Trump transition live updates: Johnson says he, Trump didn't discuss Gaetz Ethics Committee report

President-elect Donald Trump announced Brendan Carr as his pick for chairman of the Federal Communications Commission on Sunday evening.

Carr wrote a chapter for the conservative Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, where he detailed how he intended to run the agency.

In his statement announcing the choice, and offering his congratulations, Trump touted Carr's background as the FCC's general counsel before becoming senior Republican on the FCC.

"I first nominated Commissioner Carr to the FCC in 2017, and he has been confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate three times. His current term runs through 2029 and, because of his great work, I will now be designating him as permanent Chairman," Trump wrote.

The statement continued, "Commissioner Carr is a warrior for Free Speech, and has fought against the regulatory Lawfare that has stifled Americans' Freedoms, and held back our Economy. He will end the regulatory onslaught that has been crippling America's Job Creators and Innovators, and ensure that the FCC delivers for rural America."

-ABC News' Lalee Ibssa, Soo Rin Kim and Kelsey Walsh

Vivek Ramaswamy, recently announced by President-elect Donald Trump as one of the leaders of the new Department of Government Efficiency, said on Fox News on Sunday that he anticipates the advisory body to cause "mass reductions" and that some governmental agencies may be "deleted outright."

"We expect mass reductions. We expect certain agencies to be deleted outright. We expect mass reductions in force, in areas of the federal government that are bloated. We expect massive cuts among federal contractors and others who are over billing the federal government," Ramaswamy said.

He did not indicate which agencies specifically would potentially be reduced or "deleted," although he at one point referenced the Department of Education.

"I mean, President Trump's talked extensively about areas like the Department of Education. Obviously, those kinds of agencies shouldn't even exist and should be returned to the states," he said.

-ABC News' Oren Oppenheim

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump's pick for defense secretary, paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017 as part of a settlement agreement, an attorney for Hegseth said in a statement on Saturday.

Tim Parlatore, a lawyer for the Fox News star, said in the statement that Hegseth settled in December 2020 only because he feared his career would suffer if her allegations were made public. Parlatore said Hegseth was the victim of "blackmail" and "false claims of sexual assault" by an unidentified woman after a Republican women's convention in California on Oct. 7, 2017.

"Knowing that it was the height of the MeToo movement and any public accusation would result in his immediate termination from Fox, Mr. Hegseth ultimately decided to enter into a settlement for a significantly reduced amount," according to the statement.

In Parlatore's telling, Hegseth met the woman an event afterparty, where he became "visibly intoxicated." The woman "led him by the arm to his hotel room" where the two engaged in a "consensual sexual encounter."

"The complainant was the aggressor in initiating sexual activity," Parlatore wrote.

Read more on this report here.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday maintained that he had not discussed the House Ethics Committee's report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz with Trump.

Asked on CNN's "State of the Union" if Trump encouraged him to change his position and "squash" the committee's report on the president-elect's attorney general pick, Johnson replied, "No, he did not."

"The president and I have literally not discussed one word about the Ethics report, not once. And I have been with him quite a bit this week between Washington and Mar-a-Lago and last night in Madison Square Garden."

Johnson said the speaker of the House is not involved with the Ethics Committee - " can't be, shouldn't be, because the speaker can't put a thumb on the scale or have anything to do with that."

The speaker told CNN's Jake Tapper that he had no idea of what was in the report.

"I didn't even know about it, Jake, until the middle of this week, when it was announced in the press," he said.

But Johnson said the report shouldn't be released because Gaetz had resigned from the House.

"There's a very important protocol and tradition and rule that we maintain that the House Ethics Committee's jurisdiction does not extend to non-members of Congress," he said. "I think that would be a Pandora's Box."

-ABC News' Fritz Farrow