Trump Transition Live Updates: Raskin Moves to Lead House Democrats’ Resistance
Where Things Stand
Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland said he would challenge the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler of New York, amid concern within the party that lawmakers were not ready to fight any efforts by President-elect Donald J. Trump to test the limits of his power. Read more ›
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, wrote on Monday to Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who will be the next majority leader, urging the G.O.P. to adhere to traditional Senate vetting standards that Mr. Trump has threatened to skip. Read more ›
President Biden pardoned his son Hunter on Sunday night after repeatedly insisting he would not do so. The pardon comes weeks before he transfers power to Mr. Trump, who spent years attacking Hunter Biden over his legal and personal issues. Mr. Trump called the pardon “an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!”
Other Democrats are beginning to share their disapproval of President Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter. “The pardon was a mistake,” Representative Jason Crow of Colorado told me. “I’m disappointed this was the decision that he landed on here. He promised he would not do this. I think it will make it harder for us going forward when we talk about upholding democracy.”
Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland announced on Monday that he was challenging Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, for the party’s top post on the Judiciary Committee, a move that came after pressure from Democrats concerned they were not properly equipped to push back against efforts by President-elect Donald J. Trump to test the limits of his power.
“House Democrats must stand in the breach to defend the principles and institutions of constitutional democracy,” Mr. Raskin wrote in a letter to his colleagues announcing his run.
Mr. Raskin, currently the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said that the Judiciary Committee was “where we will wage our frontline defense of the freedoms and rights of the people.” He vowed to make the Judiciary Committee “the headquarters of congressional opposition to authoritarianism” and any attempts by Mr. Trump and his supporters to attack the Constitution and the rule of law.
The committee is where important fights are expected to play out on matters including the independence of the Justice Department, presidential powers and reproductive rights. The top Democrat will be expected to go toe-to-toe with the famously combative Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of Mr. Trump’s closest allies, who leads the panel.
Mr. Raskin, a former professor of constitutional law, developed a progressive fan base for his work as the lead impeachment manager against Mr. Trump in 2021 and as the top Democrat on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that year, qualifications he stressed in the letter announcing his run.
Mr. Nadler, 77, the dean of New York’s congressional delegation, is seen by many of his colleagues as past his prime, unable to veer from talking points and unsuited to the hand-to-hand political battles of the Trump era. But he has been unwilling to voluntarily give up his power, and even expressed anger at Mr. Raskin, a close friend, for mulling a challenge to his leadership.
Mr. Raskin, who prizes his reputation for kindness and integrity, struggled with the decision about whether to challenge Mr. Nadler but ultimately decided to jump in, he said, after a week of consulting with colleagues and “engaging in serious introspection about where we are.”
In his letter, he added that he was announcing his challenge “with respect and boundless admiration for my friend Jerry Nadler and his remarkable half-century of service in public office in New York and Congress.”
Mr. Nadler did not immediately respond to Mr. Raskin’s letter. But some of Mr. Raskin’s allies were confident that he already had the votes to win the race.
Mr. Raskin’s challenge is part of a broader effort by House Democrats to push aside some of their most senior leaders from top posts in the next Congress, as they try to regroup as they prepare to face Republican control of the House, Senate and presidency.
In the past, House Democratic leadership has tried to protect its incumbents against challengers. But this year, they have taken a notably different stance, telling members that the caucus “should work its will” in competitive races for top posts.
On Monday, Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, 76, the current ranking member on the Committee on Natural Resources, announced he was withdrawing from the race for the post. Mr. Grijalva was being challenged by Representative Jared Huffman, 60, Democrat of California, who has pitched himself to colleagues as someone who can lead the committee in “limiting the damage from Trump’s Project 2025 agenda.”
In a statement, Mr. Grijalva said the decision was difficult, but that it was time to “pass the torch.”
Marco Rubio
Secretary of state
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Health secretary
Doug Burgum
Interior secretary
Pete Hegseth
Defense secretary
Pam Bondi
Attorney general
Dr. Mehmet Oz
Medicare and Medicaid administrator
Scott Bessent
Treasury secretary
Scott Turner
Housing secretary
Janette Nesheiwat
Surgeon general
Kash Patel
F.B.I. director
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTRepresentative Jamie Raskin of Maryland announced on Monday that he was challenging Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York for the top Democratic post on the Judiciary Committee, after mounting pressure from Democrats who were concerned that they were not set up to push back against any efforts by President-elect Donald J. Trump to abuse his power. In a letter to colleagues, Raskin wrote that the Judiciary Committee was “where we will wage our front-line defense of the freedoms and rights of the people” and “democracy itself.”
After an event unveiling the White House holiday decorations in the presence of National Guard members and families, Jill Biden responded to a shouted question from a reporter on whether she supported the pardon of Hunter Biden. “Of course I support the pardon of my son,” she said.
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s selection of Massad Boulos as a senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs may put Mr. Boulos, an automotive tycoon who is also Mr. Trump’s in-law, in a position to exert considerable influence over U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Mr. Boulos, whose son is married to Mr. Trump’s daughter, Tiffany, was picked by Mr. Trump on Sunday for a role that could prove pivotal as the Trump administration faces myriad crises in the region: a tenuous cease-fire in Mr. Boulos’ native Lebanon; a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip; and a civil war in Syria, mostly dormant for years, that has rapidly escalated in recent days.
For Mr. Boulos, once a relatively obscure entrepreneur, his appointment followed a meteoric rise to prominence in recent months.
During the election campaign, he helped garner support for Mr. Trump among Arab Americans in Michigan, a key battleground state. He has become a familiar face on Lebanese television, spreading the incoming Trump administration’s message. And he has acted as something of a de facto liaison between Mr. Trump and Middle Eastern leaders, including Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority.
Born in Lebanon, Mr. Boulos hails from an influential Greek Orthodox family from the northern Lebanese town of Kafaraka, known for its olive oil. The family has played a role in local and national politics for nearly a century.
Despite brief forays into Lebanese politics himself, Mr. Boulos has said he is not affiliated with any political party inside the country, according to Newsweek. He is considered, however, to have close ties to the country’s Christian elite, and has labeled himself as a friend of Suleiman Frangieh, who has previously been named by Hezbollah leaders as the group’s top pick for Lebanon’s president, and is closely allied with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
The United States has labeled Hezbollah, both a militia and a political party, as a terrorist group, and Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Mr. Boulos did not respond to a request for an interview.
After studying in Texas, Mr. Boulos went on to build his wealth in West Africa. He became the chief executive officer of SCOA Nigeria, an automotive conglomerate. He also runs Boulos Enterprise, a Nigeria-based company that distributes and assembles motorcycles, tricycles and power bikes.
Mr. Boulos’s ascendancy from businessman to a close confidante of Mr. Trump has landed a diverse portfolio on his desk. In September, when Mr. Boulos had been busy campaigning in Michigan for Mr. Trump, he also met with Mr. Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. At the time, Mr. Boulos told The Times the meeting was “purely personal,” though Palestinian officials described it as part of an outreach effort to Mr. Trump. Mr. Boulos had previously helped deliver a letter from Mr. Abbas to Mr. Trump in July, in which Mr. Abbas wished Mr. Trump well after an assassination against him that month.
After Mr. Trump announced he had selected Mr. Boulos as a senior adviser, some politicians in Lebanon suggested the appointment may elevate the issues facing the crisis-hit country on the White House agenda.
Lebanon’s caretaker economy minister, Amin Salam, said the appointment was a “historic opportunity,” noting in a post on social media on Sunday that Lebanon and the wider Arab world “have never been closer to the White House and the center of decision-making than they are today.”
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTSenator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, told me that President Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter, after his insistence on running again until being forced out of the race, would shape his legacy. “I don’t think there is any doubt that our country would have been better off if President Biden had decided not to run for re-election,” Bennet said. “Whether our nominee was the vice president or someone else, we would have had a much better chance to defeat Donald Trump.”
Bennet went on to say: “His decision to pardon his son, no matter how unconditional his love, feels like another instance of putting his personal interest ahead of his responsibility to the country.”
In explaining why President Biden elected to pardon his son Hunter Biden, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, sought to reconcile the president’s longstanding defense of the justice system with his criticism of its handling of his own family’s case. “Two things could be true,” she said. “The president does believe in the justice system and the Department of Justice and he also believes that his son was singled out politically.”
Karine Jean-Pierre said that the president struggled with the decision to break his promise not to pardon his son Hunter. “He wrestled with it,” she told reporters on Air Force One en route to Angola. “He thought about it. And he believed and what he saw was that his son was singled out. And so he made this decision.”
But she did not explain what changed his mind. The factors President Biden laid out in his statement justifying the pardon were true months ago when he, and she, repeatedly disavowed any plan to grant clemency to Hunter Biden.
As Americans enjoyed a long holiday weekend, the next Trump administration continued to take shape. Here’s a look at the announcements President-elect Donald J. Trump made over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend, including two related to his family:
F.B.I.
Mr. Trump said on Saturday that he wanted to replace Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, with Kash Patel, a critic of the bureau who has called for shutting down its headquarters, firing its leadership and bringing the nation’s law enforcement agencies “to heel.”
A former federal prosecutor and public defender, Mr. Patel has little management or law enforcement experience. The president-elect cites as an important credential Mr. Patel’s unflagging efforts to discredit the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election in favor of Mr. Trump. Mr. Patel’s record as a public official and his bombastic public comments are likely to come under scrutiny when the Senate considers his nomination.
Arab and Middle Eastern Affairs
On Sunday, Mr. Trump said he would name Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman and the father-in-law of his daughter Tiffany, as a senior adviser covering Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
Mr. Boulos was central in the Trump campaign’s efforts to court Arab American voters, especially in Michigan. He has already been something of an informal liaison between Mr. Trump and Middle Eastern leaders; in September, Mr. Boulos met with Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority.
Mr. Boulos has offered few details publicly about how he would approach the role.
Ambassador to France
Mr. Trump said on Saturday he would name Charles Kushner, a real estate executive and the father-in-law of his daughter Ivanka, to serve as envoy to Paris, a high-profile and coveted diplomatic position.
Mr. Kushner, a major donor to Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign, received a pardon from Mr. Trump in the final days of his first term. He pleaded guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, one count of retaliating against a federal witness and one of lying to the Federal Election Commission. Mr. Kushner admitted to hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, a witness in a federal campaign finance investigation, and sending a videotape of the encounter to his sister.
The prized ambassadorship could be complicated by the at times standoffish position Mr. Trump took toward President Emmanuel Macron of France during his first term.
Drug Enforcement Administration
Mr. Trump asked Chad Chronister, a veteran Florida sheriff, to be his administration’s top drug enforcement official. Sheriff Chronister will be tasked with taking on the challenges of confronting Mexico’s drug cartels and curbing China’s production of fentanyl, but has little experience with complex international investigations.
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California lawmakers will convene a special session on Monday to discuss legislation to bolster the state against potential attacks by Donald J. Trump’s administration, including a proposed fund of up to $25 million to underwrite litigation against the federal government, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.
President-elect Trump and fellow Republicans signaled during the campaign that he would target signature California policies if he were to win the election, including environmental protections, safeguards for immigrants, civil rights laws and abortion access. Democratic governors across the country have expressed concerns that the second Trump administration will be better prepared and less restrained.
California’s Democratic leaders, who have been working for more than a year on contingency plans in the event of a second Trump term, announced within days of the election that they would begin to meet early this month on plans to “Trump-proof” the nation’s most populous state.
“We will work with the incoming administration and we want President Trump to succeed in serving all Americans,” Governor Newsom said in a statement on Monday. “But when there is overreach, when lives are threatened, when rights and freedoms are targeted, we will take action.”
The fund for litigation aims to pay for legal resources in the state’s Justice Department and regulatory agencies to “challenge illegal federal actions in court and take administrative actions to reduce potential harm,” according to the governor’s office.
The proposed $25 million figure is significantly less than the roughly $42 million that California spent on lawsuits against the federal government during the first Trump administration, when the state sued the government more than 120 times. The smaller number — a fraction of the state’s nearly $300 billion annual budget — is a testament to concern over the risk of a financial shortfall. California’s lawmakers struggled to close a deficit this year.
The figure is also a nod to the number of fronts on which the state’s Democrats expect the Trump administration to attack California. Mr. Newsom has already vowed to provide rebates to eligible residents who buy electric vehicles if Mr. Trump ends the $7,500 federal E.V. tax credit. The governor also has floated a possible disaster assistance fund to cover victims of floods and wildfires should Mr. Trump withhold federal aid from the disaster-prone state.
California also extends health insurance coverage under the state’s version of Medicaid to low-income residents regardless of immigration status, a program that the next administration has also targeted.
But the fund’s size also reflects the state’s success during and after Mr. Trump’s first term in protecting Californians against efforts to weaken state regulations, and the likelihood that Democratic states will work together to challenge Mr. Trump.
President-elect Donald J. Trump announced over the weekend that he wanted to replace Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, with Kash Patel, a hard-line critic of the bureau who has called for shutting down the agency’s Washington headquarters, firing its leadership and bringing the nation’s law enforcement agencies “to heel.”
The plan to replace Mr. Wray, who still has three years left on his 10-year term, with Mr. Patel stunned Democrats and many in the national security establishment. But on Sunday, several Republican lawmakers fell in line behind the choice, defending the incoming president’s right to install a loyalist who has vowed to use the position to exact revenge on Mr. Trump’s adversaries.
Mr. Patel has been closely aligned with Mr. Trump’s belief that much of the nation’s law enforcement and national security establishment needs to be purged of bias and held accountable for what they see as unjustified investigations and prosecutions of Mr. Trump and his allies.
Mr. Patel “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability and the Constitution,” Mr. Trump said in announcing his choice in a social media post.
A favorite of Mr. Trump’s political base, Mr. Patel has worked as a federal prosecutor and a public defender, but has little of the law enforcement and management experience typical of F.B.I. directors. He has said he would launch a sweeping campaign of retribution against F.B.I. agents, journalists and others.
The planned nomination of Mr. Patel could run into hurdles in the Senate, which will be called on to confirm him.
While Republican Senate leaders remained quiet about Mr. Trump’s choice on Sunday, other senators in his party expressed their support.
Senator Bill Hagerty, Republican of Tennessee, said he had encouraged Mr. Trump to appoint Mr. Patel, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” that there were “serious problems at the F.B.I.”
And Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, called Mr. Patel “a very strong nominee” to take on what he and other allies of Mr. Trump claim has been partisanship inside the F.B.I. because of its investigations into wrongdoing by the president-elect and his associates.
“All of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, all of the people pulling their hair out, are exactly the people who are dismayed about having a real reformer come into the F.B.I.,” Mr. Cruz said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
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President-elect Donald J. Trump over the weekend chose Chad Chronister, a veteran Florida sheriff, to be his administration’s top drug enforcement official, tasking him with delivering on campaign promises to curb the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs into the country.
Mr. Trump repeatedly highlighted the opioid crisis during his campaign, framing it as a major national security threat, and hailed Sheriff Chronister’s decades of experience in law enforcement.
Sheriff Chronister, 56, has worked in the sheriff’s office, which serves the Tampa area, for more than 30 years, rising over the decades from patrol deputy to narcotics detective to the department’s top job, which he has been elected to three times since his initial appointment in 2017.
While he has a substantial record in local law enforcement, Sheriff Chronister has virtually no experience with the complex international investigations that are central to the mission of the D.E.A., an arm of the Justice Department that operates in more than 60 countries and has a budget nearly five times as large as the department he now runs.
Some D.E.A. veterans spent the weekend looking up Sheriff Chronister and quietly wondering whether he was up for the tasks of confronting Mexico’s drug cartels and curbing China’s production of fentanyl. Those tough jobs have gotten harder given Mr. Trump’s repeated threats to put tariffs on both countries as a way of not only stopping the flow of drugs into the United States but also stemming migration.
At least one agent who knows the sheriff well said he would succeed.
“The appointment of Chad Chronister to lead the women and men of DEA will be transformative,” Mike Furgason, the assistant special agent in charge of the agency’s Tampa office, wrote on Sunday in a LinkedIn post that was widely shared among agency employees.
Presidential transitions abide by a series of laws and norms that enable the outgoing administration to brief incoming officials with nonpublic information and to fund transition operations.
But the refusal by President-elect Donald J. Trump’s team to sign a transition agreement with the General Services Administration means that, despite the team’s pledges to abide by several transparency customs of presidential handovers, it isn’t legally bound to follow through on its promises.
Mr. Trump’s transition team, after forgoing the $7.2 million in government funds that the G.S.A. would have provided if they had reached an agreement, has promised to be transparent by disclosing the names of its donors and said it would not accept donations from foreigners. In an agreement with the White House, the transition team also released an ethics pledge, but the pledge may not be compliant with transition rules.
Mr. Trump’s team signed an agreement with the White House that will begin formal briefings led by departing administration members. But Mr. Trump has continued to refuse to sign an agreement with the Justice Department that would allow the F.B.I. to run security checks for transition staff. Without clearances, Biden administration officials cannot share classified information with many transition team members.
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Reporting from Washington
The top Senate Democrat offered on Monday to cooperate with Republicans next year in considering President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choices for his cabinet and other top administration jobs, and called for the G.O.P. to adhere to traditional Senate vetting standards that Mr. Trump has threatened to skip.
In a letter to Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who is set to become majority leader in January, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the current leader, said that he and his colleagues “stand ready and willing to work” with Senate Republicans in considering the nominations, several of which have already proved to be explosive. The latest was announced on Saturday, when Mr. Trump disclosed that he intended to name Kash Patel, a loyalist and right-wing provocateur, as director of the F.B.I.
“In particular,” Mr. Schumer wrote to Mr. Thune, “we commit to working in a bipartisan fashion to process each nominee by reviewing standard F.B.I. background-investigation materials, scheduling hearings and markups in the committees of jurisdiction, and considering nominees on the Senate floor.”
The letter comes as Mr. Trump has threatened to skirt the Senate and install some of his nominees during recesses, and some Senate Republicans have suggested that he should do so to get around resistance from Democrats. The president-elect’s advisers have also suggested that he should skip F.B.I. background checks for his nominees in favor of vetting by private security firms, a notion that some Senate Republicans have also embraced in recent days.
Both ideas have met resistance from some Republicans and Democrats who contend that they would constitute an abandonment of the Senate’s constitutional role of providing advice and consent on nominees. They worry that it would harm the institution and weaken the Senate’s ability to provide oversight of federal agencies.
In his letter, Mr. Schumer urged Republicans not to let that happen.
“In our system of checks and balances, this Senate plays a vital role in ensuring the president appoints well-qualified public officials that will dutifully serve the American people and honor their oaths to the Constitution,” Mr. Schumer wrote. “Regardless of party, the Senate has upheld this sacred duty for generations and we should not and must not waver in our constitutional duty.”
The letter from Mr. Schumer does not commit Democrats to supporting any nominees, and they are unlikely to vote for many, though more conventional picks such as Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida and Mr. Trump’s choice for secretary of state, could draw significant bipartisan backing.
The top Democrats on the Senate committees are expected to soon make their own overtures to the incoming Republican chairmen.
Since Democrats will be in the minority, they will lack the votes to block Trump nominees who can be approved on simple majority votes, but they can throw up procedural obstacles that would slow the nominations. They are counting on using any hearings to persuade some Republicans to join them in pushing back on candidates they find objectionable, and also hope that Republicans insist on upholding the Senate’s role in the confirmation process.
Mr. Thune has said he intends to have the appointees follow the usual steps toward confirmation in the Senate, but has also said Republicans would preserve their options when it came to Mr. Trump’s nominees, including on recess appointments if necessary.
Mr. Schumer has been quiet about the prospective nominees themselves, though fellow Democrats have raised alarm about Mr. Patel and others, including former Representative Matt Gaetz, who withdrew from consideration as attorney general after it became obvious he lacked the Republican votes to be confirmed. Mr. Schumer has wanted to keep the focus on divisions within the G.O.P. on the nominees and not let Republicans blame Democrats for obstructing them, a dynamic that could lead Republicans to unify.
On Sunday, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, said he had no issues with Mr. Trump’s picks.
“I think the entire slate of cabinet nominees President Trump has put forward is very strong,” Mr. Cruz said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I believe every one of these cabinet nominees is going to be confirmed by the Senate.”
But Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, said that while the incoming president had the right to choose his top advisers, the Senate was not obligated to confirm all of them if senators saw issues.
“I think the vast majority of the members of the Senate will do the same thing: They will give a benefit of the doubt to the president with any one of his nominees,” Mr. Rounds said on ABC’s “This Week.” “But then we have a constitutional role to play in that we provide advice and consent. And, once again, that can be sometimes advice, sometimes it is consent.”
While Mr. Trump will not take office until Jan. 20, Republicans will take control of the Senate on Jan. 3 and can convene committee hearings on the prospective nominees when they take charge, clearing the way for some to be approved immediately after Mr. Trump is sworn in.
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