Trump’s transition team condemn ‘violent threats’ against cabinet picks: Live updates

Donald Trump Jr said his father has discussed banning mainstream media journalists from the White House press briefing room.

The president-elect’s son said on his podcast, Triggered with Donald Trump Jr, that they were considering opening up the briefing room to podcasters like Joe Rogan when asked if it was “time to take away” seats belonging to traditional media.

Rhian Lubin reports.

Trump allies say the incoming administration is already having an impact on world politics, as evidenced by the recently proposed Israel-Lebanon ceasefire deal. “President Trump has been crystal clear that his support for Israel and his commitment to peace in the Middle East is steadfast,” a Trump transition team official told The Independent. “Hezbollah understands this is their best opportunity to get a more favorable deal done. Iran-backed proxies clearly see the clock ticking as President Trump will soon return to the White House with a strong national security team, including Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, and Pete Hegseth, with U.S. intelligence led by Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe. President Trump rightfully predicted that actors in the region would make moves toward peace because of his historic victory — and that’s exactly what we are seeing take place.”

The administration’s picks for key positions have sounded a similar tone about the Lebanon news. “Everyone is coming to the table because of President Trump,” Congressman Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security adviser, wrote on X on Tuesday. “His resounding victory sent a clear message to the rest of the world that chaos won’t be tolerated. I’m glad to see concrete steps towards deescalation in the Middle East. But let’s be clear: The Iran Regime is the root cause of the chaos & terror that has been unleashed across the region. We will not tolerate the status quo of their support for terrorism.”

Here’s more on the potential ceasefire.

Some members of Donald Trump’s transition team are reportedly frustrated that Kash Patel and Cliff Sims, both MAGA insiders, appear to be using their positions to promote themselves for deputy director of the CIA.

Patel and Sims are both going head-to-head for the No. 2 position at the CIA, Politico reports. The CIA’s deputy director wields immense influence over the intelligence community but does not have to be confirmed by the Senate, unlike cabinet members.

However, some transition team members in their orbit are frustrated that the men are advocating for themselves while making staffing decisions, Politico reports.

“The issue that a lot of us have is that these people are involved in staffing national security jobs, and at the same time they’re also promoting themselves for the same roles,” an unnamed insider told Politico.

Katie Hawkinson and Rhian Lubin report.

Eric Garcia writes:

On Monday evening, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on products from Canada and Mexico on his first day in office. He also announced he would levy an additional 10 percent tariff on products from China until its government begins to address the smuggling of fentanyl into the United States.

None of this should be surprising, as Trump repeatedly threatened to impose tariffs throughout the 2024 campaign. When he spoke at the Economic Club of Chicago in October, he brushed off concerns about the economic impact the heavy fees would have on Americans, calling China a “very stupid country.”

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Meredith Clark writes:

Thanksgiving is nearly here, but this year’s turkey-filled holiday may be a bit more contentious than years past; the 2024 U.S. presidential election was only three weeks ago, after all.

Ever since President-elect Donald Trump claimed victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, some Americans may not be feeling so jolly and bright this holiday season, what with the merry-go-round of controversial cabinet picks and concerns over Trump’s anti-immigration policies and stance on LGBTQ+ rights.

For some Americans, Thanksgiving serves as a time to gather with friends and family and acknowledge what it is we’re truly grateful for. But for others, the holidays can prove to be difficult, especially when your political views greatly differ from your relatives.

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While Donald Trump claims his tariffs plan will hurt U.S. trade partners, what does it actually mean for American consumers?

Rhian Lubin investigates.

While former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz’s attempt to become attorney general may only have lasted eight days, he could be making a run for governor in 2026.

Florida State Rep. Anthony Sabatini wrote in a post on X on Saturday that he predicts that Gaetz will be the Sunshine State’s next governor at the end of Governor Ron DeSantis’s second term. Gaetz responded to Sabatini’s post using a gif of the Florida state flag.

Gustaf Kilander has the story.

Though Vice President Kamala Harris did not defeat Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, she was still the strongest Democratic candidate to take him on, according to recent polling.

In a Say24 / YouGov survey of 5,136 registered voters, 46 percent said they cast their ballot for Harris. That figure wasn’t enough to win her the White House, as Trump secured an easy Electoral College win. But, the poll found that Harris had a higher percentage of votes against Trump than other potential Democratic candidates did against the Republican nominee.

Ariana Baio has the details.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg took to X on Monday to fact-check misleading claims about the state of a Biden administration initiative to build more electric vehicle charges.

Josh Marcus has the story.

Economists are generally skeptical, considering tariffs to be a mostly inefficient way for governments to raise money. They are especially alarmed by Trump’s latest proposed tariffs.

Carl B. Weinberg and Rubeela Farooqi, economists with High Frequency Economics said Tuesday that energy, automobiles and food supplies will be particularly hit hard.

“Imposing tariffs on trade flows into the United States without first preparing alternative sources for the goods and services affected will raise the price of imported items at once,” Weinberg and Farooqi wrote. “Since many of these goods are consumer goods, households will be made poorer.”

High Frequency Economics believes the threats are not meant to support new trade policy and are instead a tool to elicit some changes along the borders and for imports from Canada, Mexico and China.

Though Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Trump’s tariff threats as unserious during her failed bid for the presidency, the Biden-Harris administration retained the taxes the Trump administration imposed on $360 billion in Chinese goods. And it imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles.

Indeed, the United States in recent years has gradually retreated from its post-World War II role of promoting global free trade and lower tariffs. That shift has been a response to the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs, widely attributed to unfettered trade and an increasingly aggressive China.

Economists generally consider tariffs self-defeating

Tariffs raise costs for companies and consumers that rely on imports. They’re also likely to provoke retaliation.

The European Union, for example, punched back against Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum by taxing U.S. products, from bourbon to Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Likewise, China responded to Trump’s trade war by slapping tariffs on American goods, including soybeans and pork in a calculated drive to hurt his supporters in farm country.

A study by economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Zurich, Harvard and the World Bank concluded that Trump’s tariffs failed to restore jobs to the American heartland. The tariffs “neither raised nor lowered U.S. employment’’ where they were supposed to protect jobs, the study found.

Despite Trump’s 2018 taxes on imported steel, for example, the number of jobs at U.S. steel plants barely budged: They remained right around 140,000. By comparison, Walmart alone employs 1.6 million people in the United States.

Worse, the retaliatory taxes imposed by China and other nations on U.S. goods had “negative employment impacts,’’ especially for farmers, the study found. These retaliatory tariffs were only partly offset by billions in government aid that Trump doled out to farmers. The Trump tariffs also damaged companies that relied on targeted imports.

If Trump’s trade war fizzled as policy, though, it succeeded as politics. The study found that support for Trump and Republican congressional candidates rose in areas most exposed to the import tariffs — the industrial Midwest and manufacturing-heavy Southern states like North Carolina and Tennessee.

Reporting by the Associated Press