2016-11-21

Chris Christie, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani among the potential cabinet picks who met with Trump and Mike Pence in New Jersey over the weekend

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10.06pm GMT

An update now to that last block: Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires has spoken with Macri spokesman Iván Pavlovsky who said that the Argentinian president did not speak about Trump real estate developments with Ivanka Trump, either.

“He spoke with Ivanka only briefly, to say hello, because he met her when she was just a kid. They did not speak about it. The president doesn’t speak about city building permits,” Pavlovsky told the Guardian.

9.54pm GMT

Earlier this hour we published a report by Uki Goñi for the Guardian that a spokesman for Argentina’s president has denied that Donald Trump asked for a business favour in their first phone call after Trump was elected president.

We would now highlight a separate passage from the report: Ivanka Trump spoke on the call with president Mauricia Macri, Macri told a Japanese newspaper:

But despite such setbacks, the relationship remains close enough that President Macri spoke with Ivanka Trump during last Monday’s phone conversation. “In the call, I also talked with his daughter,” Macri told the Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun. “I have known her since her infant days.”

Ivanka Trump sat in on her father's meeting today with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, per handout photo pic.twitter.com/tEbfYYeJFA

Related: Trump did not ask Argentina's president for business favor, spokesman says

9.29pm GMT

New York City is going to be looking to the federal government to defray costs of protecting Donald Trump – which run $1m a day, CNN reports – and, after Trump moves to the White House, of protecting Melania and Barron Trump, who will stay in the city until the boy finishes the school year.

The CNN report quotes mayor Bill de Blasio:

“The number one imperative here is safety and security. We owe that to the president elect, his family and his team,” said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio at a press conference on Friday. But he added the city will need help with those costs, particularly police overtime.

“This is a very substantial undertaking. It will take substantial resources,” he said. “We will begin the conversation with the federal government shortly on reimbursement for the NYPD for some of the costs that we are incurring.”

9.26pm GMT

University of Florida professor Michael McDonald, in addition to his work on early voting for the Elections Project, has studied judicial reviews of state-level gerrymandering, and contributes this interesting analysis to the Wisconsin ruling just announced:

8/ What next for Wisconsin? Court has not imposed a remedy at this time. My guess is that the current elections will stand pic.twitter.com/t7nK23mKia

10/ For now, the partisan gerrymandering ruling only applies to the Western District of Wisconsin, i.e., no other state

9.22pm GMT

A spokesman for Argentina’s president has denied that Donald Trump asked for a business favour when Mauricio Macri called the US president-elect to congratulate him on his victory.

Local media reports have alleged that Trump asked Macri for help over a stalled construction permit for a 35-storey project called Trump Office in downtown Buenos Aires. A source told the Guardian that the information came from Macri’s staff.

Related: Trump did not ask Argentina's president for business favor, spokesman says

9.16pm GMT

They’re baa-ack

Just now on C-SPAN #ElevatorCam from Trump Tower lobby: @newtgingrich & @CallyGingrich pic.twitter.com/f2tkaUInOf

8.54pm GMT

The US district court for the western district of Wisconsin has ruled in agreement with a plaintiff’s allegation that “the redistricting plan enacted by the Wisconsin legislature in 2011 constitutes an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.”

From the ruling:

We find that Act 43 was intended to burden the representational rights of Democratic voters throughout the decennial period by impeding their ability to translate their votes into legislative seats. Moreover, as demonstrated by the results of the 2012 and 2014 elections, among other evidence, we conclude that Act 43 has had its intended effect. Finally, we find that the discriminatory effect is not explained by the political geography of Wisconsin nor is it justified by a legitimate state interest. Consequently, Act 43 constitutes an unconstitutional political gerrymander.

Holy moly. #WKOW
MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Federal court: Wisconsin's Republican-drawn redistricting maps are unconstitutional.

We defer, at this time, a ruling on the appropriate remedy. The parties have not had an opportunity to brief fully the timing and propriety of remedial measures. We therefore order briefing on the appropriate remedy according to the following schedule:

1. The parties shall file simultaneous briefs on the nature and timing of all appropriate remedial measures in 30 days’ time; 2. Simultaneous response briefs are due 15 days thereafter.

8.45pm GMT

The Trump transition pool has just sent over a summary of a conversation in Trump hotel lobby just then with Trump aide Kellyanne Conway. Here are sections of the Q&A:

Q: Will Trump hold a news conference?

7.46pm GMT

Donald Trump’s nominee for US attorney general was once accused of calling a black official in Alabama a “nigger”, and then gave a false explanation to the US Senate when testifying about the allegation.

Senator Jeff Sessions was said to have used the racist term in November 1981, when talking about the first black man to be elected as a county commissioner in Mobile, where Sessions was a Republican party official and a federal prosecutor.

Related: Jeff Sessions: Trump's attorney general pick accused of racial slur in 1981

7.45pm GMT

Further media sightings at Trump tower – heading up to meet with Trump, or heading out after meeting with him – via the transition media pool:

Norah O’Donnell
Gayle King
George Stephanopoulos
David Muir
Martha Raddatz
Lester Holt
Chuck Todd

7.28pm GMT

Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach, an immigration hard-liner, flashed a written plan to question “high-risk” immigrants over support for Sharia law and the US Constitution as he entered a meeting with Donald Trump at the weekend.

It has not been publicly announced whether Kobach is in the running for homeland security secretary or any other position. Trump’s promise to carry out “extreme vetting” of immigrants has raised a red flag for civil liberties advocates and defenders of a certain idea of the USA while being cheered by analysts who dispute that the constitution’s ban on religious tests applies to immigration.

An Associated Press photographer shot an image of Kobach going into the meeting and clutching a binder along with a stack of papers. One page is visible and readable, though partly obscured by Kobach’s hand.

The document is arranged in a numbered format. The first point reads, “Bar the Entry of Potential Terrorists.”

NEW, via @jshormanCJ: Kobach took plan for Department of Homeland Security into Trump meeting #ksleg | https://t.co/bzAj784tQ3 pic.twitter.com/y6p3QTtLLa

7.06pm GMT

Senator John McCain, who is to remain chairman of the senate armed services committee, which would hold hearings on the confirmation of Trump’s defense secretary nominee, has again voiced support for general James “Mad Dog” Mattis, who is not yet a nominee but who was praised by Trump after a weekend meeting.

Just in: @SenJohnMcCain calls Gen. James Mattis, potential Trump SecDef, 'one of the finest military officers of his generation'

General James "Mad Dog" Mattis, who is being considered for Secretary of Defense, was very impressive yesterday. A true General's General!

6.39pm GMT

The media pool covering the Trump transition has encountered former senator Scott Brown and Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin following their meetings in Trump tower.

Also spotted: former Texas governor Rick Perry, leaving the building just after noon without speaking with reporters.
Additionally spotted: TV executives and on-air personality including:

NBC’s Deborah Turness

CNN’s Jeff Zucker and Wolf Blitzer

I’m not competing with anybody. I think I’m the best person, but there are some tremendous people out there and I don’t look at it as a competition. Anybody who takes that job, which I believe is the toughest job in the cabinet – because it has so many problems in that it’s so visible, and that people’s lives are depending on whether you do it right or wrong. I think as the president-elect said, it’s his highest priority, and that’s why the veterans came out so strongly for him.

5.22pm GMT

Activists have announced a protest of incoming White House chief strategist Steve Bannon for this afternoon at 5pm ET at the Trump Soho hotel and residences:

5.01pm GMT

Executives and anchors from ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox are meeting with Trump at Trump tower on Monday afternoon, CNN’s Brian Stelter reports:

The meeting was organized by Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who is now a senior adviser to Trump.

4.47pm GMT

The Trump team has listed additional people working on its behalf to establish beachheads in the bureaucracy, preliminary to the full-scale Trump administration invasion of Washington.

The analogy isn’t as strained as it might seem; these functionaries are known as “landing team members.” It is, however, unclear what kind of a takeover we’re witnessing – if that’s what we’re witnessing.

4.35pm GMT

In an address to about 1,000 supporters in Boston Sunday night, Bernie Sanders challenged Democrats to rediscover the working class – and in the process he seemed to suggest that Hillary Clinton had traded on a failed strategy of identity politics in her losing presidential bid.

“The working class of this country is being decimated — that’s why Donald Trump won,” Sanders said at the Berklee Performance Center, according to a report by public radio station WBUR. “And what we need now are candidates who stand with those working people, who understand that real median family income has gone down.”

Sanders also said supporters needed to help move the party away from what he calls “identity politics.”

“It is not good enough for somebody to say, ‘I’m a woman, vote for me.’ That is not good enough,” Sanders said. “What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industries.”

4.22pm GMT

After the shock of Donald Trump’s presidential win wore off, it didn’t surprise me that one of the first things I saw women doing online was advising others to get IUDs as soon as possible. Anticipating the end of Obamacare, coverage for birth control, perhaps even abortion, a lot of women started to think about long term contraception and talking about their options online. With social media, getting involved is easier than ever. And with Trump– the most overtly misogynist politician in history – in office, we have our work cut out for us. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are ten things women can do that might ease our minds, and protect our rights.

Related: Surviving in Trump's America: 10 things women can do to protect their rights

3.52pm GMT

The president-elect will shave turkey this year in Palm Beach, Florida, a spokesman says:

Spox for Pres-elect Trump, @JasonMillerinDC, says Trump will spend Thanskgiving at Mar-a-Lago.

3.50pm GMT

“Smart and tough.” Here’s brief video of Trump and Christie meeting at Bedminster yesterday.

Christie recently denied sworn testimony at a Bridgegate trial that he knew about lane closures in 2013 on the George Washington bridge before the closures happened. The trial concluded with the federal criminal convictions of two former top Christie allies.

Donald Trump & Chris Christie this afternoon after meeting: pic.twitter.com/z7SbOixyZW

3.38pm GMT

Here’s former senator Brown wandering in:

Scott Brown arrives at Trump Tower. Reports say he's being considered for VA post @ChasingNews pic.twitter.com/tkxv3kKwq1

3.32pm GMT

The action is going strong in the Trump tower hotel lobby, where potential members of the Trump administration (as they are thought to be) are arriving.

Already sighted: former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown, who has been trying to get back into government ever since Elizabeth Warren kicked him out of Ted Kennedy’s senate seat in 2012.

2.45pm GMT

Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of Donald Trump’s transition to the White House. Trump and vice-president-elect Mike Pence spent the weekend receiving potential cabinet and administration appointees at a Trump-branded golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.

No nominations or appointments were announced, but the Trump team says that new announcements could come at any time. Trump has already named a chief strategist, chief of staff, national security adviser, attorney general and CIA director. The last two roles are subject to senate confirmation hearings.

Related: Trump's Hamilton baiting distracts from transition 'scandals', experts say

This is a chilling passage https://t.co/5DjXfuozdK pic.twitter.com/HgQewV8QXQ

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