Politics

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday that Stephen Miran, a Treasury Department adviser in his first administration, would be the chair of his Council of Economic Advisers.

The council advises the president on economic policy and is composed of three members, including the chair. The council assists in the preparation of an annual report that gives an overview of the country’s economy, reviews federal policies and programs and makes economic policy recommendations.

Earlier this year, Miran and economist Nouriel Roubini authored a hedge fund study that said the U.S. Treasury last year effectively provided economic stimulus by moderating long-dated bond sales.

The study echoed suggestions by Republican lawmakers that the Treasury deliberately increased issuance of short-term Treasury bills to give the economy a “sugar high” ahead of the November elections. The Treasury denied any such strategy.

Miran, a senior strategist at Hudson Bay Capital, has also argued that fears over trade tariffs that Trump has threatened to impose after he takes office next month are overblown.

Trade and economic experts have said such duties would raise prices and would effectively be a new tax on consumers.

Last month, Trump tapped Kevin Hassett, who was a key economic adviser in his first term, to chair his National Economic Council, which helps set domestic and international economic policy.

Hudson Bay Capital took a position in Trump’s social media firm Trump Media & Technology in the first quarter of this year.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin and Lisa Shumaker)

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By Jasper Ward

(Reuters) -Lara Trump, daughter-in-law of President-elect Donald Trump, said on Saturday she has removed her name from consideration to replace outgoing U.S. Senator Marco Rubio.

Rubio was picked by Trump to serve as secretary of state. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will pick a replacement for Rubio, who is expected to resign as senator when Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

There was speculation that Lara Trump, who served as co-chair of the Republican National Committee in the lead-up to the 2024 election, would succeed Rubio in the Senate.

However, in a post on X, Trump said she had decided to remove herself from consideration “after an incredible amount of thought, contemplation, and encouragement from so many.”

“I could not have been more honored to serve as RNC co-chair during the most high-stakes election of our lifetime and I’m truly humbled by the unbelievable support shown to me by the people of our country, and here in the great state of Florida,” she said.

Trump is married to Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s son.

She said she has a “big announcement” to share in January but did not provide details. Trump said she remains passionate about public service and looks forward to serving again in the future.

While noting there was already strong interest from possible candidates, DeSantis said last month that a selection will likely be made by early January.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Rod Nickel)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — After days of threats and demands, Donald Trump had little to show for it once lawmakers passed a budget deal in the early hours of Saturday, narrowly averting a pre-Christmas government shutdown.

The president-elect successfully pushed House Republicans to jettison some spending, but he failed to achieve his central goal of raising the debt limit. It demonstrated that despite his decisive election victory and frequent promises of retribution, many members of his party are still willing to openly defy him.

Trump’s decision to inject himself into the budget debate a month before his inauguration also showed that he remains more adept at blowing up deals than making them, and it foreshadowed that his second term will likely be marked by the same infighting, chaos and brinksmanship that characterized his first.

“Stay tuned. Buckle up. Strap in,” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., a senior appropriator.

A glance at Trump’s agenda shows a cascade of opportunities for similar showdowns in the years to come. He wants to extend tax cuts that he signed into law seven years ago, slash the size of government, increase tariffs on imports and crack down on illegal immigrants. Many of those efforts will need congressional buy-in.

For many of Trump’s supporters, disruption could be its own goal. Thirty-seven percent of those who voted for him this year said they wanted “complete and total upheaval,” according to AP VoteCast, a broad survey of more than 120,000 voters. An additional 56% said they wanted “substantial change.”

But the past few days made clear the difficulty Trump could face in quickly fulfilling his goals, especially with Republicans holding only thin majorities in the House and the Senate. Some lawmakers already seem weary of the apparent lack of a unified strategy.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said the budget battle was “a valuable lesson in how to get our act together.”

“There are no layups and it gets more complicated,” he said.

The trouble started when top lawmakers released a copy of the bill, known as a continuing resolution, that was required to keep the federal government functioning until March. It wasn’t the president-elect but Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a Trump confidant, who first began whipping up opposition to the legislation on social media by calling it excessive spending.

Trump eventually waded into the fight. He ordered Republicans to cancel the bipartisan deal they had made with Democrats. And he demanded they increase the debt limit — the cap on how much the government can borrow — in hopes of preventing that thorny issue from coming up while he is in charge of the government.

He ratcheted up the pressure even as his demands shifted. First he wanted to eliminate the debt limit altogether. Then he wanted to suspend it until 2027. Then he floated an extension until 2029.

If there was a shutdown, Democratic President Joe Biden would take the blame, Trump insisted.

“All Republicans, and even the Democrats, should do what is best for our Country, and vote “YES” for this Bill, TONIGHT!” Trump wrote Thursday, before a vote on a version of the bill that included a higher debt limit.

Instead, 38 Republicans voted no. It was a stunning brush-off to Trump, whose power over his party has at times seemed near-absolute.

“Without this, we should never make a deal,” he wrote on Truth Social, his social media site.

If he didn’t get what he wanted, Trump said, there should be a government shutdown. He also said members of his own party would face primary challenges if they refused to go along, saying “Republican obstructionists have to be done away with.” He singled out Rep. Chip Roy of Texas by name and with insults.

But in the end, lawmakers left out that debt ceiling increase, and a final deal passed early Saturday.

Musk and other Trump allies tried to frame it as a win because the final legislation was significantly slimmed down and omitted unpopular items such as a pay raise for members of Congress. Charlie Kirk, the prominent conservative activist, wrote on X that Trump “is already running Congress before he takes office!”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he had been in “constant contact” with Trump, who, he added was “certainly happy about this outcome.”

If Trump agreed, he didn’t say so himself.

After days of frequent social media messages, Trump again went silent on Friday. He did not offer a reaction to the final vote or issue any statements. Instead, he went golfing at his Florida resort.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump, said the president-elect helped prevent an original deal “full of Democrat pork and pay raises for members of Congress.”

“In January, President Trump and DOGE will continue this important mission to cut the waste out of Washington, one bill at a time,” she said. DOGE is a reference to the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory panel that will be led by Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

The circus-like atmosphere of the funding fight was reminiscent of Trump’s first term. Back then, one budget standoff led to a government shutdown when Trump demanded money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall. After 35 days — the longest shutdown in history — he agreed to a deal without the money he wanted.

It was a political low point for Trump, and 60% of Americans blamed him for the shutdown, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll at the time.

Trump didn’t stop trying to bend Republicans to his will then. He’s certainly not going to do so now.

He is cranking up the pressure on his own party over his Cabinet picks, pushing reluctant Republican senators to get on board with some of his most controversial choices, such as anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary.

The spending debates next year seem certain to further test Trump’s influence in the House. Many conservatives view the rapid growth of the federal debt as an existential threat to the country that must be addressed. But some Republicans fear a voter backlash if steep cuts are made to federal programs upon which Americans rely.

Concerns about deficit spending could intensify if Trump pushes expensive tax cuts that he promised during the campaign, such as eliminating taxes on tips, Social Security and overtime pay.

He also wants to extend the tax cuts he signed into law in 2017 that are set to expire next year. He has called for further lowering the U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, but only for companies that produce in the United States.

Trump has said he will pay for the dips in revenue with aggressive new tariffs that economists warn will lead to higher prices for consumers.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, said reducing spending would likely continue to be a gulf between Trump and House Republicans.

“That’s never been really a campaign promise of Trump, but it’s a big priority for House Republicans,” he said.

There was no sense that the animosity was dying down on Saturday. Some Republicans faulted the House leadership for not securing Trump’s “blessing” on the original deal. Democrats cast Trump as second fiddle to Musk.

While Trump stayed quiet, Biden announced that he signed the budget legislation.

“This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted,” he said. “But it rejects the accelerated pathway to a tax cut for billionaires that Republicans sought, and it ensures the government can continue to operate at full capacity.”

___ Boak reported from West Palm Beach, Florida, and Colvin from New York.

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(Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday he has selected David Fink to serve as administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration.

“David will bring his 45+ years of transportation leadership and success, which will deliver the FRA into a new era of safety and technological innovation,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by Rod Nickel)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed a bill into law Saturday that averts a government shutdown, bringing a final close to days of upheaval after Congress approved a temporary funding plan just past the deadline and refused President-elect Donald Trump’s core debt demands in the package.

The deal funds the government at current levels through March 14 and provides $100 billion in disaster aid and $10 billion in agricultural assistance to farmers.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had insisted lawmakers would “meet our obligations” and not allow federal operations to close. But the outcome at the end of a tumultuous week was uncertain after Trump had insisted the deal include an increase in the government’s borrowing limit.

Johnson’s revised plan was approved 366-34, and it was passed by the Senate by a 85-11 vote after midnight. By then, the White House said it had ceased shutdown preparations.

“There will be no government shutdown,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Johnson, who had spoken to Trump after the House vote, said the compromise was “a good outcome for the country” and that the president-elect “was certainly happy about this outcome, as well.”

The final product was the third attempt from Johnson, the beleaguered speaker, to achieve one of the basic requirements of the federal government — keeping it open. The difficulties raised questions about whether Johnson will be able to keep his job, in the face of angry Republican colleagues, and work alongside Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk.

The House is scheduled to elect the next speaker on Jan. 3, 2025, when the new Congress convenes. Republicans will have an exceedingly narrow majority, 220-215, leaving Johnson little margin for error as he tries to win the speaker’s gavel.

The federal debt stands at roughly $36 trillion, and the spike in inflation after the coronavirus pandemic has pushed up the government’s borrowing costs such that debt service next year will exceed spending on national security. The last time lawmakers raised the debt limit was June 2023. Rather than raise the limit by a dollar amount, lawmakers suspended the debt limit through Jan. 1, 2025.

There is no need to raise that limit right now because the Treasury Department can begin using what it calls “extraordinary measures” to ensure that America does not default on its debts. Some estimate these accounting maneuvers could push the default deadline to the summer of 2025. But that’s what Trump wanted to avoid because an increase would be needed while he was president.

GOP leaders said the debt ceiling would be debated as part of tax and border packages in the new year. Republicans made a so-called handshake agreement to raise the debt limit at that time while also cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.

It was essentially the same deal that flopped Thursday night — minus Trump’s debt demand. But it’s far smaller than the original deal Johnson struck with Democratic and Republican leaders — a 1,500-page bill that Trump and Musk rejected, forcing him to start over. It was stuffed with a long list of other bills — including much-derided pay raises for lawmakers — but also other measures with broad bipartisan support that now have a tougher path to becoming law.

Trump, who has not yet been sworn into office, is showing the power but also the limits of his sway with Congress, as he intervenes and orchestrates affairs from Mar-a-Lago alongside Musk, who is heading up the new Department of Government Efficiency.

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The trailing Republican in a tight North Carolina Supreme Court race suffered legal setbacks Friday as a federal judge refused to halt any upcoming official declaration that his Democratic rival won their November election.

U.S. District Judge Richard Myers rejected a demand by attorneys for Jefferson Griffin for a temporary restraining order to prevent the State Board of Elections from issuing a certificate that state Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs won.

Separately, the state board dismissed election protests filed across dozens of counties by Griffin and three GOP legislative candidates who also were involved in close elections.

By 3-2 party-line votes, the board’s Democratic majority determined dismissals were appropriate in part because the total number of voters — and thus ballots — challenged as ineligible in each race were smaller than the leads that Riggs and the three Democratic legislative candidates hold.

After recounts, Riggs led Griffin, a Court of Appeals judge, by 734 votes from over 5.5 million ballots cast. The candidates’ differences in the other three races — two from the state Senate and one in the House — range from 128 to 228 votes.

“Even if all of these claims were decided in Mr. Griffin’s favor and in the other protesters’ favor, none of them would change the outcome of the election,” board Chair Alan Hirsch said just before a key vote Friday.

The Associated Press has not called the Supreme Court race or two of the General Assembly races that were subject of the protests.

Griffin already went to court this week asking that judges intervene in the election to rule on a much larger universe of ballots. He said that more than 60,000 votes should be removed from the count — a move that Griffin’s lawyers have argued would make him the winner.

Nearly all of these votes were cast by people with voter registration records that may lack driver’s licenses or containing partial Social Security numbers that have been otherwise required by the state for 20 years.

Riggs’ campaign and her allies say Griffin is trying to overturn an election by canceling the choices of otherwise qualified voters who are asked to provide qualifying identification when they vote. They want Griffin to concede.

Riggs is one of two Democrats on the seven-member court and is seeking an eight-year term.

As for the federal court action, Griffin’s attorneys had told Myers the temporary restraining order was needed because the board was poised “in a matter of days” to certify the race for Riggs. But Myers, appointed to the bench by Donald Trump, wrote that it wasn’t so imminent. The board said a certificate wouldn’t be issued before Jan. 3.

“The court finds that Plaintiff has failed to make a clear showing that he will suffer immediate injury before (the board) can be heard in opposition,” Myers wrote.

The ruling came two days after Griffin asked the state Supreme Court to intervene after the state board’s decision last week to reject other election protests related to the driver’s license and Social Security numbers and two other categories of military and overseas voters.

The board moved Griffin’s request to the federal courts. Myers already ruled this fall against state and national Republicans who sought in part to remove from voter rolls people whose records lacked driver’s license or Social Security numbers and were determined ineligible to vote.

The boards’ review of ballots Friday were based on allegations that some absentee and early in-person ballots shouldn’t count because the voter died before Election Day or that someone still serving a felony sentence voted. Others focused on residency requirements or rejected voter registrations. Republicans on the board suggested that acting Friday was premature, with board member Kevin Lewis noting the pending court matter over the 60,000-plus votes.

Griffin can appeal Friday’s rulings in court as well. The option for the legislative candidates, however, is to ask the General Assembly chamber that they are seeking to serve in to decide who won the seat.

In one uncalled legislative race, Republican state Rep. Frank Sossamon trails Democratic challenger Bryan Cohn. A Cohn victory would mean Republicans fall one seat short of retaining their current veto-proof majority in the General Assembly starting next month.

In a statement before Friday’s action, Sossamon left open the door to seek recourse in the House should a state legal decision call his election “result into further question.”

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ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota House Republicans could start the 2025 legislative session in the majority after a judge ruled Friday that a Democratic candidate didn’t meet the residency requirements for his suburban district.

Ramsey County Judge Leonardo Castro ruled that Curtis Johnson didn’t live in the Roseville-area district for the required six months ahead of the election and is therefore ineligible to serve, Minnesota Public Radio reported. House Democrats said they would immediately appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Legislative leaders from both parties have been proceeding under the assumption that the House would be tied 67-67 when the Legislature convenes Jan. 14, and they’ve been working out a power-sharing agreement. If Johnson is ultimately barred from taking office, Republicans would have a 67-66 majority until a special election could be held in the Democratic-leaning district.

A pending court challenge in a different suburban district could also affect the balance of power in the House. Incumbent Democratic Rep. Brad Tabke, of Shakopee, was declared the winner by 14 votes over Republican Aaron Paul despite 20 missing ballots that were accepted but never counted and then apparently thrown away. At a hearing this week, his attorneys presented six of those affected voters who testified that they supported Tabke, which would be enough to preserve his win. A judge is expected to decide within the next few weeks how to proceed.

Democrats have a one-vote majority in the state Senate. So regardless of the outcome in the disputed House races, Minnesota will be returning to some degree of divided government in 2025 after two years of full Democratic control. Minnesota will also be one of the few states with a divided legislature next year.

Johnson’s Republican challenger, Paul Wikstrom, sought the ruling after he and supporters gathered surveillance video and photos that aimed to show Johnson did not reside in the apartment he claimed as his residence.

“The credibility of Mr. Johnson’s testimony about his physical presence in the apartment was significantly undermined by his demeanor, the photos and videos presented by the contestant and his own reluctance to commit to any more than minimal, vague amounts of time spent at the apartment,” Castro wrote.

“This is a clear reminder that laws matter, and integrity in the election process is non-negotiable,” House Republican leader Lisa Demuth, of Cold Spring, said in a statement.

But current House Speaker Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, said Johnson had a convincing win by 7,503 votes and that it should stand.

“The court erred as a matter of law in not dismissing this case,” Hortman said in a statement.

Hortman also disputed comments that Demuth, the GOP nominee to be speaker, made on WCCO Radio on Friday when she said Republicans will have sole control of the House.

“Speaker-designate Demuth is wrong,” Hortman said. “We expect to have a tied House when we start session on January 14.”

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By Bo Erickson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress early on Saturday passed a measure to boost Social Security retirement payments to some retirees who draw public pensions – such as former police and firefighters – which critics warned will further weaken the program’s finances.

The Senate in a 76-20 bipartisan vote shortly after midnight approved the Social Security Fairness Act, which would repeal two-decades-old provisions that can reduce benefits for people who also receive a pension.

The House of Representatives last month approved the bill in a 327-75 vote, which means that Senate approval sends it to Democratic President Joe Biden to sign into law. The White House did not immediately respond to a question about whether Biden intended to do so.

The bill will overturn a decades-old change to the program that had been made to limit federal benefits to some higher-earning workers with pensions. Over time, growing numbers of municipal employees such as firefighters and postal workers also saw their payments capped.

Most Americans do not participate in pension plans, which pay a defined benefit, and instead are dependent on what money they can save and Social Security. Just one in ten U.S. private sector workers have pension plans, according to Labor Department data.

The new provisions impact about 3% of Social Security beneficiaries – totaling a little more than 2.5 million Americans – and the workers and retirees affected by these provisions are key constituencies for lawmakers and their powerful advocacy groups have pushed for a legislative fix. 

Some of them could received hundreds of dollars more a month in federal benefits as a result of the bill, retirement experts said.

Some federal budget experts warned the change could hurt the program’s already shaky finances as the bill’s price tag is approximately $196 billion over the next decade, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

Emerson Sprick, associate director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in an interview, “the fact that there is such overwhelming support in Congress for exactly the opposite of what policy researchers agree on is pretty frustrating.” 

Instead of scrapping the current formulas for determining retirement benefits for these workers, revisions have been floated, as well as more accurate communication from the Social Security Administration on how much money these public sector employees should expect. 

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal think tank, is also warning the extra cost will affect the program’s future. 

“We are racing to our own fiscal demise,” the group’s president, Maya MacGuineas, said in a statement.

“It is truly astonishing that at a time when we are just nine years away from the trust fund for the nation’s largest program being completely exhausted, lawmakers are about to consider speeding that up by six months.”

Republican Senator Ted Cruz on the Senate floor on Wednesday said the bill as written will “throw granny over the cliff”.

“Every senator who votes to impose $200 billion dollars of cost on the Social Security Trust Fund, you are choosing to sacrifice the interest of seniors who paid into Social Security and who earned those benefits,” he said.

Bill supporters said Social Security’s future can be addressed at a later time. 

Asked about the solvency implications pf this legislation, Senator Michael Bennet, a supporter of the bill, told Reuters: “Those are much longer term issues that we have to find a way to address together.”

(Editing by Stephen Coates)

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The top Democrat on the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee said on Friday that Republicans in Congress were protecting Elon Musk’s Chinese investments by scrapping provisions restricting U.S. investments.

Representative Rosa DeLauro said in a letter that Musk, CEO of electric car maker Tesla, may have upended the government funding process to remove a provision that would regulate U.S. investments in China given his “extensive investments in China in key sectors and his personal ties with Chinese Communist Party leadership, and calls into question the real reason for Musk’s opposition to the original funding deal.”

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk posted a number of critical posts about DeLauro on X on Friday including one that said she “needs to be expelled from Congress!”

President-elect Donald Trump has named Musk, a billionaire, as co-head of a project to cut government costs. Musk helped lead opposition online to a government funding bill that would have included the Chinese investment restrictions.

“Musk’s investments in China and his ties with the Chinese Community Party have only grown over the last few years with Tesla’s Shanghai plant producing about 50 percent of Tesla’s global automobile output,” DeLauro wrote.

Nearly a quarter of Tesla’s global revenue in 2023 drew from sales of Chinese-made vehicles from the Shanghai factory, DeLauro said, adding that Tesla broke ground on a $200 million factory in China to manufacture large batteries critical to its electric vehicle supply chain.

She added that proponents of regulating U.S. investment in China “have advocated for the inclusion of large battery manufacturing in the list of technologies subject to outbound investment screening.”

In October, the Treasury finalized rules effective Jan. 2 that will limit U.S. investments in artificial intelligence and other technology sectors in China that could threaten U.S. national security.

On the House floor, DeLauro vowed to continue fighting for the provisions. “This is something that simply must be done to safeguard our supply chains and our critical capabilities,” she said adding Musk had “bullied Republicans into going back on their words.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler and David Gregorio)

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(Washington, DC) – With hours to go before a midnight government shutdown, the House approved a new plan from House Speaker Mike Johnson that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster aid, but dropped President-elect Donald Trump’s demands for a debt limit increase into the new year.

The vote came a day after the House rejected Trump’s new plan to fund operations and suspend the debt ceiling, as Democrats and dozens of Republicans refused to accommodate his sudden demands.

Here’s the latest:

Hours to go before a midnight government shutdown, the House approved a new plan late Friday from Speaker Mike Johnson that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster aid, but drops President-elect Donald Trump’s demands for a debt limit increase into the new year.

Johnson insisted Congress would “meet our obligations” and not allow federal operations to shutter ahead of the Christmas holiday season. But the day’s outcome was uncertain after Trump doubled down on his insistence that a debt ceiling increase be included in any deal — if not, he said in an early morning post, let the closures “start now.”

The bill was approved 366-34 and now goes to the Senate for expected quick passage.

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