Today’s notice: Republicans recalibrate on Donald Trump’s Day One plans. Hard-liners float tucking debt ceiling negotiations into reconciliation. And a pregnant congresswoman wants Congress to restore proxy voting.
When They Said Day One, They Meant One Day
Donald Trump vowed to settle the war in Ukraine by Inauguration Day more than any other campaign promise, but with five days until Trump is sworn in, Republican lawmakers aren’t so sure Trump can make good on that vow.
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has long pushed for the end of U.S. aid for Ukraine, said the Day One commitment was more about Trump making a rhetorical point than setting a deadline.
“I think you need to understand language,” Greene said Tuesday when NOTUS asked if settling the war on Day One is still possible. “Everyone else in America understands that language.”
“I don’t think the media pressing Day One is specifically Day One,” she said. “But he’s talking about that as one of his first roles as president, and there are many. He’s going to be writing hundreds of executive orders. But yes, ending that war is important.”
Greene added that it was “a useless effort” for the media to try to “hold President Trump’s feet to the fire.”
“President Trump will be the one that ends that war where the Democrats and Joe Biden fail,” she said.
Others are also taking the Day One deadline less than literally. Trump’s own special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, set a potential 100-day timetable to settle the war last week. Some Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Darrell Issa and Joe Wilson, also cast doubt on an immediate resolution after Trump takes office.
In the Senate, Jacky Rosen asked defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth during his confirmation hearing whether he was aware of a plan to resolve the war before Inauguration Day. Hegseth did not speak to any specific plan or timetable in his response.
When asked by NOTUS about a timeline, Sen. Marco Rubio — whose secretary of state confirmation hearing is slated for today — said, “We’re gonna find out.”
Riley Rogerson and John T. Seward | Read the story.
That Pesky Debt Limit Just Keeps Limiting
Republicans are eager for their trifecta to start and talks about massive reconciliation bills to begin in earnest. But an argument about the debt limit could be getting in the way, NOTUS’ Reese Gorman reports.
Trump and House leaders are discussing addressing the debt limit separate from the big reconciliation package. But fiscal hard-liners want it in the big bill (or bills). Oh, and, even if it is included in reconciliation, some of those hard-liners say they still might not vote for it given their reluctance to vote for debt limit increases. It’s making life hard for the House leaders working with tight margins.
“Adding the debt limit could sink the package right from the start,” Reese reports.
Front Page
- ‘Brother, I’m Pulling You Along’: Republicans Go All Out to Lift Pete Hegseth: One Republican senator accused his colleagues of being drunk on the job.
- Trump’s War on DEI Has Been Years in the Making: Trump allies have been flooding the DOJ with “reverse discrimination” complaints since Biden took office.
- Democrats Face Their First Postelection Test on Trans Rights: Two Democrats voted with Republicans on a bill targeting trans athletes in girls’ and women’s sports.
- A Pivotal Group of Republicans Say They Have a Plan on SALT: A blue state Republican says a group of five are “resolved to sticking together” to raise the cap on state and local deductions.
- Hegseth’s Hearing Signals the End of Bipartisanship in Defense Secretary Confirmations: “The Senate’s reputation is at stake,” Sen. Jack Reed said.
Why Trump Wasn’t Charged With Insurrection
It didn’t get a ton of play, but special counsel Jack Smith detailed his team’s choice not to charge Trump with “insurrection” in his report released Tuesday, NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery reports. “Prosecutors made clear that they felt Trump’s behavior fit the description,” Jose writes. But they ultimately decided pursuing it would introduce too much “litigation risk” to their case, the prosecutors wrote. In the end, Smith and his team decided against pursuing the rarely invoked criminal statute.
Pregnant Lawmakers Can’t Vote by Proxy
With Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen on track to have her baby in early February, she will be just the 13th member of Congress to give birth while in office.
Pettersen and GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna introduced a resolution that would allow proxy voting for new parents, but a similar effort by Luna last Congress ran into roadblocks and didn’t go anywhere. The idea seems on track to hit more challenges: Speaker Mike Johnson argued Tuesday voting by proxy is unconstitutional, and “I don’t see any way around that.”
Pettersen spoke to NOTUS from Colorado — it’s the first week she can no longer travel.
Why proxy voting: “Giving birth is comparable to a very invasive surgery. Physically, you’re unable to be there, and you have a newborn who’s incredibly vulnerable for the first few months … with the right guardrails, we can make sure that proxy voting works, that it’s the exception, that it’s rare.”
Next steps: “[Johnson] doesn’t have to support it. But overwhelmingly it’s supported in Congress, so he needs to bring it to the floor for a vote … ultimately, we have the option to bring it for a discharge petition after 30 legislative days, and so that’s something that we’re going to continue to look at.”
Her experience: “I’m going to take the time to prioritize the health and well-being of my newborn. But if there’s a critical vote that I have to fly there for, I’m going to somehow try to make it work.”
—Katherine Swartz
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.
- The U.S. government runs on Celsius. Just ask anyone on Capitol Hill. By Ben Terris for The Washington Post
- At RFK Jr.-Led Environmental Group, Insiders Questioned How He Spent $67 Million by David Corn, Russ Choma and Dan Friedman at Mother Jones
- With her city in flames, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ political future hangs in the balance by Julia Wick at the Los Angeles Times
- Trump picks historically young group of top officials by Erin Doherty for Axios
Be Social: Sign of the Tmes
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it 1,000 times: You gotta turn on the setting that tells spell-check to review ALL CAPS text. You gotta.
The typo on this sign is killing me pic.twitter.com/r0v3B16dIR
— Juliegrace Brufke (@juliegraceb) January 14, 2025
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