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How to Trump-proof your portfolio
02:21 – Source: CNN
• Final preparations: President-elect Donald Trump has entered his last full week before Inauguration Day on January 20, and has been making some of his final decisions on key roles for the incoming administration.
• Confirmation hearings: Some of Trump’s Cabinet selections will appear in front of the Senate in the coming days, including defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth on Tuesday and his choice for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio, on Wednesday.
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, made $4.6 million as a Fox News host, a position he had held since the beginning of 2022, according to his financial disclosure, released one day before his confirmation hearing.
Hegseth also made approximately $1 million on speaking fees across dozens of engagements in 2023 and 2024, many of which were at conservative or Christian organizations. For one speech, Hegseth was paid $150,000 by the American Legislative Exchange Council in February 2023.
The former Fox News TV personality, whose deal with the network ended in November, also brought in royalties from three books he has written, including his latest book, “The War on Warriors.”
Hegseth held stock in several major defense contractors as well, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Honeywell, according to his financial disclosure. The value of the assets was relatively small, listed between $1,001 and $15,000 for each of the companies.
Hegseth also held between $15,001 and $50,000 of Bitcoin.
In the list of incomes, Hegseth disclosed that he was paid $61,000 over four engagements with Helping a Hero, a non-profit organization that builds specially designed houses for service members injured in the war on terror. Hegseth listed three engagements in 2023 and one last year. According to ProPublica, Helping a Hero had $6.4 million in revenue in 2022.
This post has been updated with additional reporting.
President-elect Donald Trump is in talks to visit Los Angeles as early as next week to survey wildfire damage and review the state’s recovery efforts, two sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.
Trump’s team has had discussions with local California officials about such a visit, the sources said, though no details have been finalized. Some Trump advisers have considered traveling to the state in the days after Trump is sworn into office.
“The president intends to go to California at some point,” a Trump adviser told CNN, adding that the specific timing is “yet to be determined. Nothing has been finalized.”
The planning comes after California Gov. Gavin Newsom sent a letter to Trump last Friday inviting him to survey the destruction.
“As you prepare to assume the presidency once more, I invite you to come to California again – to meet with the Americans affected by these fires, see the devastation firsthand, and join me and others in thanking the heroic firefighters and first responders who are putting their lives on the line,” Newsom, a Democrat, wrote in the letter.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the response by Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to the fires and has called for Newsom to resign.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Senate Republicans of trying to “rush nominations,” as Democrats continue to push for more information from several of Trump’s Cabinet picks ahead of their hearings this week.
“If these nominees have something to hide, these documents could show it. So, it’s important we don’t rush these hearings without examining the record first,” Schumer warned, calling these hearings the “opening salvo for holding the Trump administration accountable to the public.”
In particular, the top Senate Democrat noted that the allegations against Pete Hegseth, Trump’s choice to run the Pentagon, are “deeply troubling.”
“If there is any Cabinet position that needs a steady and drama-free individual, it is certainly secretary of defense, unfortunately Mr. Hegseth’s background is deeply troubling – to put it generously,” said Schumer.
Hegseth, whose Senate confirmation hearings begin January 14 in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has faced a tough confirmation process as allegations emerged related to his workplace behavior and treatment of women, including a surfaced sexual assault accusation from 2017. Hegseth has denied wrongdoing, and no charges were brought over the 2017 allegation.
Schumer added: “These are such serious accusations for such an important job. So why would the Armed Services Committee wish to rush through this hearing, particularly when the documents are not available to all the members of the committee, including the FBI background check?”
Hegseth, he said, “can expect his hearing to be tough but respectful, candid but fair,” and the “stakes will be very high.”
“Let’s hope we get real answers and real documentation before anyone votes for Mr. Hegseth for secretary of defense,” the Democrat said.
The Loadmaster garbage truck President-elect Donald Trump used to make a political point on the campaign trail will reappear at the inaugural parade next week.
Andrew Brisson, vice president of the family owned garbage truck body manufacturer in Norway, Michigan, told CNN in a phone interview that he will be driving the exact same truck Trump used in late October at the parade.
“The Trump campaign reached out, I don’t know maybe a month ago or so asking if we had a truck available for the Inauguration to put in the parade, and I kind of told them, let me see what I can do, see if I can scrounge something up and after a few phone calls and back-and-forth, I was able to find one truck to put there for the parade,” Brisson said.
After the initial call, Brisson said the Trump campaign followed up asking if they could get two more trucks for staging during Inauguration events. While he wasn’t certain on location for the other trucks, Brisson said there were talks of having one at the convention center and the Liberty Ball.
“It’s just very cool, especially with how much that blew up to see our product that’s manufactured up in little Norway, Michigan, all over the national media and the internet and everything else, is just a very, very, I don’t know, almost surreal moment,” Brisson said. “The focus was on Trump, but you could see our logo and whatnot in the background.”
Brisson said he is flying to Washington, DC, to drive in the parade and the garbage trucks are being transported by a driveaway service to their dealer in Virginia.
For context: Trump wore an orange and yellow vest and took reporter questions from a Loadmaster garbage truck the day after Biden appeared to refer to his supporters as “garbage.” Trump and his campaign immediately seized on the comments.
Biden said that his comments were misinterpreted and the White House insisted that they were directed only at a comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden event who called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.”
President Joe Biden on Monday says his administration is “pressing hard to close” an emerging deal for a ceasefire in Gaza as his presidency enters its final week.
“We’re on the brink of a proposal that I laid out in detail months ago finally coming to fruition,” Biden said in a speech Monday focused on foreign policy at the State Department.
American officials believe a ceasefire and hostage deal in the Israel-Hamas war is now in sight, sources familiar have told CNN, marking the first real sign of serious optimism inside the Biden administration in months.
“We’re pressing hard to close this,” the president said. “The deal we have structured would free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to Israel, and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians who suffered terribly in this war that Hamas started. They have been through hell.”
Read more on the emerging ceasefire agreement.
President Joe Biden on Monday said he believes history will vindicate his decisions surrounding the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, even as that deadly and disorganized withdrawal threatens to sully his foreign-policy record.
“When I took office, I had a choice. I saw no reason to keep thousands of servicemen in Afghanistan,” the president said in remarks at the State Department on Monday.
Biden said he grieves all American troops killed in Afghanistan, including the 13 service members killed in the 2021 withdrawal.
He then added: “Remember, critics said if we ended the war, it would damage our alliances and create threats to our homeland from foreign-directed terrorism out of a safe haven in Afghanistan. Neither has occurred. Neither has occurred. Our alliances have stayed strong.”
By ending the war, Biden said, the country has “been able to focus our energy and resources on more urgent challenges.”
“For all those reasons, ending the war was the right thing to do,” the president said. “And I believe that history will reflect that.”
As President Joe Biden heralded what he views as his foreign policy triumphs during a speech at the State Department on Monday, he also offered a warning for dangers ahead.
“Now, major authoritarian states are aligning more closely with one another – Iran, Russia, China, North Korea. But that’s more out of weakness than out of strength,” he said.
With one week until President-elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Biden said “the United States is in a fundamentally stronger position with respect to these countries than we were four years ago.”
“Today,” Biden added, “I can report to the American people: we are in a better strategic position in the long-term competition with China than we were when I took office.”
But, the president added, “we have managed our relationship with China responsibly. It’s never tipped over into conflict.”
The United States is “winning the worldwide competition,” President Joe Biden said from the State Department on Monday, using one of his final speeches as president to reflect on his administration’s accomplishments around the world.
“Compared to four years ago, America is stronger,” Biden said. “Our alliances are stronger. Our adversaries and competitors are weaker. We have not gone to war to make these things happen. During my presidency, I’ve increased America’s power at every dimension.”
He continued: “While our competitors and adversaries are facing stiff headwinds. We have the wind at our back because of all of you. This is what we are heading into, and over the next administration, that is what we are handing it to.”
Biden said he can report that “our sources of national power are far stronger than they were when we took office,” and the country’s economy is “booming, although we have more work to do.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming special envoy for the Middle East as important partners in efforts to secure a hostage and ceasefire resolution.
“Steve Witkoff has been a terrific partner in this, and also President-elect Trump, in making clear that he wants to see this deal go forward and go forward before January 20,” Blinken said in an interview with MSNBC Monday.
Blinken noted that parties want to make sure that that the deal that is being negotiated has the backing of the incoming president, so “creating that confidence by having Steve Witkoff’s participation, I think, has been critical.”
“This has been a very good partnership, and we hope that together we get this over the goal line,” the top US diplomat said.
Blinken said “we are closer than we’ve ever been” to a deal being reached, adding that the “ball is in Hamas’ court.”
CNN reported earlier Monday that Witkoff and National Security Council official Brett McGurk have been working very closely together in recent days and have even held joint phone calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Witkoff last week praised the Biden team, saying that they’ve been “very collaborative together.” “No one has pride of authorship. We are totally outcome oriented. Let’s get them home,” he said.
Country music star Carrie Underwood will perform “America the Beautiful” at President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to a copy of the program obtained by CNN and confirmed by a spokesperson for the inaugural committee.
Underwood said in a statement to CNN that she was honored to have been asked to perform and “humbled to answer the call.”
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is expected to administer the oath of office to Vice President-elect JD Vance, and the presidential oath of office will be administered by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the United States will take place on January 20 at the US Capitol.
CNN’s Elizabeth Wagmeister contributed to this report.
President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday that career professionals on the National Security Council (NSC) are “patriots” who are “dedicated to the interests” of the United States as the incoming administration looks to replace them with their own handpicked selections.
“They have served without fear or favor for both Democratic and Republican administrations,” Sullivan said. “And many of them have raised their hands to say, ‘I’m ready to stay and keep serving.’”
Some background: President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz has signaled he plans to remove career detailees from the NSC. He has identified others at government agencies to staff the agency instead.
That is a different approach than what Biden took upon taking office four years ago, Sullivan said.
“From my perspective, when we inherited the team from the Trump administration, I said, ‘I want those patriots. I want those people working for us, regardless of their political affiliation,’” he said. “The incoming administration will have to make its own decisions.”
Democrats on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources are asking to push back the confirmation hearing of Doug Burgum — President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Interior.
Sen. Martin Heinrich, the top Democrat on the committee, and his colleagues have asked that Burgum’s confirmation hearing be pushed by a week — arguing that they still have not received necessary documents, including his financial disclosures.
However, Chair Mike Lee has the power to unilaterally set the date for the hearing.
The hearing is currently scheduled for tomorrow morning.
Last week, Heinrich accused Lee of bypassing minority consent when scheduling Burgum’s confirmation hearing.
Heinrich argued that Lee has broken with “protocol and precedent” by scheduling the meeting over his objections.
“I am extremely disappointed that Chairman Lee has scheduled the first Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee confirmation hearing over my objection and before basic information has been given to the Committee. This is a breach of protocol and precedent, established over decades by Chairs of both parties,’ Heinrich said.
Lee defended his decision and told CNN that Burgum has submitted all his paperwork and that the committee will have a form back from the department’s ethics office before the hearing.
Some of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet selections will appear in front of the Senate in the coming days as confirmation hearings kick off this week.
A number of Trump’s selections for Cabinet positions have raised concerns, but the president-elect has stood firm in his support of them, including Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary.
Here’s a look at who is appearing before Senate committees this week:
Tuesday
- Trump’s veterans affairs secretary pick Doug Collins will appear before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
- Trump’s defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
- Trump’s interior secretary pick Doug Burgum is scheduled to appear before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources — but Democrats are arguing that the paperwork is still not completed, and this is a breach in protocol.
Wednesday
- Trump’s pick for homeland security secretary Kristi Noem will appear before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs.
- Trump’s attorney general pick Pam Bondi will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is the first of two hearings for Bondi.
- Trump’s secretary of state pick Marco Rubio will appear before Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
- Trump’s pick to head the CIA, John Ratcliffe, will appear before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
- Trump’s transportation secretary pick Sean Duffy will appear before the Senate Commerce Committee.
- Trump’s pick for energy secretary Chris Wright will appear before the Senate Energy Committee
- Trump’s pick for director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought will appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee
Thursday
- Attorney general pick Bondi will return for her second hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
- Trump’s pick for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin will appear before the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee.
- Trump’s pick for housing secretary Scott Turner will appear before the Senate Banking Committee.
- Trump’s treasury secretary pick Scott Bessent will appear before the Senate Finance Committee.
Judge Aileen Cannon said on Monday that she would not block the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on his investigation into Donald Trump and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The Justice Department could release that part of his final report, which comprises the first volume, as soon as midnight tonight unless another court intervenes.
However, Cannon is ordering more court proceedings with regards to the second volume of Smith’s report that deals with his investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents.
At a hearing scheduled for Friday in her Fort Pierce, Florida, courthouse, Cannon will consider Attorney General Merrick Garland’s plan to share the classified documents only with a select group of lawmakers. Garland has said that volume should not be made public while there is a possibility the prosecution of Trump’s former co-defendants could be revived.
Until she makes a final decision, Cannon says DOJ cannot share that part of the report with anyone outside of the department.
“The Court is not willing to make that gamble on the basis of generalized interest by members of Congress, at least not without full briefing and a hearing on the subject,” Cannon wrote. “Nor has the United States presented any justification to support the suggestion that Volume II must be released to Congress now, as opposed to after a reasonable period for an expedited hearing and judicial deliberation on the subject.”
Scott Bessent, the hedge-fund manager President-elect Donald Trump tapped to lead the Treasury Department, has promised to unload dozens of investments and step down from his firm if confirmed by lawmakers.
In a letter to Treasury’s ethics officials made public on Saturday, Bessent detailed what steps he would take to “avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interest” if he is confirmed by the Senate.
Ahead of his Thursday confirmation hearing, Bessent disclosed in separate filings a wide array of assets worth at least $500 million, including stocks, bonds, cash, bitcoin, real estate in the Bahamas and farmland in North Dakota.
Bessent, who would effectively quarterback Trump’s economic agenda, has agreed to resign from Key Square Group, the Connecticut-based hedge fund he founded, if he is confirmed. He also agreed to sell his partnership stake in Key Square within 90 days of confirmation and said he will not participate in matters relating to Key Square for a year, unless authorized.
Bessent has promised to divest from various interests within 90 days of confirmation, including shares in Verizon and Archer Daniels Midland, as well as currency positions and funds that invest in gold and bitcoin.
Thousands of added officers and miles of fencing are among the unprecedented security steps law enforcement in Washington are taking to harden the nation’s capital ahead of Inauguration Day.
The Secret Service is putting up more miles of fence for Donald Trump’s inauguration next week than any other security event the agency has led in its history.
Officials expect roughly 250,000 ticketed guests at the inauguration festivities along with demonstrators planning protests in downtown Washington, DC.
The special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s DC field office told reporters Monday that there would be over 30 miles of fencing for the event, more than any other national special security event in the past. The agency is pulling agents across the country to assist in the security that day and will be operating drones to monitor the area.
Roughly 25,000 law enforcement and military personnel will be on site to secure the event, officials said. Local law enforcement will be reinforced with 7,800 National Guard members and nearly 4,000 officers from across the US who offered to assist DC’s Metropolitan Police Department, MPD Police Chief Pamela Smith said.
Officials say, at this point, there is no intelligence indicating any particular threats, but they remain most concerned about lone actors. Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger said the threat of a lone wolf remains the key security concern for that day.
Crews will stand up checkpoints and more than 30 miles of anti-scale fence across the National Mall and downtown DC, adding to the expansive perimeter already set up around the US Capitol.
“We have a slightly more robust security plan [compared with 2021],” Secret Service Special Agent Mike McCool said. “We are 100% confident in the plan that we have put in place for this inauguration, that the public and our protectees will be safe.”
All those attending the inauguration will be screened by the Secret Service, McCool said.
About a dozen planned protests could bring more than 10,000 demonstrators to DC for the days around the inauguration.
President-elect Donald Trump praised Democratic Sen. John Fetterman in an interview published Monday.
Trump said he and the Pennsylvania Democrat had a “great meeting” at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump continued: “He’s a commonsense person. He’s not liberal or conservative. He’s just a commonsense person, which is beautiful.”
Trump said the two discussed the $14 billion takeover of US Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel that was recently blocked by President Joe Biden, as well as Israel, the US-Mexico border, Greenland and the Panama Canal.
“They’re going to make people that have steel mills do very well, and the people that work at those steel mills are going to do very well,” Trump said.
“We had a great meeting. He was very impressive. His wife was with him, and she was really fantastic, too,” he said.
The network associated with conservative billionaire Charles Koch is launching a $20 million campaign to urge Congress to extend Donald Trump’s tax cuts as he prepares to take office again.
Americans for Prosperity, one of the main arms of the Koch operation, said it will run ads, send mailers and activate grassroots supporters as part of a 50-state strategy to ensure the tax cuts do not expire.
They describe the “Protect Prosperity” campaign as the largest effort by a conservative organization to support Trump’s second-term legislative agenda.
The network failed efforts to elect Trump’s rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Nikki Haley, last year.
As President Joe Biden makes a final case for his foreign policy legacy Monday, his incoming successor’s national security team has begun signaling their intention to get rid of nonpolitical career appointees at the National Security Council (NSC) as they prepare to staff the agency with their own handpicked selections.
The incoming administration has begun questioning some career officials who are delegated to Biden’s NSC about their loyalty, including who they voted for in last year’s election and a rundown of their political contributions, according to multiple US officials.
Ordinarily, career officials are detailed for two years to the NSC from other government agencies, including the State Department, the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, to provide expert advice to the White House. Biden, who will deliver a capstone foreign policy speech at the State Department on Monday, has relied on those career officials as he managed a range of global flashpoints.
Detailees are normally carried over when administrations change, providing a degree of continuity in areas of ongoing national security concern, including the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. They work alongside political appointees selected by the new president.
Yet many career officials now serving on Biden’s NSC now believe they will be asked to return to their home agencies soon after Trump assumes power next week.
Trump’s incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz has said the Trump team plans to send current detailees back to their home agencies in favor of people they’ve selected themselves, in an effort to stock the NSC with people who support Trump’s agenda.
He said in an interview with Breitbart last week the Trump team had already identified names of people they wanted to bring into the NSC once Trump has taken office.
“Everybody is going to resign at 12:01 on January 20,” Waltz said. “We’re working through our process to get everybody their clearances and through the transition process now.”
But efforts to suss out the loyalties of current nonpolitical staffers have ramped up in recent days, including questions about voting history and social media posts, according to the US official. Those being questioned include topic experts who have been responsible for coordinating the Biden administration’s approach to various global issues.
As Biden prepares to hand off two global conflicts, with a number of other hot spots boiling, major changes in staffing at the NSC could lend another layer of uncertainty to the incoming administration.
“I don’t know what he’s actually going to do, so I will reserve comment until I see,” Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” when questioned about the prospective changes.
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, has voiced strong opposition to removing the names of Confederate generals from US military bases, repeatedly saying the names should be changed back.
Hegseth, a National Guard veteran and longtime Fox News host, has described the renaming efforts as “a sham,” “garbage,” and “crap” in various media appearances between 2021 and 2024 reviewed by CNN.
Hegseth said the moves eroded military tradition and were part of what he characterized as a politically motivated progressive agenda infiltrating American institutions.
Between 2022 and 2023, the names of nine US military bases previously dedicated to Confederate leaders were changed, the result of the National Defense Authorization Act passed at the end of the first Trump administration. Trump initially vetoed the bill, partly in protest over the renaming provision, but Congress overwhelmingly overrode the veto to pass the bill in January 2021 .
As secretary of defense, Hegseth could advocate for reverting base names to their former Confederate names, but the changes would require congressional approval.
Hegseth, whose Senate confirmation hearings begin January 14, has criticized other cultural shifts in the military, including allowing women to serve in combat roles and gay service members to serve openly.
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