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| Donald Trump in Indiana as Democratic Ranks Crack. Chris Christie for G.O.P. Chairman? | |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| President-elect Donald J. Trump headed to Indiana from Trump Tower on Thursday to hail the 1,000 jobs that the air-conditioner maker Carrier will keep in the United States, but the deal is taking heat. Democrats are showing deep fissures as a House star decamps, a senator courts Trump, and a possible party chairman takes fire. | |
| The president-elect begins a victory lap on Thursday, celebrating not only his victory in November but also his seeming success at keeping some well-paid manufacturing jobs in the United States. | The president-elect begins a victory lap on Thursday, celebrating not only his victory in November but also his seeming success at keeping some well-paid manufacturing jobs in the United States. |
| First, Mr. Trump is scheduled to visit a Carrier plant in Indianapolis after the company announced it would keep 1,000 jobs there, shelving plans to move them to Mexico. The details of what exactly Mr. Trump agreed to in the negotiations with the manufacturer remained unclear. But the decision was a public relations win for the president-elect, who campaigned on the promise that he would work to prevent the export of manufacturing jobs to countries with cheaper labor. | First, Mr. Trump is scheduled to visit a Carrier plant in Indianapolis after the company announced it would keep 1,000 jobs there, shelving plans to move them to Mexico. The details of what exactly Mr. Trump agreed to in the negotiations with the manufacturer remained unclear. But the decision was a public relations win for the president-elect, who campaigned on the promise that he would work to prevent the export of manufacturing jobs to countries with cheaper labor. |
| (Actually, the plant makes gas furnaces, but why be a stickler for details? Incidentally, he followed with another Twitter post repeating the error.) | (Actually, the plant makes gas furnaces, but why be a stickler for details? Incidentally, he followed with another Twitter post repeating the error.) |
| Then Mr. Trump will head to a rally in Cincinnati to say thank you to Ohio, which he carried, and where no recount is being demanded. Mr. Trump exulted in his campaign rallies and seems to be itching to return to the adulation of the crowds. It will be interesting to see what tonal change, if any, Mr. Trump adopts after his election victory. Other states are expected to be added to the tour in the days and weeks ahead. | Then Mr. Trump will head to a rally in Cincinnati to say thank you to Ohio, which he carried, and where no recount is being demanded. Mr. Trump exulted in his campaign rallies and seems to be itching to return to the adulation of the crowds. It will be interesting to see what tonal change, if any, Mr. Trump adopts after his election victory. Other states are expected to be added to the tour in the days and weeks ahead. |
| The Trump team appears to be leaving nothing to chance. His campaign bought a radio ad that will air in Cincinnati on Thursday, according to a Republican strategist who tracks the news media. The ad is said to promote the tour. | The Trump team appears to be leaving nothing to chance. His campaign bought a radio ad that will air in Cincinnati on Thursday, according to a Republican strategist who tracks the news media. The ad is said to promote the tour. |
| He and Vice President-elect Mike Pence will also appear on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program. | He and Vice President-elect Mike Pence will also appear on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program. |
| The decision by Gov. Jerry Brown of California to name Representative Xavier Becerra to be the state’s attorney general has set off another round of finger-pointing among Democrats — and opened a crucial post in the Trump era. | |
| Mr. Becerra, like Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland before him and Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois before them, had risen as far as he could in the House leadership. But he faced a blockade of older members of Congress, like Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and James Clyburn, in the top ranks. | |
| Unlike Mr. Van Hollen, who will be in the Senate next year, Mr. Becerra opted against running for his state’s open Senate seat, but he has found his own way to statewide office. | |
| Mr. Becerra was in line for a huge consolation prize in the House, however. The veteran Representative Sander Levin of Michigan had just stepped aside as the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee — and recommended the telegenic Californian for the post. | |
| That would have put Mr. Becerra on the front lines as Mr. Trump tries to repeal the Affordable Care Act, cut taxes, overhaul the tax code and possibly convert Medicare into a system that offers fixed sums to seniors to buy private health plans. | |
| Instead, it looks as if that role will go to Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts, who may be less camera ready but is actually better versed on the intricacies of tax policy. | |
| So far Representative Keith Ellison’s drive to be the next Democratic National Committee chairman has gone swimmingly, with no strong competition in sight. | |
| But CNN went where other outlets have feared to tread, printing old writings of Mr. Ellison, Congress’s first elected Muslim, in defense of the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam and other contentious black activists. | |
| As a law student at the University of Minnesota, Mr. Ellison, writing under the name Keith E. Hakim in the student newspaper, said: “Whether one supports or opposes the establishment of Israel in Palestine and Israel’s present policies, Zionism, the ideological undergirding of Israel, is a debatable political philosophy. Anyone, including black people, has the right to hear and voice alternative views on the subject — notwithstanding our nominal citizenship.” | |
| He continued: | |
| Mr. Ellison long ago renounced his associations with the Nation of Islam, and has had Jewish groups defend him. But the report could prove troublesome, to say the least. | |
| The Anti-Defamation League, which has been mildly supportive, reacted strongly. | |
| Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Democrat of North Dakota, is paying a visit to Trump Tower on Friday, and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the incoming minority leader, is having heart palpitations. | |
| To Democrats, that last line can mean two things, neither of them good. If she is in line for an administration job, her Senate seat would turn Republican. If not, she seems to be indicating she is a possible vote for the Trump agenda. | |
| And no matter what, her seat is up in 2018 — in a state that went to Mr. Trump with 62 percent of the vote. | |
| According to Politico, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has told Trump transition officials that he is interested in the post of Republican National Committee chairman. | |
| The man who once headed the transition, then hoped to be attorney general, appears to be tempering his ambitions. | |
| Chalk up another tradition broken in the Trump era: The practice of cabinet picks going mum once they are named, shunning the news media until confirmed by the Senate. | |
| Steven Mnuchin, the newly named choice for Treasury secretary, made that break most evident on Wednesday, appearing on CNBC and before reporters at Trump Tower, musing at length on tax policy. Others including Wilbur L. Ross, tapped for commerce secretary, have been similarly voluble. | |
| This has surprised people in both parties familiar with the tortuous Senate confirmation process — and with what they see as the good reasons to stay silent. | |
| Talking to the press is “an opportunity to fail. It can only kind of cause you more headaches and questions,” said Dean Zerbe, a former adviser to Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, on the Senate Finance Committee. | |
| Mr. Mnuchin, for example, said the Trump tax plan will give a big tax cut to the middle class but not to the wealthy, though a range of nonpartisan analyses have concluded the opposite. | |
| “As soon as I saw that,” Mr. Zerbe said, “my immediate thought was, ‘O.K., you’ve just now given about a dozen questions to senators to ask about.’” | |
| Not that the 1,000 workers whose jobs were saved will care, but the deal to keep that Carrier plant in the United States, which included a multiyear, $7 million incentive package from Indiana, is starting to take flack from the right and the left. To conservatives, government intervention at such a micro-level is just bad economics. | |
| The Libertarian-leaning Representative Justin Amash, Republican of Michigan, weighed in early: | The Libertarian-leaning Representative Justin Amash, Republican of Michigan, weighed in early: |
| Now it’s coming from more intellectual circles. | Now it’s coming from more intellectual circles. |
| “This is all terrible for a nation’s economic vitality if businesses make decisions to please politicians rather than customers and shareholders. Yet America’s private sector has just been sent a strong signal that playing ball with Trump might be part of what it now means to run an American company,” wrote James Pethokoukis, the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. | “This is all terrible for a nation’s economic vitality if businesses make decisions to please politicians rather than customers and shareholders. Yet America’s private sector has just been sent a strong signal that playing ball with Trump might be part of what it now means to run an American company,” wrote James Pethokoukis, the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. |
| Liberals have latched onto the tax breaks and incentives offered to Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies, by Governor Pence of Indiana just before he leaves for Washington. Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, put it this way in The Washington Post: | Liberals have latched onto the tax breaks and incentives offered to Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies, by Governor Pence of Indiana just before he leaves for Washington. Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, put it this way in The Washington Post: |
| If companies can extract tax concessions by threatening to move to Mexico, they may have found a partner willing to play ball in the new president, the critics say. Economists call that “moral hazard.” | If companies can extract tax concessions by threatening to move to Mexico, they may have found a partner willing to play ball in the new president, the critics say. Economists call that “moral hazard.” |
| Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said that it was unclear at this point why Carrier decided to keep those manufacturing jobs in Indiana, but he has an inkling. | |
| “It does appear that they were offered a substantial economic incentive by the lame-duck governor of Indiana,” Mr. Earnest said. | |
| President-elect Trump took phone calls Wednesday from Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, and President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan. The results were instructive. | President-elect Trump took phone calls Wednesday from Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, and President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan. The results were instructive. |
| According to Kazakhstan, Mr. Trump said “that under the leadership of Nursultan Nazarbayev our country over the years of Independence had achieved fantastic success that can be called a ‘miracle’.” | According to Kazakhstan, Mr. Trump said “that under the leadership of Nursultan Nazarbayev our country over the years of Independence had achieved fantastic success that can be called a ‘miracle’.” |
| Through some rather circuitous paths, Mr. Trump’s real estate empire has been tied to Kazakhstan in ways a Financial Times investigation labeled “dirty.” Mr. Nazarbayev has run Kazakhstan since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1989. Last year, he won a fifth consecutive term with 97.7 percent of the vote. | Through some rather circuitous paths, Mr. Trump’s real estate empire has been tied to Kazakhstan in ways a Financial Times investigation labeled “dirty.” Mr. Nazarbayev has run Kazakhstan since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1989. Last year, he won a fifth consecutive term with 97.7 percent of the vote. |
| The Pakistani government released its own account of the telephone conversation between and Mr. Trump and Mr. Sharif that sounded, well, Trumpian. | The Pakistani government released its own account of the telephone conversation between and Mr. Trump and Mr. Sharif that sounded, well, Trumpian. |
| While not exactly confirming the content, the Trump transition team did acknowledge both calls. | While not exactly confirming the content, the Trump transition team did acknowledge both calls. |
| Democrats may have failed to shame Mr. Trump into releasing his federal tax returns, but they are determined to at least see the returns of his cabinet and top staff picks. | Democrats may have failed to shame Mr. Trump into releasing his federal tax returns, but they are determined to at least see the returns of his cabinet and top staff picks. |
| Senate Democrats will use the routine adoption of rules and procedures in January to force committees to require all cabinet picks to submit the last three years of their tax returns before their confirmation hearings. The Finance and Homeland Security committees already have the requirement, meaning the tangled finances of Mr. Mnuchin are likely to spill out before he can be confirmed at Treasury. | |
| But other billionaires could skate through without the rules change, including Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary pick, who will go before the Senate Commerce Committee, and Betsy DeVos, the choice for education secretary, who will answer questions from the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. | But other billionaires could skate through without the rules change, including Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary pick, who will go before the Senate Commerce Committee, and Betsy DeVos, the choice for education secretary, who will answer questions from the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. |
| If Democrats prevail on the requirement, there could be consequences. The Finance Committee’s tax examination nearly derailed President Obama’s first Treasury nominee, Timothy F. Geithner, and thwarted his first health secretary, Tom Daschle. | If Democrats prevail on the requirement, there could be consequences. The Finance Committee’s tax examination nearly derailed President Obama’s first Treasury nominee, Timothy F. Geithner, and thwarted his first health secretary, Tom Daschle. |
| Robert Gates, who served as secretary of defense for both George W. Bush and President Obama, was seen trundling into Trump Tower. | Robert Gates, who served as secretary of defense for both George W. Bush and President Obama, was seen trundling into Trump Tower. |
| Worth remembering, Mr. Gates wrote in The Wall Street Journal in September, “The world we confront is too perilous and too complex to have as president a man who believes he, and he alone, has all the answers and has no need to listen to anyone. A thin-skinned, temperamental, shoot-from-the-hip and lip, uninformed commander in chief is too great a risk for America.” | Worth remembering, Mr. Gates wrote in The Wall Street Journal in September, “The world we confront is too perilous and too complex to have as president a man who believes he, and he alone, has all the answers and has no need to listen to anyone. A thin-skinned, temperamental, shoot-from-the-hip and lip, uninformed commander in chief is too great a risk for America.” |
| The Washington Examiner noted Thursday that if former Gen. David H. Petraeus is chosen to be secretary of state or perhaps director of national intelligence, he’d be the first to have to notify his parole officer. Last year, General Petraeus, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was sentenced to two years’ probation for giving his mistress, Paula Broadwell, classified information. | The Washington Examiner noted Thursday that if former Gen. David H. Petraeus is chosen to be secretary of state or perhaps director of national intelligence, he’d be the first to have to notify his parole officer. Last year, General Petraeus, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was sentenced to two years’ probation for giving his mistress, Paula Broadwell, classified information. |