Good morning, US politics blog readers. Joe Biden is in his final days in office, and still has a few pieces of unfinished business to deal with before he hands power to Donald Trump on 20 January. One of them is deciding whether to issue preemptive pardons to political enemies of the incoming president, such as former congresswoman Liz Cheney or Anthony Fauci, who spearheaded the fight against Covid-19 in Trump’s first term. In an interview with USA Today published today – a rare, final sit-down interview by a president who spent much of his term avoiding the press – Biden confirmed he may still opt to protect Trump’s enemies from prosecution, and signaled he would decide based on who the president-elect appoints to top roles in his administration.

Meanwhile, Trump is scrambling to halt the sentencing in his criminal business fraud case that is scheduled to take place in a Manhattan court on Friday. Reuters reports that his attorneys have asked the US supreme court to intervene to pause the proceedings, though the New York judge presiding over the case has signaled he is unlikely to sentence the president-elect to jail time. We will let you if the nation’s highest court responds.

Here’s what else is happening today:

• Trump will this evening trek to Capitol Hill for a strategy meeting with the Republican senators tasked with enacting his administration’s priorities, ranging from mass deportations to extending tax cuts enacted during his first term.

• Marjorie Taylor Greene, the rightwing Georgia congresswoman, says she will introduce legislation to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”, as Trump proposed at a rambling press conference yesterday.

• Los Angeles continues to be battered by three separate wildfires fueled by high winds. Follow our live blog as more than 1,400 firefighters attempts to contain the flames.