Biden Pardons Son Hunter; Trump Names More Controversial Cabinet Picks: Latest Updates

President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter on Sunday after repeatedly saying he would not, drawing outrage from Republicans who are eagerly preparing for former President Donald Trump to take office again.
Trump, who defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election last month, criticized Biden’s pardon as “an abuse and miscarriage of Justice” while hinting again that he is considering pardons for those who have been charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
Trump continues to make news ahead of taking office in January, with ongoing announcements of controversial Cabinet picks and White House appointments.
Read the latest updates below:
Trump announced Wednesday he will nominate former Republican Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler to serve as the head for the Small Business Administration (SBA).
“Kelly will bring her experience in business and Washington to reduce red tape, and unleash opportunity for our Small Businesses to grow, innovate, and thrive,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “She will focus on ensuring that SBA is accountable to Taxpayers by cracking down on waste, fraud, and regulatory overreach.”
Loeffler, a longtime ally of Trump, posed for a photo in 2020 with Chester Doles, a former Ku Klux Klan leader and member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance.
Trump has nominated Monica Crowley to serve as Ambassador, Assistant Secretary of State, he announced in a social media post.
Crowley served in Trump’s first administration as assistant secretary of the Treasury for public affairs, a role she ultimately bowed out of after reporters found she’d plagiarized substantial amounts of material for both a book she wrote in 2012 and her Ph.D. dissertation.
Crowley has also appeared on Fox News as a contributor.
President-elect Donald Trump agreed to participate in a sit-down interview with NBC News on Friday, for a segment scheduled to air on Sunday, Dec. 8.
This will be his first TV news interview since winning the presidency in November.
Trump resisted interviews in the weeks leading up to presidential election, refusing in October to participate in a decades-long tradition of candidates sitting down for an interview for CBS’ News famed show, “60 Minutes.”
Trump went on to sue CBS for their interview with his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris — an interview his lawsuit characterized as “partisan” and an act of “election and voter inference” that aimed to “mislead the public.”
Trump’s legal team has asked the court to cease proceedings on his election subversion case in Georgia, citing his return to the White House.
The move, which follows the post-election trajectory of his three other criminal cases, comes a few weeks after the court canceled oral arguments that were supposed to begin on Thursday.
Read more:
Two sources familiar with the plans told the Washington Post that Pete Hegseth will visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday. RealClearPolitics’ White House correspondent also confirmed the development.
Hegseth has been embroiled in controversy since Trump nominated him for defense secretary. In addition to a 2017 allegation of sexual assault, Hegseth’s Fox News coworkers said Tuesday they had been alarmed by Hegseth’s drinking habits.
Trump has reportedly considered replacing Hegseth with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
Recent statements from Republicans suggest Trump’s pick to head the Defense Department could have trouble getting confirmed by the Senate as more information emerges about allegations of alcohol abuse and sexual misconduct.
Trump said he would tap Army veteran and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon in one of several unconventional picks that have set up a showdown between Trump, members of his party and the U.S. Senate, which has a constitutional role in confirming Cabinet officials.
Read more:
Trump announced Wednesday that he intends to nominate cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Trump said Atkins, the CEO of Patomak Partners and a former SEC commissioner, was a “proven leader for common sense regulations.”
Read more:
Trump announced he plans to nominate Jared Isaacman, the CEO of Shift4 Payments and the co-founder of Draken International, a private air force, to be the next administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Isaacman has traveled to space twice on private missions operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX: once in 2021 on a two-day flight aboard Inspiration4, and once in 2024 on a five-day trip that saw Isaacman complete the first-ever commercial spacewalk.
“Jared will drive NASA’s mission of discovery and inspiration, paving the way for groundbreaking achievements in Space science, technology, and exploration,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
In a flurry of social media posts Wednesday morning, Trump said he plans to nominate Daniel Driscoll to oversee the U.S. Army.
The North Carolina native served in the 10th Mountain Light Infantry Division as a platoon leader for 23 months and was deployed to Iraq. He graduated from Yale Law School in 2014 and, after stints in venture capital and private equity, has worked as a senior adviser to Vice President-elect JD Vance.
Driscoll ran for Congress in 2020 but lost in the Republican primary to Madison Cawthorn.
For comparison’s sake, the current secretary of the Army, Christine E. Wormuth, has worked on defense and national security policy for more than 25 years, having previously worked as the undersecretary of defense for policy from 2014 to 2016.
The president-elect announced that he intends to nominate Peter Navarro, an economist and veteran of his first administration, to the role of senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.
Navarro served four months in prison earlier this year for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. In the first Trump administration, Navarro worked as the deputy assistant to the president.
Posting to Truth Social, Donald Trump said that Navarro had been “treated horribly by the Deep State, or whatever else you would like to call it.”
He went on: “During my First Term, few were more effective or tenacious than Peter in enforcing my two sacred rules, Buy American, Hire American. He helped me renegotiate unfair Trade Deals like NAFTA and the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), and moved every one of my Tariff and Trade actions FAST.”
Vivek Ramaswamy was no pal of Elon Musk’s as recently as 2023, when the biotech entrepreneur assailed Musk over his close ties to China — and Musk’s deep reliance on U.S. government subsidies for both Tesla and SpaceX.
“I have no reason to think Elon won’t jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need,” Ramaswamy said in a 2023 podcast surfaced by CNN Wednesday.
And in a 2022 conversation with Fox News, Ramaswamy observed Musk owes much of his success to U.S. government subsidies and defense contracts.
“Both Tesla and SpaceX quite likely would not exist as successful businesses if it were not for the use of public funding, either through subsidies, through the electric car industry, or through actual government contracting in the case of SpaceX,” he said.
President-elect Donald Trump wants to appoint Ramaswamy and Musk, neither of whom was elected, as co-chairs of a new federal bureau called the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE. Earlier this week, Ramaswamy said he thinks “the real threat to our democracy is the unelected federal bureaucracy.”
Democrats managed to flip a GOP-held seat in California after Adam Gray (D) defeated incumbent Rep. John Duarte (R), The Associated Press reported Wednesday.
Gray won the seat by less than 200 votes, AP noted.This race call means that Republicans won 220 House seats in this election cycle, while Democrats held 215.
In the 24 hours after Election Day, President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy. While their communication followed the usual protocol of world leaders reaching out to congratulate the incoming U.S. president, the call raised eyebrows because of a third participant: billionaire Elon Musk.
Musk’s sudden ascension from a billionaire private citizen with outsize influence in Ukraine to a top Trump campaign surrogate and member of the president-elect’s inner circle makes him a wild card regarding the U.S. position on the Ukraine war.
Read more here.
Prominent Democrat and longtime Joe Biden supporter Gavin Newsom said he was “disappointed” with the president’s decision to pardon his son Hunter, Politico reported Tuesday.
“With everything the president and his family have been through, I completely understand the instinct to protect Hunter,” the California governor said. “But I took the president at his word. So by definition, I’m disappointed and can’t support the decision.”
Newsom didn’t say any more in response to questions from the publication.
Newsom has been a fierce defender of Biden’s track record and spoke out in support of the president’s decision to seek reelection when others doubted his mental acuity and physical ability to do the job. Newsom has refrained from commenting on Hunter Biden’s legal troubles.
Newsom joins some other Democrats in condemning the president’s decision. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), and moderate Reps. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) and Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) have publicly criticized Biden for the pardon.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday said she’s “interested” in becoming the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, according to multiple news reports.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) has already thrown his hat in the ring for the job.
The post is currently held by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) who has declared a run for the top Democratic spot on the House Judiciary Committee.
NBC News interviewed 10 of Pete Hegseth’s former and current colleagues at Fox News who were concerned with his drinking, according to NBC’s reporting.
Two colleagues of Hegseth, Trump’s defense secretary nominee, reportedly smelled alcohol on the then-“Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host before the show began taping live, NBC News reported. Other colleagues told NBC News that they had heard him saying he was hungover as he got ready for the show, and at least one of NBC’s sources said they smelled alcohol on Hegsworth as recently as last month.
Read more about Hegseth’s alleged behavior in NBC’s full report here.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the allegations against Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary, are “disturbing.” Hegseth was once described as being an “abuser of women” by his own mother, and one woman accused him of sexual assault.
Graham also seemingly addressed Hegseth’s views that women shouldn’t fight in combat, saying that women who join the military should feel “respected and welcomed.”
Chad Chronister, Trump’s choice to lead the Drug Enforcement Agency, withdrew his name from consideration on Tuesday.
“Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I’ve concluded that I must respectfully withdraw from consideration,” Chronister, the sheriff for Florida’s Hillsborough County, wrote on X. “There is more work to be done for the citizens of Hillsborough County and a lot of initiatives I am committed to fulfilling.”
“I sincerely appreciate the nomination, outpouring of support by the American people, and look forward to continuing my service as Sheriff of Hillsborough County.”
Attorneys for President-elect Donald Trump filed a request Tuesday, as expected, asking New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan to dismiss the hush money case against him.
Read more here.
The Trump transition team on Tuesday signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to begin clearing senior administration officials and staff to serve in Trump’s administration.
Critically, the process includes submitting names for the background checks necessary for security clearances.
In an emailed statement, the Trump transition team said the agreement “will afford the transition process additional insights, and it facilitates our agency landing teams gaining access to the information they need to prepare for leadership of the federal agencies and departments.”
The agreement with the DOJ is one of at least three “memoranda of understanding” the Trump transition failed to sign on time. The memoranda are all intended to make sure presidential administrations (Trump’s included) transition into power in a transparent, smooth and ethical fashion.