2016 Election

The Hill reports: President-elect Donald Trump will not follow through on his campaign pledge to pursue an investigation into Hillary Clinton, one of his aides told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I think when the President-elect, who’s also the head of your party, tells you before he’s even inaugurated that he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong …

CNN reports: Protecting President-elect Donald Trump and his family is costing New York City more than $1 million a day, according to three city officials. And those costs won’t necessarily drop significantly once he moves to the White House. That’s because Melania Trump and their 10-year old son Barron expect to stay at their home at Trump Tower in midtown …

The Charlotte Observer reports: In a coordinated public appeal, Rep. Tricia Cotham Monday joined Democratic lawmakers across the state in calling on Gov. Pat McCrory to concede the gubernatorial election. “I understand it’s hard to lose,” she said outside the Mecklenburg County board of elections. “McCrory needs to be a statesman and do what the voters wanted and concede this …

The New York Post reports: Future First Lady Melania Trump and son Barron will not be moving to the White House after Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, The Post has learned. The president-elect’s 46-year-old wife and their 10-year-old son are staying put at the family’s glitzy Trump Tower penthouse so that Barron can continue attending his Upper West Side private …

Deadline recaps: Alec Baldwin made his return as Saturday Night Live‘s Donald Trump tonight, with the President-elect more confused than belligerent, and joined in a surprise appearance by Jason Sudeikis as Mitt Romney. “This isn’t going to work, is it?,” a stiff and awkward Romney said after an uncomfortable few seconds with the Donald. The show’s writers clearly worked fast …

The Washington Post reports: Donald Trump met with Mitt Romney, once a fierce critic of the president-elect who is now being floated as a potential pick for secretary of state, on Saturday afternoon, setting aside the friction between the two men and signaling a willingness by Trump to entertain different points of view on foreign policy. Romney appeared to warmly …

NBC News reports: In a video message Friday, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch responded to a spike in hate crimes that the federal government found in 2015, saying the increase should be “deeply sobering” to Americans. The FBI reported a six-percent increase in hate crimes nationally in 2015, with anti-Muslim crimes increasing by a staggering 67 percent, Lynch said on …

But only because the US hasn’t yet formally asked. ABC News reports: Ecuador’s Foreign Minister says WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should receive guarantees that he will not be extradited to the US if he faces justice in Sweden after four years of living in the South American nation’s embassy in London. Mr Assange, who enraged Washington by publishing a flood …

Reuters reports: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said Ford Motor Co Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr told him the automaker would not move a Kentucky plant to Mexico, but the firm said it informed him the decision was to keep one vehicle in U.S. production. On Thursday, Trump posted on Twitter: “I worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln …

The Charlotte Observer reports: Gov. Pat McCrory’s campaign announced late Thursday that 50 more election complaints have been filed – bringing the total number of counties with contested election results to 52 of the state’s 100 counties, including Mecklenburg. The latest complaints say ballots were cast by people who were dead, were convicted felons or had already voted. “With each …

The Verge reports: At a concert in San Jose during his Saint Pablo tour, Kanye West opened up about the 2016 election in typical style. According to videos and tweets from the night, West told fans —in no particular order — that if he’d voted he would have voted for Donald Trump; that Trump’s approach to campaigning was “absolutely genius …

That swamp is SO drained, you guys. The Associated Press reports: President-elect Donald Trump offered former military intelligence chief Michael Flynn the job of national security adviser as he began to build out his national security team Thursday, according to a senior Trump official. The move came as Trump made his most direct foray into foreign policy since the election, …

So much for Mitt Romney’s truly epic video slam of Trump, huh? NBC News reports: Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will meet with Donald Trump this weekend to discuss the secretary of state position, a source close to the president-elect with direct knowledge of his thinking told NBC News. In March, the former Massachusetts governor called Trump “a phony” …

Earlier this year Donald Trump attacked South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley after she criticized his plan to ban Muslim immigration. Haley responded with “bless your heart,” which is Southern for “go fuck yourself.” Her tweet prompted Ann Coulter to react in her typically racist fashion. (Haley was born in South Carolina.) But hey, it’s all good now, right? The Charleston …

US House Republicans celebrated the 2016 election today with a selfie taken by Vice President-Elect Mike Pence. Prominently positioned in the front row are leading anti-LGBT House members Steve “Men Will Marry Lawnmowers” King and the perpetually cross-eyed Virginia Foxx, the latter of whom is most infamous here for calling the murder of Matthew Shepard a hoax, for which she …

Via press release from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today launched a toll-free hotline to report incidents of bias and discrimination across the state. The hotline will bolster the state’s efforts to protect New Yorkers and allow those who are the victim of prejudice to file a complaint with the Division of Human Rights. Following an …

The Telegraph reports: The FBI’s controversial decision to re-examine Hillary Clinton’s emails enabled Donald Trump to win the election, his former campaign manager has claimed. Corey Lewandowski, who is expected to be offered a key position in the Trump administration, described the move as “amazing” and said it gave the Republican candidate the “spring in his step” he needed to …

Business Insider reports: Megyn Kelly admonished a supporter of Donald Trump who invoked Japanese internment camps as precedent for a proposed registry of Muslims. On Fox News’s “The Kelly File” program on Wednesday night, Carl Higbie, a former Navy SEAL and spokesman and co-chair of Great America PAC for Donald Trump, argued in favor of the registry, which he compared …

The Raleigh News & Observer reports: Gov. Pat McCrory’s campaign team announced Wednesday evening that election protests are being filed in 11 more counties, further clouding the outcome of a close race in which the Republican governor trails. McCrory, who lags roughly 5,000 votes behind Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper with some ballots yet to be counted, had already seized …

Via Mediaite: Kellyanne Conway — the third campaign manager for Donald Trump who took the underdog effort from floundering confusion to the heights of political victory this year — has just about had it with you and your PC safe space childish protests. Conway appeared on Hannity Wednesday night to discuss the wave of anti-Trump sentiment that has arisen in …