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In today’s issue:
- Trump wants friends, family in key posts
- Congress’s year-end funding sprint
- Supreme Court skeptical of environmental regulations
- Syrian rebels name interim prime minister
President-elect Trump is building a government that resembles the seating charts at a Mar-a-Lago VIP event: friends, billionaire influencers, endorsers, campaign donors, family members and like-minded professionals with communications skills.
With diplomatic posts in mind, Trump announced Tuesday he will nominate Kimberly Guilfoyle, a lawyer and campaign fundraiser who was Donald Trump Jr.’s longtime romantic interest, to be U.S. ambassador to Greece. Guilfoyle, 55, formerly was a California prosecutor and Fox News personality.
Tom Barrack, 77, a private equity investor and longtime Trump friend and campaign backer, is the president-elect’s choice to be U.S. ambassador to Turkey, a NATO ally and linchpin nation in the Middle East.
Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, formerly the co-chair of the Republican National Committee during the president-elect’s campaign, would like to be appointed to serve as a Sunshine State senator if Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is confirmed, as anticipated, to be secretary of State.
Trump’s reliance on Florida personalities and notables to serve in government next year creates possible openings for others in the state to ascend. The Hill’s Julia Manchester dissects a list of six Floridians who could benefit from Trump’s domino effect.
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s unconventional choice to coordinate national intelligence agencies, met this week with GOP senators, eager to allay concerns about her scant intelligence experience and decisions she made as a lawmaker to travel to Damascus years ago to meet with Syria’s now-expelled ex-dictator, plus her sympathies for Kremlin perspectives.
The U.S. routinely shares intelligence with allies. Experts from that world harbor concerns that Gabbard could hinder the long-standing tradition of unreserved intelligence coordination, if confirmed.
“I think there’s a lot of open questions with the Five Eyes, with our English-speaking cousins, about what happens if they disagree about analysis of a problem? What if they have a concern about something they’ve collected but are sharing with us?” said Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat who served on House intelligence subcommittees with the Armed Services and Homeland Security committees based on her background as a CIA analyst.
“I think there’s just a lot of angst in the system, just like there is in the intelligence community,” she added. “I’m trying to keep an open mind [about Gabbard], but there’s definitely stress in the system.”
Federal Trade Commission: Trump said Tuesday that as president, he will replace FTC Chair Lina Khan with one of the agency’s five commissioners, conservative Andrew Ferguson. Khan, whose term expired, is a lightning rod for Wall Street and Silicon Valley after she blocked corporate acquisitions and sued Amazon and Meta while alleging anticompetitive behavior. The president-elect said he would appoint lawyer Mark Meador, a former aide to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), to be an FTC commissioner.
The Hill: During a Tuesday speech in Washington, President Biden took aim at Trump’s promised trade tariffs and proposed tax cuts while touting the nation’s economic gains during his own term of office. “By all accounts the incoming administration is determined to return the country to another round of trickle-down economics … once again causing massive deficits or significant cuts in basic programs,” Biden said. “I believe we’ve proven that approach is a mistake over the past four years.”
More Trump picks: The president-elect chose his former ambassador to El Salvador, Ronald Johnson, to be U.S. ambassador to Mexico; Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), to be deputy budget director at the Office of Management and Budget, and Jacob Helberg, to be under secretary of State for economic growth, energy and the environment.
Lawfare: Trump can lawfully appoint loyalists to serve in his administration for lengthy periods without Senate confirmation or recess appointments by leaning on the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
SMART TAKE FROM THE HILL’S BOB CUSACK:
Keep your eyes on Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D).
As the Democratic Party searches for answers after a disastrous 2024 election, Polis has helped make Colorado more blue. But he’s no traditional Democrat.
Polis in recent weeks has been vocal in his criticism of Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter. Polis said he’s willing to work with Trump and praised his selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. The 49-year-old governor, who was the first openly gay man elected governor after becoming the first openly gay man elected to Congress as a non-incumbent, has taken on his party on union-backed legislation, mask mandates and tax policy.
Polis has not ruled out a run for president in 2028. Now, in traditional times, a politician who clashes with his own party doesn’t usually go far. But we are not in traditional times.
Trump upended the Republican Party in so many ways, most notably in its cozy relationship with corporate America and trade policies. And he will soon be inaugurated for the second time.
Most Democrats abhor Trump, but they can learn from how he took on the establishment and became a populist who won the popular vote last month. Polis is not your typical Democrat, and the party needs someone unconventional to revamp it.
3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY:
▪ This morning’s federal report on the consumer price index is expected to show a 2.7 percent 12-month inflation rate for November, up a tenth of a percentage point from October. Why does it matter? Traders and investors bet that central bankers this month will again cut the benchmark short-term borrowing rate.
▪ Average national gasoline prices are the lowest they’ve been since 2021; a majority of states have average pump prices below $3 per gallon.
▪ Among the loveliest species to link the U.S. with Mexico are monarch butterflies, whose migratory populations are dwindling. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided iconic monarchs need protection because of threats posed by habitat loss, pesticides and climate change.
LEADING THE DAY
© The Associated Press | J. Scott Applewhite
Today, Dec. 11, marks the new national deadline for governors to certify the results of the presidential election and submit their slates of electors.
GOVERNMENT FUNDING: Congress’s deadline to fund the government and keep the lights on in Washington is down to the single digits. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who held meetings with GOP chairs about budget reconciliation strategy Tuesday night, said he will talk strategy with Trump this weekend.
As the funding deadline nears, incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and other GOP lawmakers are proposing a two-step budget strategy that would include passing a border and energy bill early next year and then turning to a massive tax package. But other Republicans — including the House’s top tax writer — have been critical of that approach and are pushing for one package.
Disaster relief funding has emerged as a potential point of contention, with Republicans skeptical of Biden’s request for more than $100 billion in disaster aid. Most Republicans support robust funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency after hurricanes Helene and Milton, but GOP lawmakers have no appetite for funding programs that don’t go directly toward disaster relief.
▪ The Hill: The House advanced the annual defense policy bill on Tuesday, teeing up the mammoth measure for a final vote later this week.
▪ The Hill: The White House and congressional Democrats are fighting to protect $20 billion in funds for the IRS as the tax collection agency faces significant changes next year.
▪ Politico: Rep. David Scott’s (D-Ga.) colleagues predict he will lose a vote to continue as ranking member of the Agriculture Committee.
Republican lawmakers are expected to rescind the Biden administration’s contentious nursing home staffing rule once Trump returns to office. The move would come as a relief for the nursing home industry, which has argued the mandate doesn’t appropriately address workforce challenges. But advocates fear repealing the rule will harm residents and long-term care facility workers alike.
JAN. 6: Trump’s assertion to NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” that he will pardon most of the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters and his claim that members of the House Jan. 6 committee “should go to jail,” is raising questions of whether Republican lawmakers oppose pardoning people who illegally breached the U.S. Capitol nearly four years ago. GOP senators told The Hill’s Alexander Bolton that Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter Biden has opened the door for Trump to do what he wants.
“As we found from Hunter Biden, the president’s pardon authority is pretty extensive,” Thune said. “That’s obviously a decision he’ll have to make.”
Thune declined to push back on Trump’s statement that members of the House Jan. 6 Committee — which included seven Democrats and then-Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — “should go to jail.”
“I think with respect to the committee … if there’s something that needs to be looked at there, I’m sure the appropriate authorities will look at it,” Thune said. “I don’t have a comment, really, on those statements.”
HOUSE ETHICS: Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), the chair of the House Ethics Committee, told The Hill Tuesday that the panel met this week and does not have any more gatherings scheduled for the 118th Congress, signaling that it is done deliberating on its report into former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
The Ethics Committee has been investigating Gaetz for roughly three-and-a-half years, looking into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing. The probe came to an abrupt end when Gaetz resigned from Congress to be Trump’s pick for attorney general, and later withdrew from consideration.
👉Immigration by the numbers: Here’s why immigration is such a potent political and policy issue in the United States: Annual net migration — the number of people coming to the country minus the number leaving — averaged 2.4 million people from 2021 to 2023, according to government data. Total net migration during the Biden administration is likely to exceed 8 million people. An estimated 60 percent of immigrants who have entered the country since 2021 have done so without legal authorization.
WHERE AND WHEN
- Invitation: The Hill and NewsNation moderate a “Meet the New Members” event tonight from 6-9 p.m. with Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), House Republican Policy Committee Chair Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), and Reps.-elect Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.) and Nick Begich (R-Alaska). Request to attend HERE. (Nexstar owns The Hill and NewsNation.)
- The House will meet at 10 a.m. The Senate meets at 11 a.m.
- The president will join first lady Jill Biden to host the first-ever White House Conference on women’s health research in the East Room at 11:30 a.m. Biden will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 3:30 p.m.
- Vice President Harris had no public schedule. She will join the president this afternoon for the President’s Daily Brief.
- Secretary of State Antony Blinken will testify at 10 a.m. to the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
ZOOM IN
© The Associated Press | Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Supreme Court: Justices appear likely to weaken one of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws after hearing a key case on Tuesday. During oral arguments, several of the court’s conservative justices signaled that they could support at least some limits on the scope of which environmental impacts need to be considered in government decisionmaking.
The outcome of the case could have major implications: Limiting such consideration under the National Environmental Policy Act could impact a range of decisions including whether to approve oil and gas drilling, mining projects, pipelines, logging, highways and more.
Antitrust: A federal judge blocked grocery giant Kroger from acquiring competitor chain Albertsons, siding with Biden administration antitrust enforcers who said the $20 billion merger would erode competition and raise prices for consumers.
Infowars: Alex Jones will keep conspiracy theory platform Infowars for now after a federal judge in Texas late Tuesday rejected The Onion’s winning auction bid. Jones’s site was put up for sale as part of his bankruptcy case in the wake of the nearly $1.5 billion that courts ordered Jones to pay families tied to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings for falsely calling the massacre a hoax. Families of the Sandy Hook victims had backed The Onion’s bid.
Trump’s conviction in New York City: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) on Tuesday in a court brief proposed alternatives to the dismissal of the conviction of the president-elect on 34 counts of falsifying business records in a hush money case.
Fake electors: Wisconsin state prosecutors filed 10 additional felony charges against two of Trump’s lawyers and one of his aides, who in 2020 allegedly advised the president-elect to falsely claim he won the state’s election as part of a “fake elector” scheme.
UnitedHealthcare: Luigi Mangione, 26, the suspect in the killing of CEO Brian Thompson, is being held in Pennsylvania without bail. Mangione, who on Tuesday was charged with the murder, is represented by a Pennsylvania defense attorney and on Tuesday began to fight extradition to New York, where Thompson was gunned down in midtown Manhattan. A citizen’s tip helped Pennsylvania police to arrest Mangione.
The Hill’s The Memo: Social media sympathy for killing of health insurance CEO sparks pushback.
ELSEWHERE
© The Associated Press | Hussein Malla
THE SYRIAN REBELS who toppled Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime appointed rebel leader Mohammed al-Bashir as the country’s interim prime minister. Bashir, who ran the “Syrian Salvation Government” — a quasi-state founded by Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham — in rebel-held Idlib, said he will stay in the post until March 1, to lead the transitional government. The Biden administration said Tuesday that it will recognize and support a new government that would renounce terrorism, destroy chemical weapons stocks and protect the rights of minorities and women.
While Syria celebrates the end of Assad’s regime, Israel is carrying out airstrikes and a ground incursion — and destroying the country’s naval fleet — moves that have drawn growing international condemnation. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday that he ordered the military to establish a “sterile defense zone” in southern Syria, as Israeli forces seize control of the demilitarized and U.N.-patrolled buffer zone, established under a 1974 ceasefire agreement. The move has raised alarm during a period of potential instability as Syria navigates its transition away from 53 years of Assad rule.
While Israel frames its actions as necessary to secure its border, critics argue they are the latest example of the U.S. ally destabilizing the region among a devastating assault on Gaza and fragile ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
▪ Reuters: Syria’s interim leader vows to rebuild but faces a cash crunch.
▪ NPR: The mood inside Syria.
▪ The New York Times: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stand in his corruption trial on Tuesday. Here’s what to know.
THE GRINDING WAR in Ukraine has escalated ahead of Trump’s inauguration, with Biden rushing out billions of dollars more in military aid before U.S. support for Kyiv’s defenses is thrown into question under the new administration. Russia, Ukraine and their global allies are scrambling to appear in the best possible position for any changes that Trump may bring to U.S. policy in the nearly 3-year-old war.
Trump insisted in recent days that Russia and Ukraine immediately reach a ceasefire and said Ukraine should likely prepare to receive less U.S. military aid.
▪ The New York Times: The White House on Tuesday transferred $20 billion to Ukraine, an economic lifeline in the form of a loan that will be repaid using interest earned from Russia’s frozen central bank assets.
▪ The Washington Post: Ukraine races to develop its own long-range weapons to counter Russia.
▪ Reuters: President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Ukraine’s allies on Tuesday to provide 10 to 12 more Patriot air defense systems that he said would fully protect its skies, after a Russian missile killed at least four people in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
OPINION
■ Trump’s diverse Cabinet picks — rivals or courtiers? by Gerard Baker, columnist, The Wall Street Journal.
■ Syrian rebels had help from Ukraine in humiliating Russia, by David Ignatius, columnist, The Washington Post.
■ Good luck reforming the Department of Defense, by Harlan Ullman, opinion contributor, The Hill.
THE CLOSER
© The Associated Press | Elaine Thompson
And finally … It’s the year of the salmon hat. For orcas, at least.
Scientists and whale enthusiasts are abuzz after spotting two killer whales with dead salmon resting on their heads in Puget Sound in Washington state. The last time orcas balanced dead salmon on their backs was in the 1980s, sparking discussion about sartorial choices for the massive mammals.
Not so fast, scientists caution. While they don’t have enough data to determine the exact reason for the fish-balancing, their theories are more utilitarian than showy: The orcas may simply be saving a nutrient-rich, key ingredient in their diet for later or to share it with another orca.
Still, the killer whales are on trend in one regard: Pantone’s 2024 color of the year, Peach Fuzz, bears resemblance to cooked salmon.
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