DONALD TRUMP

Independent, UK -  Donald Trump and Melania arrived in Washington, D.C. for Jimmy Carter’s funeral — but the president-elect first also met with Republican lawmakers to discuss how to make Canada part of America, according to a report. Since winning the 2024 election, Trump has repeatedly spoken about expanding the US, including plays at Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal. Wednesday evening proved no different, when Trump reportedly met with Republican members of Congress behind-closed-doors to discuss plans to incorporate Canada into America, the Daily Mail reported. “We talked a lot about Canada becoming the 51st state,” Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin told the outlet after exiting the meeting.

 Daily Beast -  Special counsel Jack Smith‘s final report into the criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump has been blocked from release after the president’s lawyers launched a last-ditch effort to prevent its publication. In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland sent Monday, Trump’s lawyers said they were allowed to review Smith’s report in the criminal case in which Trump was charged with conspiring to keep classified documents after he left office.

They threatened legal action if it is released, noting Smith’s findings include strongly worded allegations that Trump “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort” and describe him as “the head of the criminal conspiracies.”

Trump’s lawyers argued Smith’s report amounts to little more than a “politically-motivated attack” and that making public his findings in the classified documents case or an election interference case Smith also pursue would illegally interfere with Trump’s presidential transition.

Washington Times - President-elect Donald Trump attacked California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday as thousands of acres burned in a blaze that tore through Los Angeles County. Mr. Trump threatened to take on the state’s water policies when he assumes office later this month. Mr. Trump raged at Mr. Newsom on Truth Social, pinning the blame for the disaster on the Democrat’s decision to reject a 2019 federal plan that would have increased the water supply in Southern California. 

“Governor Gavin Newscum [sic] refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snowmelt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Mr. Trump wrote.

AP - New York's highest court declined to block Donald Trump's upcoming sentencing in his hush money case, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as the president-elect's likely last option to prevent the hearing from taking place Friday.

National Memo -  Anyone naïve enough to believe that Donald Trump is an “antiwar” politician -- or, more fashionably, a foreign policy “realist” -- must have been startled when he threatened the security of Canada, Greenland, Mexico, and Panama at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.

But for anyone who has paid the slightest attention to Trump’s utterances and actions over the past ten years, his latest outburst is no surprise at all. Notwithstanding the incessant efforts by his fans on the far right (and far left) to shine him up, the incoming president is an unrepentant imperialist, warmonger, and international bully.

Trump lied about his military and foreign policy record throughout the 2024 campaign -- and Democrats somehow failed to point out that he was emphatically not the cautious, peace-loving opponent of intervention being sold to voters. “I had no wars,” he told Iowans last summer, as if that were the end of any further discussion. “I’m the only president in 72 years…I didn’t have any wars.”

But when Trump proclaims his pugnacious intentions toward America’s neighbors and NATO allies, he is merely expressing the same dangerously aggressive schoolyard attitude that always marked his rhetoric and then his presidency.

NBC News - Justice Samuel Alito said he took a phone call from Trump one day before the president-elect asked the Supreme Court to halt his upcoming sentencing but insisted they didn’t talk about the case.

NPR -  Trump wants one big bill for everything, which is in line with what House Speaker Mike Johnson wants, NPR’s Barbara Sprunt says. On the Senate side, there’s interest in a two-bill approach. Both strategies would use a tool in the budget process to avoid a filibuster from Senate Democrats. After the almost two-hour meeting, Trump seemed not too concerned with the process. Sprunt says the early stages of collaboration between the House, Senate and Trump’s administration in the White House can set a tone for how they will work together going forward.