Today’s notice: The freshmen-elect have arrived. The Trump scorched Earth path. Just kidding about that Dana White nomination! Mapping out the latest election turns. And: JD Vance’s Ohio reckoning.
THE LATEST
Welcoming the newbies: Democratic offices are being flooded with calls opposing Hakeem Jeffries’ speakership, but it was not the initial concern for members-elect arriving for freshman orientation despite the scrum of reporters peppering them about the speaker vote. “I’m going to get settled in my hotel first and then take it from there,” Rep.-elect Katy Padilla Stout (D-Texas) said as she plopped down two bags outside the AC Hotel in Navy Yard.
Rep.-elect Dan Koh (D-Massachusetts) was already campaigning to be the Democrats’ freshman class president, noting he’s going to back Jeffries for speaker, hold the Trump administration accountable and make a mark. “I think it’s very clear that the message was,” Koh said of the midterms. “It’s time to shake shit up, and that’s what I intend to do.”
Trending
It’s $174,000: “I literally didn’t even know the salary of a congressman yesterday,” Rep.-elect Zack Mullock (D-New Jersey) said upon arriving in Washington, The Washington Sun’s Avani Kalra reports.
White House: Meet the new MAGA, same as the old MAGA. If you had ventured to your friendly neighborhood prediction market last week and placed big bets on Donald Trump significantly changing things up after voters rejected his ideology, you are broke today. After a weekend of entrenchment, this White House starts the week, if anything, more committed to the style of politics it ran in the midterms.
Quote du jour: “After January, the White House won’t even be able to name a post office,” one MAGA strategist close to the administration told The Sun. (Fact check: True, since Congress names post offices.) Given the new power structure, the strategist said the White House going all scorched Earth is the “only path, really.”
That said, Trump was a little conciliatory in a sit-down with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” acknowledging the Iran war may have hurt Republicans in the midterms: “I think historically this will be a very good decision. Is it a good decision for today and tomorrow? Maybe not.” But, he said, he’d be an “emphatic yes” if he had to start the war all over again to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. The president today meets with the Qatari prime minister, the key mediator between the U.S. and Iran.
The classic stunt press secretary bit: Trump told reporters on the tarmac before heading back to Washington that his Truth Social post naming the UFC’s Dana White as the new White House press secretary was not serious, The Sun’s Jenna Monnin reports. “I was kidding, of course,” Trump said. “When you look at the fighters that I put in, that’s why I said some don’t come from our country. They come from parts unknown.”
Fire with fire: AG Todd Blanche said there “could be” investigations of Democrats conducting oversight in Congress while Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California), the likely incoming House Oversight chair, told CNN, “We have a job to do, and we’re going to do it aggressively.”
On the rise: RFK Jr. May Be Finding a Stronger Foothold in Trump’s Administration
A big test today: Permitting Reform Is Heading Into a Key Vote With an Unsteady Coalition
THE MAP
Alaska: To the courts. Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola’s campaign is suing the state Division of Elections to make public the names of absentee voters whose ballots were rejected in the election in an attempt to determine why specific ballots were denied. It’s unlikely the race will be called soon.
Mississippi: Circus is in town. This uncalled Senate race has drawn the partisans, activists and lawyers required for a good old-fashioned counting battle to the state, Mississippi Today reports.
But the real takeaway from the new national focus on the state may not be all the outsiders parachuting in, but the surge of support for the state’s Democratic Party, The Sun’s Nicole Belcastro and Andrea Padilla report. Long-forgotten or overlooked Democratic parties in what were assumed to be impenetrable red states are hot again, they write.
Tennessee: Outside looking in. The previously unbelievable outcome in Mississippi is exciting for many Democrats, but demoralizing to one subset. The Sun’s Hunter Riggall reports on Black Democrats in the Deep South who say the national party ignored many other chances for Mississippi-like results. “We need earlier investments to build the infrastructure that we need longer term,” said Justin Pearson, the state lawmaker who barely lost a GOP gerrymandered district around Memphis on Tuesday. “The South is the future of the country, and we need to start investing in it like it is.”
Kansas: MAGA-before-it-was-cool Republican state Attorney General Kris Kobach lost his reelection bid to Democratic nominee Chris Mann, AP declared. KCUR reports: “In a rematch of the 2022 election, Mann won by a bit over one percentage point — nearly the same margin by which he lost to Kobach last time.”
FROM 2028
JD Vance: O-H! N-O! With Trump’s kingmaker status questioned, some Ohioans aren’t convinced that their own homegrown vice president could even make it out of the 2028 Republican primary. Vance’s quick ascent to second in command after a short stint as Ohio’s senator does not leave much room for Republicans to separate him from the president — and those in Trump’s orbit aren’t likely to give him an inch, Natalie Fertig writes for The Sun.
“JD Vance is very articulate … he’s very popular in the state of Ohio,” said Ohio 7th District Court of Appeals Judge Mark A. Hanni, a Republican. Hanni likes both Vance and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for 2028. But after Tuesday, he asks, “Is JD Vance going to be tainted with Trump?”
NOT US
- The Democrats’ Fight Over Israel Is Just Beginning, by Gabby Deutch for The Atlantic
- The only town in the U.S. that said yes to data centers, by Miriam Waldvogel for The Washington Post
- What Talarico’s Win Reveals About Christianity in Texas, by Ruth Graham for The New York Times
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The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Gaby Morera Di Núbila.
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