Donald and Vladimir (AF/Getty)

THE BIG IDEA: As the nation’s top spies brief Donald Trump today on how they concluded that Russia interfered in the election, the president-elect continues to isolate himself. From the truth. From intellectually honest members of his own party on Capitol Hill. Even from the Western alliance.

There are few indications that the meeting will prompt Trump to reverse himself after two months of steadfast denials in the face of mounting evidence.

TRUMP VS. REALITY:

If a married couple is fighting at home and they look outside and see that a guy in an ice cream truck is trying to abduct their child, they don’t keep arguing. There is nothing possibly important enough to keep arguing about when your child is in danger. Or at least there shouldn’t be.

The guy in the metaphorical ice cream truck is Vladimir Putin. The husband is a Republican, and the wife is a Democrat. The kids are the American people.

-- Trump has been trying to muddy the water, to make the hacking into a political story instead of treating it as a cyberattack on the United States — despite a bipartisan consensus among serious and thoughtful people that this was the case.

Sources who have studied the intelligence say there is essentially incontrovertible evidence that Russia was behind the hacks, that they were authorized at the highest levels of the Kremlin and that the goal was to sow deep distrust while also undermining Hillary Clinton.

-- American intelligence agencies even intercepted communications in the aftermath of the election in which Russian officials celebrated and congratulated themselves on the outcome, which they saw as a geopolitical win for Moscow. The Post’s Adam Entous and Greg Miller scooped last night: “The ebullient reaction among high-ranking Russian officials — including some who U.S. officials believe had knowledge of the country’s cyber campaign — contributed to the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow’s efforts were aimed at least in part at helping Trump win the White House. Other key pieces of information gathered by U.S. spy agencies include the identification of ‘actors’ involved in delivering stolen Democratic emails to the WikiLeaks website, and disparities in the levels of effort Russian intelligence entities devoted to penetrating and exploiting sensitive information stored on Democratic and Republican campaign networks.” This information appears in a classified document, which is over 50 pages, that was delivered to President Obama yesterday.

-- The president-elect, who has perhaps the most fragile ego of any man ever elected to the White House, sees anyone pointing out this truth as challenging his legitimacy, so he lashes out.

-- Paul Ryan yesterday drew a distinction that Trump seems incapable of making. "Russia clearly tried to meddle in our political system. No two ways about it," the House speaker told reporters. He then argued that the hacking did not change the outcome of the election. "He won the election fair and square," Ryan said.

Donald Trump, Ed Koch and Roy Cohn at the opening of Trump Tower in 1983. (Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images)

-- Trump, who takes everything personally, lives by a never-apologize, never-back-down creed that his mentor Roy Cohn, who spent the 1950s as Joe McCarthy’s chief counsel and hatchet man in the Senate, taught him during his formative years as an up-and-coming developer. This is why he refused to ever apologize for slurring John McCain, a Gold Star family, a former Miss Universe, a Mexican American federal judge, a disabled reporter, etc., etc., etc. (If you missed them last year, it is worth reading deep dives on the Trump-Cohn relationship by The Post, the New York Times and Politico Magazine.)

Julian Assange is hiding out in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London to avoid facing prosecution. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

-- Many rank-and-file Republican base voters, who view politics impressionistically, look for cues from leaders like Trump and his fellow populists, such as Sean Hannity, who flew to London to interview Julian Assange earlier this week. These well-intentioned citizens are being misled and disserved by the people they depend on to stay informed.

Two smart takes on this —

From the right: Former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson calls it “the triumph of political tribalism over, well, every other principle or commitment.” Sarah Palin, for example, urged the United States to go after Assange “with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda.” Now, she pleads: “Julian, I apologize.” As Gerson puts it, “Let’s be clear about what this means. … The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee is bowing and scraping to the man who materially aided the Taliban.”

From the left: “The cruelest, most condescending, and also devastatingly correct indictment of Trump’s supporters was uttered not by a member of the liberal media but by Trump himself, when he mentioned that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose support,” writes New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait. “Trump’s insinuation that his fans will ignore any evidence of his guilt, however plain, has been vindicated. Perhaps no episode has demonstrated the Fifth Avenue Principle more dramatically than the case of the Russian email hack.”

TRUMP VS. THE SPOOKS:

-- Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., testifying yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, said U.S. spy agencies “stand actually more resolutely” than ever behind their conclusions. Alluding to Trump’s tweets, he said: “There is an important distinction here between healthy skepticism, which policymakers, to include policymaker number one, should always have for intelligence, but I think there is a difference between skepticism and disparagement.”

“Whatever crack, fissure, they could find in our tapestry . . . they would exploit it,” Clapper added, specifically referring to the proliferation of “fake news.”

-- Meanwhile, former CIA director R. James Woolsey Jr., a veteran of four presidential administrations, resigned yesterday from Trump’s transition team because of growing tensions over the president-elect’s vision for intelligence agencies. “People close to Woolsey said that he had been excluded in recent weeks from discussions on intelligence matters with Trump and retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn,” Philip Rucker reports. “They said Woolsey had grown increasingly uncomfortable lending his name and credibility to the transition team without being consulted. Woolsey was taken aback by this week’s reports that Trump is considering revamping the country’s intelligence framework….”

TRUMP VS. THE SENATE GOP HAWKS:

-- Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican senator, made a straight-to-camera appeal during yesterday’s Armed Services hearing: “Mr. President-elect, when you listen to these people, you can be skeptical, but understand they’re the best among us and they’re trying to protect us!”

Graham, whose personal cellphone number Trump once gave out to the crowd during a campaign rally, then criticized the Obama administration for not doing more than imposing sanctions and expelling 35 Russians from the country. “What Obama did was throw a pebble,” he said. “I’m ready to throw a rock.”

-- John McCain added: “Every American should be alarmed by Russia’s attacks on our nation. There is no national security interest more vital to the United States of America than the ability to hold free and fair elections without foreign interference. That’s why Congress must set partisanship aside, follow the facts and work together to devise comprehensive solutions to deter, defend against and, when necessary, respond to foreign cyberattacks.”

Workers prepare for the Inauguration. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

-- To be sure, many Senate Republicans are too afraid to say publicly what they believe privately. Fearful of drawing Trump’s ire, they either carry his water or stay quiet. At the Armed Services hearing, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said: “Mark my word, if the roles were reversed, there would be howls from the Republican side of the aisle.” McCain responded sarcastically, “Thank you for that nonpartisan comment.” (Sean Sullivan explores this dynamic.)

A couple kisses in front of graffiti depicting Putin and Trump on the walls of a bar in Vilnius, Lithuania, last May. (Mindaugas Kulbis/AP)

TRUMP VS. THE WESTERN ALLIANCE:

The Post this morning has three important columns about the far-reaching global ramifications of Trump's defiance and obstinacy.

-- Anne Applebaum calls this “an existential moment for all of Europe’s leaders, most of whom are only just beginning to grapple with the fact that Russia wants to destroy the Euro-American alliance.” Contrasting a quote from Harry Truman to the incoming president’s own public statements, Anne writes: “In the past few weeks, some of America’s oldest and closest allies in Europe have begun to fear that Trump’s White House may not just neglect them, which has happened often enough in the past, but will actually seek to undermine them and their institutions. The link between Trump, his senior counselor and chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and Breitbart News, the website Bannon was running until he went to work for Trump, is what worries them most. Flush from its success in the United States, Breitbart now seeks to monetize anti-immigration and racist sentiment in Europe, too, promoting it, selling it and using it to elect populist politicians who are just as skeptical of NATO as Trump, and who will do their best to destroy the European Union as well.” Because no one knows who will have the president’s ear, Angela Merkel has already started “preparing for the worst.”

-- Trump’s approach to the hacking story in recent months has been worryingly similar to Russia’s own propaganda. “This sort of information fog is precisely what Moscow seeks to spawn in its own propaganda campaigns,” David Ignatius observes. “The Russian goal is ‘to corrode democratic norms and institutions by discrediting the electoral process and to tarnish the reputations of democratic governments in order to establish a kind of moral equivalence between Russia and the West,’ Thorsten Benner and Mirko Hohmann wrote last month in Foreign Affairs. Anyone who thinks that the Russian hacking charges are simply an attempt to belittle or discredit Trump should study Russia’s current covert-action campaign in Europe. Benner and Hohmann quote Bruno Kahl, the chief of Germany’s intelligence service, who told a newspaper there that ‘cyberattacks are taking place that have no purpose other than to elicit uncertainty.’ The head of French information security similarly warned last month that Western countries face ‘the development of a digital threat for political ends and for destabilization.’”

-- Fareed Zakaria looks at how Moscow’s strategy has evolved since the Arab Spring: “The Soviet Union developed and practiced a strategy of ‘disinformation’ throughout the Cold War, complete with fake news and the penetration of Western political parties and media organizations. But the revival of this approach and the aggressive and sophisticated manner in which it is now being used in a social media landscape mark a new and dangerous trend in geopolitics. This is the political backdrop behind the technical evidence that Russia interfered in November’s election. It needs to be moved out of a partisan framework and viewed in a much broader context. Since the end of the Cold War, no major country has challenged the emerging international system. But now, a great-power strategy, designed to work insidiously, could well succeed in sowing doubt, division, discord — and ultimately destruction — within the West.”

Welcome to the Daily 202, PowerPost's morning newsletter.
With contributions from Elise Viebeck (@eliseviebeck).

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WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING:

-- The U.S. economy added 156,000 new jobs in December, according to government data issued Friday, slightly below economists’ expectations, though still representing relatively strong growth. From Ana Swanson: “The final report issued by the Labor Department during President Obama’s administration showed the unemployment rate at 4.7 percent, slightly up from 4.6 percent the previous month. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected American companies to add 180,000 jobs in the month. Still, the number of new jobs added in December was far above what’s needed to keep up with population growth, economists said. December marks the 75th straight month of job growth — the most extended streak the country has seen since 1939. … Revisions to job figures for October and November also added another 19,000 jobs to the rolls.”

-- U.S. political, or non-career, ambassadors, mostly presidential friends/donors tapped to serve in desirable foreign capitals, have been told that they must resign by Jan. 20 with “no exceptions.” Anne Gearan and Carol Morello report: “The unusually stern and specific directive … came at the behest of the incoming Trump administration, [and] appears to forbid any extensions for family circumstances such as allowing children to finish the school year, a customary allowance in past administrations. During previous transitions, a small number of political ambassadors would either ask or be asked to stay on briefly, after submitting their pro forma resignations, for personal or professional reasons. ... The order would apply to high-profile Obama envoys such as Jane Hartley, a Democratic fundraiser who has served as ambassador to France, as well as to Daniel Shapiro … a former Obama adviser who became ambassador to Israel in 2011. Since it typically takes months to select and confirm ambassadors from outside the State Department, the top spots in key foreign capitals in Europe, Asia and the Mideast could be empty this spring. Career State Department officials stand in when there is no ambassador.”

A Yemeni detainee (R) freed from Gitmo is hugged after his arrival at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a few hours ago. (Faisal Al Nasser/Reuters)

GET SMART FAST:​​

  1. The Obama administration transferred four Yemeni prisoners to Saudi Arabia, part of a final White House push to resettle Guantanamo detainees before Trump takes office. Administration officials told Congress they plan to resettle as many as 15 additional prisoners before the inauguration. (Missy Ryan)
  2. A wave of lootings, roadblocks and violent street protests swept across Mexico overnight following a 20 percent hike in gas prices, leaving two dead and more than 200 others in police custody. (Joshua Partlow)
  3. Two militants wielding assault rifles exchanged gunfire with Turkish police, killing at least two people and setting off a car bomb. The shootout is the latest in a violent string of attacks that have left the country on edge, including a deadly nightclub attack in Istanbul on New Years’ Eve. (Erin Cunningham and Brian Murphy)
  4. The House easily passed a resolution of disapproval related to the U.N. Security Council condemning Israeli settlements. The 342-to-80 vote reflected the partisan split among lawmakers — with almost all the votes against the resolution coming from Democrats, including DNC chair candidate Keith Ellison. (Karoun Demirjian)
  5. A new Obama administration report calls for new action to protect U.S. electricity grids, noting the “sprawling” scale of electric infrastructure and urging policymakers to grant regulators new emergency powers in the event of an imminent threat. (Chris Mooney)
  6. Hillary Clinton is slated to speak at a State Department reception next week, as part of a ceremonial opening for a new exhibition bearing her name. It will be her second appearance in Washington since losing the election — and, notably, the pavilion in her honor is complete with a glass ceiling. (Anne Gearan)
  7. Health experts have changed their minds about peanuts. New NIH guidelines now say early peanut exposure can actually HELP infants avoid life-threatening allergies later in life — a direct contradiction to the previously-held theory that children should avoid the nuts until age 3. (Ariana Eunjung Cha)
  8. Obama is on pace to leave the White House with a smaller federal prison population than when he took office — a distinction no president since Jimmy Carter has had, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The number of sentenced prisoners in federal custody has fallen 5 percent (or 7,981 inmates) since 2009. The Harvard Law Review, which Obama once edited, published a commentary yesterday that the president wrote about criminal justice reform. (Read it here.)
  9. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) issued an executive order that bars the state from signing contracts with firms that discriminate against LBGT individuals. The move prompted criticism from some Republican lawmakers, who called the order an attack on religious liberties. (Laura Vozzella)
  10. A transgender man has filed a lawsuit against a Catholic hospital in New Jersey for refusing to allow a surgeon to provide a hysterectomy procedure on him, saying the medical facility violated both state and federal anti-bias laws by denying to remove his female reproductive organs. (Sandhya Somashekhar)
  11. Marine drill instructors at the recruiting center in Parris Island, S.C., have been accused of drinking on the job and using “dungeon” rooms for physical exercise — forcing recruits into unsanctioned facilities covered in powder that made it hard to breathe. Accounts of the alleged abuse are coming to light only because of the death of a recruit last year. (Dan Lamothe)
  12. Kowtowing to an authoritarian regime to boost its bottom line, Apple removed news apps created by the New York Times from its app store in China last month. The decision to placate the communists makes the tech giant complicit in the government-led crackdown against the news site that began in 2012 when the paper ran a series of articles on the wealth amassed by the family of then-Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. (New York Times)
  13. The U.S. Labor Department sued Google for refusing to provide compensation data and documents, which was ordered as part of a compliance evaluation that was initiated in 2015. The feds say Google is “required” to hand over the necessary info and risks consequences if it fails to comply. That said, it’s easy to imagine Andy Puzder looking the other way if the company can just run out the clock. (Bloomberg)
  14. Caving to union pressure, the U.S. Postal Service discontinued retail sales at Staples stores. The unions called it a step toward privatization. (Joe Davidson)
  15. A New York Times journalist documented the life of Nepali women who are exiled during their menstrual cycle — temporarily rendered “untouchables” and forced to trek monthly through miles of dense wilderness and live in crude huts or caves. It's another reminder the war on women is real, and it continues unabated around the globe.

-- The Tunisian man who plowed a truck through a Berlin Christmas market had lived under 14 different aliases — and was so well known among German officials that his case had been discussed by counterterrorism units on seven different occasions, Anthony Faiola reports. The fresh details, reported by Interior Minister Ralf Jäger, illustrate the scale of missed opportunities before his deadly Dec. 19 attack. “Jäger said that six months of surveillance had yielded nothing concrete, suggesting an operative highly skilled at hiding his resolve, or a failure of German law enforcement to adequately monitor him. The case has become the latest example of [counterterrorism] stumbles by European authorities ... and has fueled more criticism of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open the door to more than 1 million asylum seekers."

Trump is trying to get back at John Kasich, seen here touching the casket of John Glenn last month, for not endorsing him. (John Minchillo/AP)

THE NEW NORMAL:

-- The extraordinarily vindictive president-elect has personally made at least a dozen phone calls in an effort to topple the sitting chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, a John Kasich loyalist, during an election that will happen today. From the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Jason Williams: “This is the leader-of-the-free-world-to-be, and you would think of all the appointments that he's doing and all the people he’s filling his cabinet with and getting ready for the inauguration, why would he take the time out to call me?" said Greg Simpson, one of the Ohioans who received the call asking him to hold for Trump. Another former Ohio Senate president also said he spoke to Trump.” There are 66 central committee members who will vote. (More from the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Henry Gomez and Politico's Alex Isenstadt.)

The lobby below BLT Prime in the new Trump hotel. (File)

HOW TRUMP DOES BUSINESS:

-- LITIGATION: Trump was deposed in New York yesterday as part of his multimillion-dollar breach of contract lawsuit he filed against José Andrés, the celebrity chef who backed out of his agreement to open a restaurant in Trump’s D.C. hotel. From Keith L. Alexander and Jonathan O'Connell: “Trump and his attorney, as well as attorneys for the chef José Andrés, met for a little more than an hour in Trump Tower. Both parties agreed to move the location amid Trump’s ongoing transition process. Trump has filed a similar lawsuit against celebrity chef Geoffrey Zakarian, who also bowed out of Trump’s hotel deal … [and] on Tuesday, attorneys for Zakarian and Trump said they were at an ‘impasse’ in settlement talks. A judge set a pretrial conference hearing for May 17.”

-- TAKING ON DEBT THAT LEAVES HIM HEAVILY LEVERAGED: Trump’s debts are widely held on Wall Street — scattered across more than 150 financial institutions. This creates many potential conflicts of interest. The Wall Street Journal’s Jean Eaglesham explains on the front page: “Hundreds of millions of dollars of debt attached to Mr. Trump’s properties, some of them backed by Mr. Trump’s personal guarantee, were packaged into securities and sold to investors over the past five years.… Mr. Trump has previously disclosed that his businesses owe at least $315 million to 10 companies. According to the Journal’s analysis, Trump businesses’ debts are held by more than 150 institutions. They bought the debt after it was sliced up and repackaged into bonds — a process known as securitization, which has been used for more than $1 billion of debt connected to Mr. Trump’s companies. As a result, a broader array of financial institutions now are in a potentially powerful position over the incoming president."

-- STIFFING VENDORS: Two Washington-area small businesses have filed liens on the Trump International Hotel, saying they were not paid for their work on his D.C. property after installing plumbing, air conditioning and baseboards. Jonathan O'Connell reports: “One [family-owned plumbing firm] claims it is out $2.98 million. According to a mechanic’s lien the company filed four days before Christmas, Magnolia worked on the Trump hotel for more than two years, from September of 2014 to December of 2016. Another smaller firm … said in a lien it filed Nov. 9 that it was owed $79,700 for wall base and crown molding work performed between June 24 and Oct. 5, 2016, three weeks before the day Trump held a grand opening celebration.”

-- CASHING IN ON HIS BRAND: Trump's new D.C. hotel just jacked up its cocktail prices in a major way, raising the cheapest option on the menu – a $14 drink – by a full $10! “It’s safe to say the Trump hotel’s Benjamin Bar & Lounge is now the most expensive overall bar in all of Washington,” writes the Washingtonian’s Jessica Sidman.

A child looks at family members through the U.S.-Mexico Border wall at Friendship Park in San Ysidro, Calif. (Sandy Huffaker/AFP)

THE NEW CONGRESS:

-- Congressional Republicans are exploring ways to begin building a U.S.-Mexico border wall within “months” — potentially using authority under a 2006 law to back the project that could begin as early as April. Mike DeBonis reports: “A number of Republican lawmakers believe that Trump has authority under the Secure Fence Act of 2006 to commence construction. … [The Bush-era law] mandated 700 miles of ‘reinforced fencing’ along the U.S.-Mexico border along with enhanced surveillance systems that came to be known as a ‘virtual fence.’ But the full complement of barriers was never completed, and GOP lawmakers believe that the law provides sufficient authority to complete a full border wall like that described by Trump. That would allow Congress, without passing a new piece of legislation, to start funding the wall through the normal appropriations process. While Democrats could well block a separate border wall bill, it would be more difficult for them to block spending legislation, thus risking a government shutdown. … Key policy decisions have not yet been made — where to start building, for instance, or whether the barrier ought to be a fence or a solid wall.”

-- Many media outlets posted stories last night that said Trump is not going to make Mexico pay for the wall after all, but Trump did say during the campaign that the United States would build the wall and then make our neighbor to the south pay. The president-elected tweeted this morning:

-- Paul Ryan says Republicans will push forward with plans to defund Planned Parenthood, stripping hundreds of millions in federal funding from the organization as part of the rapid push to dismantle Obamacare. Mike DeBonis reports: “Ryan said a defunding measure would appear in a special fast-track bill that is expected to pass Congress as soon as next month. Republicans have a 52-to-48 Senate majority, and it appears it will be a tough task for Democrats to persuade enough GOP senators to oppose a defunding bill. … Planned Parenthood estimated that roughly 40 percent of its funding would be at risk should defunding legislation become law.”

Democrats immediately began gearing up for the fight ahead, with Planned Parenthood chief executive Cecile Richards saying she takes Ryan’s threat “very seriously”: Richards pointed to a “real divide” between ideologically driven conservatives and more-pragmatic Republicans who are more wary of a divisive fight — including, she suggested, the president-elect. “Donald Trump was not elected to defund Planned Parenthood,” Richards said.

House Budget Committee members press ahead with a 10-year budget plan that cuts federal health care programs. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

-- Rank hypocrisy: Conservatives lawmakers now say they are ready to vote for a budget that would, at least on paper, balloon the federal deficit to more than $1 TRILLION by 2026 — all for the sake of repealing Obamacare. Kelsey Snell and David Weigel report: “In a dramatic reversal, many members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus said Thursday they are prepared later this month to support a budget measure that would explode the deficit and increase the public debt to more than $29.1 trillion, figures contained in the budget resolution itself. The growing conservative consensus comes nearly one year after the approximately 40-member group announced it would rather torpedo the entire budget process than vote for a fiscal blueprint that increased spending without balancing the budget."

-- The GOP leaderhip's plan to repeal Obamacare without offering a replacement has now encountered public resistance from at least three members of the conference. Bloomberg’s Steven T. Dennis and Sahil Kapur report: “The skeptics could end up yielding to pressure from their colleagues to support the plan when it reaches the Senate floor, but Republicans can only afford to lose two senators. If they lose a third, the effort would stall, and they’d be forced to return to the drawing board. ... Only one of the senators — Rand Paul of Kentucky — has so far said he plans to vote against the procedural gambit that sets up Obamacare repeal.… Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas was the latest to call for a replacement to accompany any repeal. ‘I think when we repeal Obamacare we need to have the solution in place moving forward. Again, that solution may be implemented in a deliberate fashion. But I don’t think we can repeal Obamacare and say we’re going to get the answer two years from now. Look, this is a very complicated problem,’ Cotton said on MSNBC....

“Susan Collins of Maine also said … that a plan to bar funds to Planned Parenthood as part of the repeal bill is ‘of concern to me as well,’ although she added that she didn’t “want to prejudge” the bill. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has also in the past expressed opposition to defunding the group, which delivers basic health-care services to millions of women and also performs abortions. Collins voted against a similar repeal effort in 2015 after the Senate narrowly rejected her amendment — cosponsored by Murkowski — to restore Planned Parenthood funding on a 48-52 vote.”

-- “One administration, two styles: Trump the brawler and Pence the cajoler,” by Ashley Parker and Robert Costa: “Trump and Pence’s dueling interactions with Congress (this week) offered an early preview of how the incoming White House may attempt to alternately strong-arm, cajole and tweet Congress into submission. In many ways, Trump and Pence are relocating their campaign trail act … a WWE tag team, a good cop-bad cop routine [and a] marriage of opposites. Yet the union could also yield two rival, or at least incongruous, power centers, with Pence operating in some ways as a shadow president.”

Chuck Schumer holds a presser on Wednesday. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

-- Under pressure to employ a more diverse House and Senate staff, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is turning to the NFL playbook — adopting a controversial hiring tool to get Democratic senators to seek out and employ more minorities. Ed O’Keefe reports: “[The NFL policy known as the Rooney Rule] requires teams to interview minorities for any head coaching or senior football operations positions. … In the Senate, Schumer wants his colleagues to ensure that at least one minority applicant is considered for any open position. As Democratic leader, there is no mechanism for him to force his colleagues to do so, but he plans to discuss it with the caucus in the coming days.”

Theresa May and her husband, Philip, leave St. Andrew's Church following a Christmas service. (Steve Parsons/PA via AP)

THE WORLD COMES TO GRIPS WITH A PRESIDENT TRUMP:

-- The special relationship: British Prime Minister Theresa May sent her two most senior aides on a secret trip to the United States, attempting to build bridges with the incoming president as the two prepare to meet for the first time. Bloomberg’s Timothy Ross and Jennifer Jacobs report: “May’s joint chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, flew across the Atlantic to meet members of Trump’s team in mid-December, May’s office confirmed.… Officials in the U.K. government are said to be concerned at their poor links with the incoming U.S. administration at a time when Britain is looking to expand trade after leaving the EU. There are signs Trump, who has a Scottish mother, may be a willing partner. Whereas Obama said that Britain would be ‘at the back of the queue’ to secure a trade deal with the U.S. post-Brexit, Trump told Farage Britain would be ‘at the front.’ May has also dispatched senior U.K. officials and defense and foreign policy aides to meet with chief Trump aides, including Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, and incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn."

-- China is preparing to step up scrutiny of U.S. companies in the event Trump takes punitive measures against Chinese goods and “triggers a trade war” between their economies after taking office, Bloomberg reports: “The options include subjecting well-known U.S. companies or ones that have large Chinese operations to tax or antitrust probes.… Other possible measures include the launch of anti-dumping investigations and scaling back government purchases of American products, according to the people. The move illustrates how the fallout from escalating tensions between the two nations could spread to companies. Trump has made China a frequent target of his attacks and nominated trade-related officials that the Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper said would form an 'iron curtain' of protectionism.”

But, but, but: Retaliation could be a risky move for China, potentially damaging access to its biggest trading partner. "When you have a country with a large trade deficit that retaliates against a country with a large trade surplus with it, it’s the country with the trade deficit that wins," said Hong Kong-based financial market expert Michael Every. "The country with the surplus loses, every time."

-- The South Korean Foreign Ministry has assigned an officer to screen Trump’s Twitter account, scouring the 140-character missives for any shred of insight into his unorthodox foreign policies — especially any mentions of Korea and Northeast Asia — as they prepare to build ties with the incoming president. (Korea Joongang Daily)

North Korea state media released this picture of KIm Jong Un on Dec. 26. (Via AFP)

TWO TIMELY REMINDERS THAT RUSSIA IS NOT THE ONLY THREAT WE FACE:

-- “You can kick the can down the road, but when Kim Jong Un announces, as he did last Sunday, that “we have reached the final stage in preparations to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic rocket,” you are reaching the end of that road,” conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer writes. “The principal strategic challenge facing the U.S.  is the rise of revisionist powers — Russia, China and Iran — striving to expel American influence from their regions. In comparison, the Korean problem is minor, an idiosyncratic relic of the Cold War. North Korea should be a strategic afterthought, like Cuba. And it would be if not for its nukes. That’s a big if. A wholly unpredictable, highly erratic and often irrational regime is acquiring the capacity to destroy an American city by missile. That’s an urgent problem … North Korea may be just an unexploded ordnance of a long-concluded Cold War. But we cannot keep assuming it will never go off.”

-- Politico Magazine, “Bill Perry is Terrified. Why Aren’t You?” by John F. Harris and Bryan Bender: “Nuclear bombs are an area of expertise Perry had assumed would be largely obsolete by now, seven decades after Hiroshima, a quarter-century after the fall of the Soviet Union, and in the flickering light of his own life. Instead, nukes are suddenly — insanely, by Perry’s estimate — once again a contemporary nightmare, and an emphatically ascendant one. And there’s one other difference from the Cold War: Americans no longer think about the threat every day. It is a turn of events that has an old man newly obsessed with a question: Why isn’t everyone as terrified as he is?”

Dan Coats (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

TRUMP'S DNI PICK GETS HIGH MARKS:

-- DJT will nominate former senator Dan Coats as his director of national intelligence, a position that some of Trump’s own advisers have suggested is “unneeded.” Sean Sullivan and Anne Gearan report: “Coats, who is seen as a traditional Republican, served a total of 16 years in the Senate during two separate stretches and was ambassador to Germany during George W. Bush’s presidency.” He will likely bring a strongly skeptical view of Russia to the job: “In 2014, as part of the Kremlin’s response to U.S. and European sanctions for its actions in Ukraine, Coats was one of several members of Congress who were banned from Russia. In a statement at the time, he said he was ‘honored’ to be on the list. The Indiana Republican was also seen as a hawk on Russia … where he pushed for even heavier sanctions over what he called Russia’s territorial aggression, particularly its annexation of Crimea and military backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine.” In the Senate, he had a reputation as a “diligent, even-tempered colleague,” fostering good working relations across the aisle.

-- “Known for a self-effacing style, Mr. Coats was popular among his colleagues,” NYT’s Jennifer Steinhauer notes. “I always thought he should wear a red cardigan,” said Sen. Cory Gardner. ‘He was the closest thing to Mister Rogers we could come up with.”

-- John McCain is happy about it: ‘It’ll be great, he’s one of my favorite people,” Mack the Knife said. “I also like see these old geezers given another chance.”

So did Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, whom no one would call an old geezer:

-- Ditto with former Obama national security spokesman Tommy Vietor: “Dan Coats is a good choice. Serious. Respected."

-- Trump announced additions to his White House policy staff, naming Andrew Bremberg, who was policy director for the 2016 Republican Party Platform, as director of the Domestic Policy Council. He and seven deputies will report to Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior policy adviser. Elise Viebeck reports: Trump also announced that Harvard University lecturer Carlos Diaz-Rosillo will serve as director of “policy and interagency coordination” under Miller, while former Newt Gingrich aides Vince Haley and Ross Worthington will serve as advisers for policy, strategy and speechwriting.

-- Trump will sit down with the top editors of the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue today, traveling to the Condé Nast offices for a closed-door meeting just days before he assumes office. Attendees include heavyweights such as David Remnick, Anna Wintour, and Graydon Carter – Trump’s longtime nemesis who provoked years of wrath after referring to the president elect as a “short-fingered vulgarian.” (HuffPost) 

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) holds up an article from The Post during a 2014 hearing. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

THE DEMOCRATIC RESISTANCE:

-- As many as 10 House Democrats plan a futile challenge to Trump’s electoral college win today at the Capitol, as lawmakers meet to certify the results. Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports: “Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said … that she and her allies plan to challenge the validity of electoral votes in multiple states, where she argued voter suppression tactics may have tainted the outcome. She said a separate batch of challenges will focus on disqualifying electors who may have been ineligible to serve at all.”

-- Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark (D) is planning to boycott Trump’s inauguration ceremony as a form of protest, breaking with years of precedent as she expressed the belief that attending would “normalize” Trump’s promotion of “bigoted, misogynist, anti-Semitic, and racist claims.” (Boston Globe)

Pete Buttigieg talks to a reporter in his office on Wednesday. (Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune via AP)

POLITICAL NEWS:

-- Pete Buttigieg, the 34-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind., who is seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party, and whose tenure has inspired coverage dubbing him “the first gay president?” and “the most interesting mayor you’ve never heard of,” announced his bid for DNC chairman. From the Indianapolis Star Washington Bureau: “Harvard University-educated, a Rhodes Scholar and a U.S. Navy Reserve officer, Buttigieg became the youngest mayor of a U.S. city with more than 100,000 residents when he took office in 2012 at age 30. In 2015, he publicly announced he was gay in a newspaper op-ed following the firestorm over Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act and in advance of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling recognizing same-sex marriages. … [Fellow contender Keith] Ellison welcomed Buttigieg to the race, praising his courage for coming out during his re-election campaign. Ellison said that was ‘no easy thing to do in a red state like Indiana.’ ‘We need more young and energetic elected officials in our party,’ Ellison said in a statement. ‘I look forward to discussing the future of our party with him in this race.’”

-- Former George W. Bush strategist Matthew Dowd, now a TV commentator, is mulling an independent bid to challenge Ted Cruz in 2018. Dowd, a longtime operative in both Republican and Democratic politics, said he is “giving the move some thought” after being approached by prominent members of both parties. (Texas Tribune)

-- Former L.A. Rams football player Rosey Grier said he plans to run for governor of California. The Republican, who endorsed Trump before the presidential election, would face extremely long odds in an already growing field of contenders. (Los Angeles Times)

A 5-year-old girl is not thrilled to speak to Fox News's Tucker Carlson during a Bernie Sanders rally in New Hampshire. (Lucian Perkins /for WashPost)

THE CABLE NETWORK SHUFFLE CONTINUES:

-- Fox News host Tucker Carlson is taking over Megyn Kelly’s 9 p.m. slot when she departs for NBC. It’s a significant move, and one that many believe signals Rupert Murdoch’s intention to push the network in a more pro-Trump direction. Gabriel Sherman reports: “Murdoch has been intent on forging a tight relationship with Trump since his victory.… One longtime Murdoch confidante told me the two speak by phone at least three times per week. As I reported Tuesday, at Mar-a-Lago over the holidays Trump criticized Roger Ailes and lavished praise on Murdoch. People close to Murdoch are surprised by how fast Fox has fallen into line.…” Murdoch’s reversal, one associate said, can partly be explained by Murdoch’s longtime desire to have a relationship with a U.S. president: “Murdoch has met every occupant of the Oval Office since Nixon, but has never had a personal connection with one. The 85-year-old Murdoch may see Trump as his last chance.”

Greta Van Susteren. (Charles Dharapak/AP)

-- Former Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren is joining MSNBC, slated to fill the channel’s 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. time slot in a new show called "For the Record.” “I’m thrilled to start my next chapter at MSNBC,” said Van Susteren, who abruptly left Fox last fall after 14 years. “The network is the right destination for the smart news and analysis I hope to deliver every day, and I look forward to joining the talented journalists and analysts I respect there.” (Politico)

Rachel Maddow had Van Susteren on her show last night to welcome her: “I’m the luckiest person alive,” Greta told her. “I have many good friends over at CNN and over at Fox News Channel who have been colleagues too, but just think about this: I know Chris Matthews, have known him for years; Andrea Mitchell, I traveled the world with her following secretaries of state, even trying to keep up with Andrea because she outraces all of us. You and I have been friends for a long time. And to be honest, you and my husband and I have tipped a few glasses of wine together — or more! … It's like this is just so exciting.” (Watch the 8-minute segment.)

Robotic arms make coffee in a demonstration using a pair of VS-S2 Series robots at the Denso booth at CES 2017 in Las Vegas. (David Becker/Getty Images)

WAPO HIGHLIGHTS:

-- “Samsung is blunt about its bad year as it introduces new products at CES,” by Hayley Tsukayama: “Samsung had a lot of new products to offer during its CES technology show news conference Wednesday in Las Vegas. But the first item on the agenda? Eating crow. The firm opened its turn in the spotlight at CES by acknowledging that having to stop making one of its flagship smartphones and deal with explosive washing machines was not ideal for the firm. ‘This year was a challenging year for Samsung,’ said Tim Baxter, president of Samsung Electronics America … [who said] the company will release information about the root cause of its exploding battery issue ‘very soon.’ Samsung executives then quickly moved to introducing a variety of new products, including sleek ‘QLED’ TVs that promise better color fidelity and wider viewing angles; a pair of Chromebooks that can run Android apps; a smart, voice-controlled refrigerator; and a washer and dryer that lets users run four loads of laundry at once.…”

-- “How nostalgia for white Christian America drove so many Americans to vote for Trump,” by Sarah Pulliam Bailey: “From a perch on Main Street, the home town of actor Andy Griffith looks this day like it was plucked right out of the television show that bears his name. And it was.  Residents and tourists from far-flung states mill along the thoroughfare [for references of] … the folksy comedy set in the idyllic fictional small town of Mayberry that first aired in 1960. [But today, many] of its residents would agree with the now-popular saying ‘We’re not in Mayberry anymore’.… For these voters, the desire for change also could be viewed as a desire to change back, to what they perceive as a more wholesome and prosperous time, when … white Protestants were indisputably in charge and same-sex marriage and the Black Lives Matter movement were unthinkable. [And now,] as Trump prepares to move into the White House, Rowe and many of his constituents are hoping for a return to the past.”

SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ:

The Trumps did not want the Obamas' swing set, despite having a 10-year-old son and three grandchildren who will live in D.C. So it's getting donated:

The latest from Trump's Twitter feed:

Then this morning:

He's trying to drum up attendance for his inaugural:

Jesse Jackson condemned the racially charged beating in Chicago:

Former GOP congressman Joe Walsh criticized Republicans for lacking an Obamacare replacement:

Tom Cotton indicated he wants a replacement before repeal:

Just to keep count:

Debbie Stabenow's office is trying out a Game of Thrones health care meme:

Austan Goolsbee had this idea:

The Thing is still on Capitol Hill, despite the weather forecast:

From the lieutenant governor of Utah:

Liberal pundits expressed alarm about the latest changes at Fox and MSNBC:

From a former top Obama adviser:

A lot of the finger-in-the-wind hypocrisy that's out there right now might be more amusing if it weren't so breathtaking:

GOOD READS FROM ELSEWHERE:

-- New York Magazine, “See What Facebook Thinks Is in Your Photos,” by Jake Swearingen: “Every time you upload a photo to Facebook, its deep-learning algorithms go to work, trying to ID things both incredibly specific (which of your friends is in this photo?) and general (is this photo outdoors or indoors?). But that information is largely hidden from users — until now. Software engineer Adam Geitgey put together [a Chrome extension] which allows anyone to see what general information Facebook extracts from every photo that’s been uploaded. Geitgey’s motivation for building the extension was to expose what information was already being collected by Facebook[:] ‘I think the feature that Facebook can detect objects is really interesting and really useful, especially if users are blind,’ he says, ‘but a lot of users don’t realize how much info is being collected about them.’”

-- Politico Magazine, “How a KGB Assassin Used the Death of His Child to Defect,” by Serhii Plokhii: “Shortly before 5 a.m. on August 10, 1961, Bogdan Stashinsky was waiting near his apartment building in Moscow to be picked up by his case officer. …  [He had] destroyed the list of code phrases that he and his wife, Inge, had used in their correspondence over the past six months, he in Moscow, where the KGB kept an eye on him, and she in East Berlin, where she had gone to have their newborn son. The only incriminating evidence remaining was what he carried on him—identification papers and documents, issued in the names of his numerous aliases, that he was taking to Berlin against the orders of his case officer. If they were discovered, the KGB would have no doubt about his real intentions. He was risking his life to escape the suffocating embrace of the KGB, the ultra-secretive Soviet spy agency that had ensnared him when he was 19 years old and made him one of the highest-profile assassins in the world.”

-- CNN, “Trump's power broker,” by Theodore Schleifer: “It is a friendship forged in both the tumble of deals gone awry and the triumph of a shocking political upset. At every turn over the last two years, when Trump found himself against the world, Tom Barrack was on the other end of the line, dispensing frank truths while pleading to the offended that Trump meant no harm. When scores of women emerged to allege sexual misconduct by Trump this past October, Barrack asked him to write down what exactly made him upset in private, and at the same time promised to vouch for his integrity in public. When in need of a way to soften his image with Mexico, Barrack encouraged Trump to take a last-minute secret trip to Mexico and show he could blunt his rhetoric on the world stage.” Over the next four years, he will almost certainly continue to play this role as middleman – both an “inimitable powerbroker” to elites desperate to control Trump, and a “calming guardrail to the man who doesn't want to be controlled.”

HOT ON THE LEFT:

“Immigrant Rights Groups Gear Up For Fight Of Their Lives With Nationwide Protest Plan,” from HuffPost: “Immigrant rights groups plan to hold rallies and marches in more than 40 cities across the United States next week, aimed at pressing [Trump] to back away from the hardline policies he trumpeted during his campaign. ‘We are expecting and getting ready for the fight of our lives,’ [said Kica Matos, from the Center for Community Change]. …Trump vowed on the campaign trail to cut federal funding to cities where local police do not help funnel undocumented immigrants into the federal deportation system. In his first post-election interview, the president-elect said he would deport between 2 and 3 million people. That figure would roughly double the Obama administration’s record-setting deportation pace, if Trump managed the effort over one term.”

  

HOT ON THE RIGHT:

“Less shrinkage: This is your aging brain on the Mediterranean diet,” from the Los Angeles Times: “The aging brain is a shrinking brain, and a shrinking brain is, generally speaking, a brain whose performance and reaction time are declining: That is a harsh reality of growing older. But new research shows that brain shrinkage is less pronounced in older folks whose diets hew closely to the traditional diet of Mediterranean peoples … [Now], the study’s design helps establish that the brain-shrinkage rates seen are likely to be the result of dietary patterns, and not just an association."

 

DAYBOOK:

In Trump's world: Trump receives the intelligence briefing on Russian hacking.

At the White House: Obama participates in an interview with Ezra Klein and Sarah Kliff of Vox. Biden presides over a Joint Session of Congress to count electoral ballots, then holds a meeting with electronic health record companies. Michelle Obama delivers her final speech as First Lady.

On Capitol Hill: The Senate meets at 12:45 p.m. Lawmakers meet in the House to count the electoral ballots. Some Democrats plan protests.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Joe Biden told PBS “News Hour” last night that it is time for Trump to “grow up” and “be an adult.” “You’re president. You’ve got to do something. Show us what you have,” he said.

NEWS YOU CAN USE IF YOU LIVE IN D.C.:

-- Happy Friday! Now go bundle up. Today’s Capital Weather Gang forecast: “Despite skies that are a mix of sun and clouds, 10 to 15 mph northwest winds gusting to around 20 mph add an extra chill. Wind-chill readings likely stay in the 20s all day, with our temperatures maxing out mostly in the mid-30s (a range from near freezing to about 38). A little bit of blowing snow isn’t out of the question, if your area received over a coating or a bit more last night …” (Here’s a list of school closings and delays in the area.)

-- Metro officials said a computer glitch struck its “nerve center” yesterday morning, leading to a ripple effect of delays and disruptions across the system. “The episode postponed scheduled track work and angered riders in what became the system’s first major service meltdown of 2017, a year when Metro has pledged to win back riders with a $400,000 “Back2Good” campaign,” Faiz Siddiqui writes.

-- Jay Gruden, after three days of reflection and deliberation, decided on Thursday to fire Joe Barry as Redskins defensive coordinator. (Mike Jones)

-- The Caps won 5-0 over the Blue Jackets.

VIDEOS OF THE DAY:

Stephen Colbert riffed on ObamaCare repeal:

Jimmy Kimmel talked about the Obamas' farewell party:

Kevin Costner talked about spending time at the White House and with President George H. W. Bush:

Biden told Trump to "grow up" in an interview:

Watch Odell Beckham Jr. go undercover as Lyft driver:

Finally, on a lighter note, two animal videos!

Check out a llama running around loose outside a Starbucks in Athens, Georgia:

A baby elephant injured her foot and has been getting water therapy to help recover:

Have a great weekend!