Why you should follow Trump’s weaves

Jan 07, 2025

POLITICO'S West Wing Playbook: Transition of Power

By Lisa Kashinsky, Megan Messerly, Eli Stokols, Lauren Egan and Ben Johansen

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Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the preparations, personnel decisions and policy deliberations of Donald Trump’s transition. POLITICO Pro subscribers receive a version of this newsletter first.

DONALD TRUMP’s politics have evolved. But his press conference Tuesday made clear his grievances still drive him.

In the same setting in which the president-elect explosively suggested he could use military force to annex Greenland and regain control over the Panama Canal, pledged to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” and threatened that “all hell will break out” if Hamas does not agree to release Israeli hostages, Trump also kept veering off on tangents about his favorite targets.

He slammed special counsel JACK SMITH as “deranged” and railed against the gag order he’s under in his New York hush money case. (“I'm the president of the United States and I'm not allowed to speak. Why? Because if I did speak, people would understand the scam.”)

Speaking of scams: The Green New Deal? Still one of them. Low-flow showerheads? Still mad the Biden administration reversed his policy on that. And wind power? Still bad, still “driving the whales crazy, obviously.”

Trump also rehashed his long-standing frustrations with how much European countries contribute to NATO, bashed JOE BIDEN over everything from the outgoing president’s sweeping ban on offshore drilling to his controversial withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, and complained of the “millions” of people Mexico is allowing to pour into the country.

TL;DR: New term, same ol’ Trump.

But as much as Washington has tuned out some of Trump’s digressions — or his “weaves,” as he calls them — West Wing Playbook has a word of advice: don’t. There are often, as was the case several times Tuesday, policy prescriptions hidden within them.

Trump suggested NATO members should be spending 5 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, up from the current 2 percent minimum. He added Denmark to his list of potential tariff targets while talking about trying to acquire Greenland. He pledged to reverse Biden’s offshore drilling prohibitions “immediately” (though that’s complicated). And regarding those pesky windmills?

“We will have a policy where no windmills are being built,” he declared. We already knew things weren’t looking good for the offshore wind industry in a second Trump term, but still.

Meanwhile, Rep. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-Ga.) is already directing staff to write legislation to officially rename the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s a crucial window into how the president-elect will operate in his second term — especially since such glimpses have been few and far between during Trump’s transition back to Washington. The former reality star, known for his love of the spotlight, has largely eschewed it since winning the November election, building out his second administration in a much more secretive fashion than his first and reverting to agenda setting by social media post.

But that’s changing with Inauguration Day drawing near. As he closed out his remarks, Trump promised that the press — and by extension, the public — will be seeing more of him.

“We’ll do this again,” Trump said, as the throng of reporters shouted more questions. “I just want to thank everybody very much. I’m just telling you, this will be the golden age of America.”

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POTUS PUZZLER

Which controversial billionaire did BILL CLINTON pardon on his last day in office?

(Answer at bottom.)

Pro Exclusive

Treasury pick Scott Bessent meets with John Cornyn, Mark Warner, via our MICHAEL STRATFORD

Dreamers just gained access to Obamacare. It might not last long, via our KELLY HOOPER

CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam to step down on Jan. 20, via our DECLAN HARTY

The reporting in this section is exclusively available to POLITICO Pro subscribers. Pro is a personalized policy intelligence platform from POLITICO. If you are interested in learning more about how POLITICO Pro can support your team through the 2024 transition and beyond, visit politicopro.com.

Heads up, we're all transition all the time over on our live blog: Inside Congress Live: Transition of Power. Bookmark politico.com/transition to keep up with us.

THE BUREAUCRATS

NOT SO FAST, JACK: U.S. District Judge AILEEN CANNON temporarily blocked the Justice Department from releasing special counsel JACK SMITH’s final report on his two criminal investigations into Trump, our JOSH GERSTEIN and KYLE CHENEY report. The move, which comes just days before Smith’s office is expected to shut down, scrambles the final stage of the special counsel’s work.

Smith is expected to finalize and deliver his report — which lays out the results of his probe into Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office — to Attorney General MERRICK GARLAND, who has said he would release the report publicly in some form.

But Cannon’s order, issued at the request of two Trump allies who were co-defendants in the classified documents case, bars the DOJ from releasing any portion of the report until three days after a federal appeals court rules on the issue.

BUSY WEEK: The trio Trump plans to nominate to lead his energy and environment team will get confirmation hearings next week — and they’ll all likely face smooth sailing through the Senate, our JOSH SIEGEL reports.

North Dakota Gov. DOUG BURGUM, Trump’s Interior secretary nominee, will go before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Jan. 14. The committee will also hold a hearing for Liberty Energy CEO CHRIS WRIGHT, who is nominated to be secretary of Energy, on Jan. 15.

And the Environment and Public Works Committee is holding a hearing for former New York Rep. LEE ZELDIN, Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, on Wednesday or Thursday of next week.

The Senate Commerce Committee has also tentatively scheduled a nomination hearing for SEAN DUFFY, Trump’s nominee to lead the Transportation Department, on Jan. 15, our SAM OGOZALEK reports.

AND WE CAN LEARN TO LOVE AGAIN: Trump’s pick to lead the Health and Human Services Department, ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., is heading to Capitol Hill to ask Senate Democrats on the health committees to support his nomination, our CHELSEA CIRRUZZO and DANIEL PAYNE report.

Sen. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.) — who is the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and also has a seat on the Finance Committee that would vote to approve Kennedy — will meet with him this week. So will Finance Democrats MICHAEL BENNET of Colorado, CATHERINE CORTEZ-MASTO of Nevada, MAGGIE HASSAN of New Hampshire, ELIZABETH WARREN of Massachusetts and Mark Warner of Virginia.

Meanwhile, Hawaii Gov. JOSH GREEN, a former family doctor, flew to Washington from Honolulu to lobby fellow Democrats to oppose Kennedy.

EXPLAIN YOURSELF, PETE: In advance of next week’s confirmation hearing for Defense secretary nominee PETE HEGSETH, Warren is seeking answers to more than 70 questions about the former Fox News host’s record, WaPo’s MISSY RYAN reports.

Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on personnel, outlined 10 areas of concern, including allegations of heavy drinking and sexual misconduct, remarks suggesting female troops should play a more limited role in the military, his past skepticism about the need for U.S. personnel to comply with laws of war, and accusations of mismanagement of veterans' organizations he headed.

“I am deeply concerned by the many ways in which your behavior and rhetoric indicates that you are unfit to lead the Department of Defense,” Warren said in a letter sent to Hegseth. “Your confirmation as Secretary of Defense would be detrimental to our national security and disrespect a diverse array of service members who are willing to sacrifice for our country.”

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Agenda Setting

FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK: Reproductive Freedom for All Foundation, an abortion-rights group, launched a six-figure ad buy titled “We Are Watching” to remind senators that many of Trump’s nominees are in favor of a federal abortion ban, a stance that is out of step with much of middle America, the group argues.

“Look at who Trump is putting in our government, and you’ll see a theme. She supports an abortion ban. He supports an abortion ban. So does she. So does he,” the narrator says, specifically referencing PAM BONDI, Dr. MEHMET OZ, KRISTI NOEM and MARCO RUBIO.

“Americans voted resoundingly to protect reproductive freedom,” the narrator continues. “But Trump’s picks are putting our health at risk.”

The ad campaign will be geo-targeted to Senate office buildings, executive office buildings and Mar-a-Lago to “ensure Trump and sitting Senators will see the ad and be reminded that the vast majority of Americans oppose abortion bans,” the group said.

What We're Reading

He plans to be sworn in as Venezuela’s president, and he hopes both Biden and Trump will help him (POLITICO’s Nahal Toosi)

Trump trades isolationism for expansionism — possibly with military force (POLITICO’s Megan Messerly and Lisa Kashinsky)

The Man Who Got Away (NYT’s Atossa Araxia Abrahamian)

POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER

To the frustration of Republicans and Democrats alike, Clinton pardoned fugitive billionaire MARC RICH on the day before he handed the reins to GEORGE W. BUSH.

Rich was convicted of tax fraud and fled to Switzerland in the 1980s to avoid jail time. He eventually made his way onto the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list. Rich’s wife, DENISE EISENBERG RICH, reportedly donated $450,000 in three installments to the Clinton presidential library prior to the pardon.

“It was a terrible pardon,” former Democratic Sen. PATRICK LEAHY said at the time. “It was inexcusable. It was outrageous … Here was a man who was involved in a huge swindle and has shown completely no remorse.”

A CALL OUT! Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents, with a citation or sourcing, and we may feature it!

Edited by Jennifer Haberkorn and Rishika Dugyala

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