Fafo: Nikki Haley Edition (with A Pompeo Assist)

The logs were stacked high and flames filled the Oval Office fireplace as President Joe Biden sat next to President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday. Biden smiled and extended his hand in welcome. It was a meeting Biden hoped could bring down the temperature in American politics but the halting introductions betrayed the awkwardness of the moment.

WASHINGTON — Republicans have elected South Dakota Sen. John Thune as the next Senate majority leader, completing a momentous shift in their leadership that elevates a top deputy of Sen. Mitch McConnell into a key position as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Thune, who is 63 and in his fourth Senate term, has promised to work closely with Trump despite differences the two have had over the years.

Fox News legal editor Kerri Urbahn told 'The Story with Martha McCallum that Trump could force a pardon from Gov. Hochul by threatening to withhold federal funds to New York unless she pardons his 34 felonies. This shouldn't come as a surprise since Urbahn was the Director of Public Affairs for the Department of Justice under Attorney General Bill Barr during the first Trump administration. This segment was prompted by the judge delaying a decision on Trump's 34 felony convictions for another week. MACCALLUM: Governor Hochul could also pardon President Trump on these charges because it is a state charge, right? URBAHN: Yeah that's right and look she needs to really be thinking through this because New York state needs federal money and they get a lot of it. And there is a lot that the federal government could do in terms of pulling funding from both the city and the state of New York.

President Joe Biden passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris because he was concerned about our country under another Trump administration. There is no ill will between the two, and when Biden stumped for Harris, he looked proud. So, it's not unusual for the two to have a private lunch together unless you are Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy.

The knives have come out. CNN is hosting many of these right wing Democrats who make millions off the party and its members and then use right wing rhetoric to take it down after their own failures. I put up the entire transcript of his sleepwalking nonsense of what the Democratic party is.

Seems like the best way to get ahead of these bad picks is to expose them before they’re official.