Mark Meadows Out Of The Running For Chief Of Staff

Bloomberg: “In a gambit familiar to adversaries and allies alike, Trump said in a social media post Monday evening he would slap 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada and additional 10% duties on China, unless they clamp down on migrants and illegal drugs coming to the US. Those three countries account for about 40% of all US trade.” “It all had a familiar feel to a flurry of threats in his first term.” CNN: Trump tries to force other countries to negotiating table on immigration and trade with promise to hike tariffs.

“It’s a daunting reality for Democrats: Republican Donald Trump’s support has grown broadly since he last sought the presidency,” the AP reports. “In his defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris, Trump won a bigger percentage of the vote in each one of the 50 states, and Washington, D. C., than he did four years ago.

“President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday reached a required agreement with President Joe Biden’s White House to allow his transition staff to coordinate with the existing federal workforce before taking office on Jan. 20,” the AP reports. “The congressionally mandated agreement allows transition aides to work with federal agencies and access non-public information and gives a green light to government workers to talk to the transition team.”

“Donald Trump entered the White House eight years ago with a Cabinet full of traditional conservative credentials, tapping some people he barely knew to help him learn his way around Washington,” the Washington Post reports. “Now the president-elect has rapidly assembled a different kind of team for his second term — enlisting people deeply critical of the agencies they will lead, bucking conservative orthodoxy with some of his picks and, above all, rewarding his most loyal allies.”

“The U. S. imports approximately 60% of its fresh fruit and 40% of its fresh vegetables,” NBC News reports. “And among the countries of origin for those products, Mexico is the biggest contributor — meaning U. S. consumers could see higher prices for a range of grocery and produce items if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his latest threat to impose a 25% tariff on all items brought in across the southern border.”

“Two Trump transition insiders, Cliff Sims and Kash Patel, are angling to be deputy director of the CIA — and angering others who feel they’re using their roles on the transition to undermine any would-be contenders,” Political reports.