Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Trump Press Conference And Rex Tillerson

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017. (Evan Vucci/AP)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017. (Evan Vucci/AP)

Trump faces the press as Russian allegations swirl.  Rex Tillerson goes before Congress. We’ll cover it all.

Donald Trump and Rex Tillerson, both in the spotlight yesterday. After six months without, Mr. Trump held a press conference. It was a doozy, with the same combative, slashing style he had on the campaign trail. On Russia and the infamous dossier, on his business interests, on the wall. On the media. And on Capitol Hill, former Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, faced tough hearings on his nomination as Secretary of State.  This hour On Point, Trump and Tillerson meet the press and the Senate. — Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Major Garrett, chief White House correspondent for CBS News. (@MajorCBS)

Matt Viser, deputy Washington bureau chief for the Boston Globe. (@mviser)

Michael Crowley, senior foreign affairs correspondent for POLITICO. (@michaelcrowley)

From Tom’s Reading List

Reuters: Trump assails ‘phony’ Russia dossier in chaotic news conference — “President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday angrily denounced unsubstantiated claims he had been caught in a compromising position in Russia and attacked U.S. intelligence agencies over the leak of the information. ‘I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out there,’ Trump told a chaotic news conference only days before he takes office.”

POLITICO: Trump confronts firestorm over Russia allegations— “Just days before he’s sworn in as president, Donald Trump is facing a potential crisis amid reports that U.S. intelligence officials briefed the president-elect last week on allegations that Russia could have compromising information about him. Although the details of these revelations remain murky and unverified, their publication Tuesday night, on the eve of Trump’s first news conference since July, is upsetting any post-election honeymoon and forcing him to confront what is, at best, an uncomfortable public relations fiasco and potentially a new geopolitical pressure point that could cast a shadow on his incoming administration.”

Boston Globe: Rex Tillerson showed gift for pragmatism as Boy Scouts chief — “Those who have worked with Tillerson up close say that his style can be more deferential than one might expect of the chief executive of a vast multinational oil company. He doesn’t suck up all the attention in a room, he soaks it in. As President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee, he is now in line to oversee an especially tumultuous period in American foreign policy, with radical changes in US engagement abroad being contemplated, and shifting relationships with Russia, China, and Europe likely on the near horizon.”

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.