Trump Begins Building His Dream Team

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Newsbites

FAA bans flights into Haiti: The Federal Aviation Administration has placed a 30 day ban on flights to Haiti after multiple American planes were hit by gunfire. Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, continues to experience severe gang violence and power control across the entire country. The U.S. Embassy in the capital city of Port-au-Prince has warned U.S. citizens not to travel to Haiti calling it dangerous and unpredictable. 

More: One aid group, Doctors Without Borders, recently had an ambulance attacked by a combination of police and vigilante groups. At least two wounded patients inside the ambulance were then executed by the attackers. 

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Trump meets with Biden at White House: President elect-Trump met with President Biden at the White House on Wednesday to begin the transition. Here was the exchange between the two in front of the press cameras. Biden: "I look forward… to having a smooth transition. We'll do everything we can to make sure you're accommodated, what you need." Trump responded: "politics is tough and in many cases it’s not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today. I appreciate very much the transition that's so smooth. It will be as smooth as it can get, and I very much appreciate that." (video)

More: Melania Trump declined an invite from Jill Biden citing the FBI raid of their house in Mar-a-Lago in 2022 under the Biden Administration.

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Gladiator II will debut in theaters on November 22. Directed by Ridley Scott, it is one of the most anticipated movie releases of 2024. The first Gladiator was released in 2000 and won Best Picture at the time.

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FEMA skipped over Trump supporters: A new report from the DailyWire revealed that one FEMA supervisor instructed his crew to “avoid homes advertising Trump” while canvassing Lake Placid, Florida, for residents who could qualify for federal aid after the hurricanes. Approximately 20 homes with Trump signs were passed over between the end of October and early November. Photos show messages in the government system such as, “Trump sign no entry per leadership,” among others during the canvassing. The supervisor, Marn'i Washington, spoke with Fox News recently.

More: A FEMA spokesperson responded to the DailyWire saying, “While we believe this is an isolated incident, we have taken measures to remove the employee from their role and are investigating the matter to prevent this from happening ever again.”

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Bitcoin surged this week to over $90,000, an all-time high and up more than 30% since the election on November 5. Throughout the 2024 campaign, President-elect Trump increasingly courted the support of the crypto community. In July 2024, Trump delivered a speech at the annual Bitcoin conference in Nashville in which promised to make the U.S. a favorable place for cryptocurrency, and said he would make it the official policy of the U.S. government to “keep 100% of all the Bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires into the future.” The U.S. government is one of the largest holders of Bitcoin in the world.

More: Bitcoin was created in 2009 following the mysterious publication of the Bitcoin whitepaper (9 pages) by Satoshi Nakamoto, who remains anonymous to this day. 

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Car rampage in China: At least 35 people have died and 45 more injured after a man went on a car rampage through crowds in an exercise facility in southern China. Local media reports say the man, who is currently in a coma, acted out of unhappiness following a recent divorce settlement. The tragedy may have been one of the largest mass killings in China in decades. China has been known to censor and/or hide news coverage of such events and began censoring videos and stories about the attack just one day afterwards. The BBC, who had a journalist nearby the stadium to film, was reportedly harassed and told to stop filming. 

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Flying Vehicle: Xpeng, a Chinese EV maker, showcased its new Land Aircraft Carrier at Airshow China this week (video). The helicopter-looking flying pod (seats 2 people) is stored and transported inside a more traditional road vehicle, which charges the battery of the helicopter. It takes 5 minutes to load the aircraft back into the carrier vehicle. The starting price is $280,000 with expected deliveries in 2026.

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Senate Majority Leader: Senator John Thune was elected as the next Republican Senate majority leader, replacing Mitch McConnell. Thune has served as a U.S. Senator for South Dakota since 2005. Thune is generally viewed as an establishment-Republican that has been critical of Trump at times in the past. Following the selection, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Thune “moves quickly, and will do an outstanding job. I look forward to working with him.”

More: Thune’s acceptance remarks (video).

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Trump Seeks MAGA Republicans for White House Roles, Begins Appointments Rapidly

Some context
President-elect Donald Trump is moving quickly to make a myriad of administration appointments before he is inaugurated President on Jan. 20, 2025. All of these candidates must be confirmed by the Senate in order to take the role. Republicans control the majority of the Senate 53/47. 

The appointment process appears much different than in 2016 when Trump was elected as an outsider with little knowledge of who would fit his policy vision. This resulted in a more chaotic White House as Trump clashed on policy and personality of the people he chose, many of whom were fired or resigned. 

As discussed in the podcast interview with Joe Rogan just before the election, Trump said that his biggest mistake of his first presidency was picking the wrong people to fill roles:

“I picked some people I shouldn’t have picked. NEO-cons, bad people, disloyal people.”

This time, most of the appointments have one thing in common: they are Trump “loyalists” and align strongly with the “America First” vision. 

With that said, there are also some surprising picks from the other side of the political aisle. Tulsi Gabbard, appointed Director of National Intelligence, is a former Democrat who ran for president in 2020, and Robert F Kennedy Jr., appointed to be the Director of Health and Human Services, was a lifelong Democrat and ran for president in 2024.

Trump’s appointments so far

Editorial Note: Due to the large number of appointments, we are not able to give a comprehensive background of every candidate. We will learn more about each person as they go through the Senate confirmation process and be sure to fill you in. For now, we have picked one video of each of the candidates to give you a sense of who they are.

• Attorney General: Matt Gaetz (video)

• Secretary of Homeland Security: Kristi Noem (video)

• Secretary of Defense: Pete Hegseth (video)

• Deputy Chief of Staff: Stephen Miller (video)

• Secretary of State: Marco Rubio (video)

• Director of National Intelligence: Tulsi Gabbard (video)

• Head of the CIA: John Ratcliffe (video)

• National Security Advisor: Mike Waltz (video)

• Border Czar: Tom Homan (video)

• Secretary of Health and Human Services: Robert F Kennedy JR (video)

Here are the most controversial appointments:

• (Attorney General) Matt Gaetz is a congressman from Florida who is known around D.C. as being a “fire-brand” in his testy exchanges in the House. Gaetz has been under a probe by the House Ethics Committee for sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and other accusations. The Department of Justice asked the Ethics Committee to defer its investigation because it was launching its own probe into Gaetz. However, in May 2023, the DOJ withdrew its investigation and did not bring charges. At that time, the Ethics Committee then resumed its probe. In June 2024, the Ethics Committee released a statement saying that, “Based on its review to date, the Committee has determined that certain of the allegations merit continued review.” A final report from the Ethics Committee has not yet been released, and given Gaetz’ immediate resignation from Congress to accept the AG role, the report is not likely to be officially released.

• (Health and Human Services) Robert F Kennedy Jr. endorsed Trump after initially running as a Democratic candidate for president. He adopted the slogan, “Make America Healthy Again” and has strong stances on vaccines, toxic chemicals in food, and the health of farm soil. In his announcement picking RFK Jr., Trump said, “for too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health. The Safety and Health of all Americans is the most important role of any Administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.”

• (Department of Defense) Pete Hegseth has been the host of a popular show on Fox News (Fox & Friends) for the past 7 years. Before that he was the executive director of Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America. Hegseth has earned two Bronze Stars for his service overseas as well as two Army Commendation Medals. He still serves in the National Guard Individual Ready Reserve unit in his home state of Minnesota. He has been outspoken about getting rid of all things “woke” in the military. 

Will they be approved in the Senate?
Given Trump’s recent victory including winning the popular vote, most of the appointments will be passed through the Senate as the President-elect has a lot of momentum and command over the Republican party, including the Senators. 

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Trends: Younger Audiences Gravitating Toward Podcasts, Other Alternative Media as Traditional TV Declines

The news media landscape is increasingly shifting away from traditional TV networks to podcasts, streaming, and other user-generated media. In particular, podcasts are reaching younger audiences.

Podcast consumption growing
Edison Research, which conducts extensive surveys on podcasts, estimates nearly 50% of the U.S. population aged 12+ listen to podcasts on a monthly basis in 2024, up from about 20% in 2016.

Younger audiences gravitate toward podcasts
Podcasts are especially popular and growing fastest among younger to middle-aged audiences. The chart below shows the percentage of the U.S. population that are monthly podcast listeners. Podcasts are most popular among the 12-34 age demographic, and the 35-54 age cohort has grown the fastest in recent years. In contrast, those aged 55+ listen to podcasts at less than half the rate as younger audiences.

Outside of podcasts, another way to look at the shift toward alternative media is looking at the top ranked apps in the “news” category on the iPhone App Store. The top 6 are X, Reddit, Nextdoor, NewsBreak, Substack, and the DailyWire (in the wake of the election, X CEO Linda Yaccarino tweeted, “X usage is at an all-time high and continues to surge.”) The traditional media companies that dominated TV are not among the top 10.

Podcasts reaching conservatives in a unique way
A PewResearch survey 2023 about podcasts found some interesting differences between Republican and Democrat listeners.