The Latest: Trump Disbands Manufacturing Council

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) was asked by Politico if Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has the experience and character to be attorney general. Said Simpson: “Are you shitting me, that you just asked that question? No! But hell, you’ll print that and now I’m going to be investigated.”

Ken White: “If this is a sincere appointment—in other words, if it isn’t a head-fake to get the Senate to accept another candidate later, or a ruse to let Gaetz resign from Congress and avoid a damaging ethics report—it’s an example of self-indulgence thwarting malign intent. Gaetz is a buffoon.

Sharon Waxman: “The media got it wrong. Fatally wrong. And the media can’t just pivot into the next cycle of looking around the room and asking, ‘What just happened?’ as if it had nothing to do with it. The room is too small. The audience insular. The results were decisively not what was expected.

“Cuba is hemorrhaging people as the economy falters. Now, the country is coming under fresh political pressure as one of the government’s archrivals is poised to start calling foreign-policy shots in Washington,” Bloomberg reports. “With Donald Trump headed back to the White House and hawkish Senator Marco Rubio picked as his secretary of state, the island’s leadership is bracing for what comes next.

A senior former intelligence official told Politico that the nomination of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence was a “left turn and off the bridge.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board slammed Donald Trump’s nomination of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as Attorney General: “He’s a performer and provocateur, and his view is that the more explosions he can cause, the more attention he can get… He’s a nominee for those who want the law used for political revenge, and it won’t end well.”