watch out for the war on Medicaid:
Progressives have already homed in on Republican efforts to privatize Medicare as one of the major domestic political battles of 2017. If Donald J. Trump decides to gut the basic guarantee of Medicare and revamp its structure so that it hurts older and sicker people, Democrats must and will push back hard. But if Democrats focus too much of their attention on Medicare, they may inadvertently assist the quieter war on Medicaid — one that could deny health benefits to millions of children, seniors, working families and people with disabilities.
Of the two battles, the Republican effort to dismantle Medicaid is more certain. Neither Mr. Trump nor Senate Republicans may have the stomach to fully own the political risks of Medicare privatization. But not only have Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Tom Price, Mr. Trump’s choice for secretary of health and human services, made proposals to deeply cut Medicaid through arbitrary block grants or “per capita caps,” during the campaign, Mr. Trump has also proposed block grants.
The New York Times meanwhile explains how Trump’s budget chief can “wreak havoc”:
Because all policies affect the budget, all policies, directly or indirectly, fall into the O.M.B.’s purview at some point. Mr. Mulvaney would thus play an important role in decisions about how to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, a Republican priority. He would also have a voice in discussions over Mr. Trump’s infrastructure plan. As a sworn enemy of government spending, it seems likely he would prefer to finance the plan by giving tax cuts to private developers rather than sending federal money to the states — a move that would create windfall profits for a few private businesses without adequately meeting public infrastructure needs.
On regulatory actions over which the O.M.B. has a say, there is every reason to believe that Mr. Mulvaney, serving in a Trump administration, would water down or indefinitely delay proposed rules. During his time in Congress, he has supported regulatory rollback efforts, including legislation to strip President Obama of executive rule-making authority. The rules over which the O.M.B. has influence include energy and environmental standards, labor protections and food safety.
On a final — and positive -— note, Amy Davidson at The New Yorker profiles Michelle Obama’s historic tenure at the White House:
In Council Bluffs, Obama said, “I don’t want my girls to live in a country, in a world based on fear.” At the time, Malia was nine; Sasha was six. Obama was still imagining what the future held for her daughters, and for the daughters of all Americans, when she said, in a speech in October, that Trump’s comments about women had “shaken me to my core.” She became one of Hillary Clinton’s most tireless advocates in the final weeks of the campaign. Given the outcome, there may be something melancholy about the echoes of the Iowa speech in the pleas she made to voters, urging them not to give in to the fears that Trump’s candidacy thrived on. Perhaps they did. But no one should doubt that Michelle Obama’s courage has left an indelible mark. Her time as First Lady changed this country and clarified its vision. And she has been one of the revelations.