Trump Defends Billionaire Cabinet Picks, Texas Official On Pushing Fake News, And Libraries As Sites Of Hate Crimes

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December 9, 2016

Top Stories


Conway On Trump Decision Not To Leave ‘The Apprentice’: Obama Played Golf!

The Gist: Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, on Friday morning defended the President-elect’s decision to stay on as an executive producer of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” comparing the move to President Obama’s time playing golf.

Trump On Cabinet: ‘I Want People That Made A Fortune’ (VIDEO)

The Gist: Donald Trump on Thursday night defended his decision to select several billionaires to serve in his administration, arguing that he wants successful people to be “negotiating” for the country.

Trump’s Pick For Labor Was Accused Of Domestic Abuse In The ’80s

The Gist: Andrew Puzder, Donald Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Department of Labor, was accused of domestic abuse by his first wife three decades ago, the Riverfront Times reported Thursday.

From The Reporter’s Notebook


Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who is in the running for secretary of state, went off on a bizarre tear during a Wednesday interview, advocating for a cozier relationship with Russia and laying into the interviewer, an American citizen born in the Soviet Union, TPM’s Kristin Salaky reported. “If it’s right for us to join in and cooperate and have a better relationship with Russia in order to defeat radical Islam and to pull China back a bit, well that’s a good thing, and that’s what this is all about,” he said.

Agree or Disagree?


Josh Marshall: “Perhaps Trump simply doesn’t feel like he can trust anyone else to keep the whole shambling enterprise afloat. More plausibly, and consistent with Trump’s history over the last couple decades, Trump’s business is dependent on an ever expanding number of deals not just to grow but to stay afloat at all. It is certainly plausible that if Trump simply sold off his company in toto, he’d be in debt. Maybe there wouldn’t be anything left to put in a blind trust. This is all necessarily speculative because Trump has kept the details of his business empire hidden from the public. But behavior, circumstantial evidence and lots of evidence of tight reliance on cash flow to service debts of various sorts suggest that Trump may not be able to divest or separate himself from his business. Why doesn’t he? Why does he court all this controversy? Because he can’t.”

Say What?!


“I shouldn’t be held to that standard. It’s like Fox News: I report, you decide if it’s true or not. “

– The Texas agricultural commissioner defended his practice of posting untrue stories on his Facebook page, where he has more than 320,000 followers, by saying he was “not a news organization.”

BUZZING: Today in the Hive


From a TPM Prime member: “I think the Democrats need to think very big on this and come up with a plan and work to secure the financing and person-power to execute it. The goal should be to register every eligible voter in the country and get the necessary voter ID into their hands, and make a national campaign about it to make it as costly as possible for the numerous efforts to suppress it that will certainly result. It needs to be a perpetual registration campaign, not one that focuses on particular elections. It should not be left up to an unorganized smattering of different NGOs. Any that are out there though must be leveraged, coordinated with, and supported with real resources. Widespread advertising to achieve awareness will be needed to offset concerns in marginal communities where people coming in to register are viewed with suspicion. And it must emphasize that the goal is to register every voter, not just likely Democratic ones.”

Related: Michigan House Approves Strict New Voter ID Bill Over Dem Objections

Have something to add? Become a Prime member and join the discussion here.

What We’re Reading


Libraries Become Unexpected Sites of Hate Crimes (The New York Times)

A Journey to the Center of the Alt-Right (The Huffington Post)


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