The National Security Purge Begins

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told NBC News his country “never” plotted to assassinate Donald Trump during last year’s U. S. election campaign and never will in the future. Asked about the reported plot against Trump outlined by U. S. authorities, Pezeshkian said: “This is another one of those schemes that Israel and other countries are designing to promote Iranophobia.” He added: “Iran has never attempted to nor does it plan to assassinate anyone.

Mark Zuckerberg is hosting an inaugural ball reception for Donald Trump and J. D. Vance with Miriam Adelson, Todd Ricketts and Tilman Fertitta, Puck reports.

Jonathan Martin: “It’s hardly a secret that Senate Republicans have misgivings about Gabbard: one aide to a senior lawmaker told me that, in a secret ballot, she’d lose at least 15 Republicans (and that may be a conservative estimate).”

Politico: “The agencies’ concerns reflect the heightened political — and potentially violent — environment in which Trump will assume power.”

“Karen Bass may have been born and raised in Los Angeles, but her fire-ravaged hometown has become newly hostile territory,” Politico reports. “Never in her decades-long political career has the Los Angeles mayor been the subject of such intense public scrutiny, from her anxious and grieving constituents all the way up to the incoming president.”

“President Joe Biden is set to deliver his farewell address at 8 p.m. tonight, saying goodbye to elected office after 53 years of seeking it, a quest that defined well more than half of his life,” Politico reports. “He leaves office in confounding fashion. He recently welcomed Donald Trump back to the Oval Office after calling him an ‘existential threat’ during the campaign.