“If you have an open position on your team, they’re going to make you stand on your head until you’re blue in the face before you fill it.” —A Condé Nast executive present at a meeting of publishers convened by CEO Chuck Townsend yesterday. [NYO]
You didn’t think Trump would let us have a relaxing holiday weekend, did you?
Things are going well for the president
Trump still focusing on the important stuff
Some bad news for everyone looking forward to a repeat of Giuliani’s “meltdown” last week
President Trump on Wednesday canceled his trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he was scheduled to join his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani for a Republican-led state Senate Majority Policy Committee hearing on alleged election irregularities.
… The cancellation comes after Giuliani was exposed to a second person who tested positive for the coronavirus. It’s unclear if that’s the reason the trip was cancelled.
Ya think?
This does not bode well for Biden’s dreams of returning to the days of Senate bipartisanship
Some Republican senators have publicly acknowledged Democrat Joe Biden is the president-elect. Others have moved straight to criticizing his early Cabinet picks, even as President Trump continues to dispute the outcome of the Nov. 3 election.
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), three weeks after Election Day, has still not said much of anything at all.
McConnell’s ongoing silence, even as the Trump administration moves to allow Biden to start his transition, leaves a question mark over what could be the most important Washington relationship of the next two years — between an incoming president who promised to tackle the nation’s most pressing concerns and the win-at-all-costs Capitol Hill operator who may well serve as his legislative gatekeeper.
The two men — Senate colleagues for 24 years and sparring partners in several high-stakes negotiations during Biden’s time as vice president — still have not spoken since the election, according to a GOP aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly.
Trump was reportedly dissuaded in recent weeks from striking Iran, but Israel still wants to be prepared
The Israel Defense Forces have in recent weeks been instructed to prepare for the possibility that the U.S. will conduct a military strike against Iran before President Trump leaves office, senior Israeli officials tell me.
… The Israeli government instructed the IDF to undertake the preparations not because of any intelligence or assessment that Trump will order such a strike, but because senior Israeli officials anticipate “a very sensitive period” ahead of Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
The wheels are in motion
But what about alienating our allies for no good reason?
Wall Street does not exactly seem upset about Biden’s victory
Another state down
That’s a lot of people
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