Minding the Moderates

Joe Manchin’s rule of influence in the Senate goes like this: “The tighter the margins, the more involvement you have.”

Manchin knows of which he speaks: He repeatedly leveraged Democrats’ 51-vote majority to become the bane of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s existence. But Republicans’ incoming 53-vote majority won’t be a tight enough margin for Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski’s votes to matter as much as Manchin’s did, or even matter at all.

Collins and Murkowski, the two most moderate Senate Republicans, are keenly aware of that reality. They’re also well aware that they’re not anywhere close to Donald Trump’s good side. (The president-elect has called Collins “atrocious” and Murkowski an even more cutting “very bad.”)

Without the leverage of a scale-tipping vote or the goodwill of a Trump administration, Collins and Murkowski will have to get creative to wield power as two of the Senate’s last true moderates. Both senators understand the stakes, but insist that they’re still well-positioned to remain major power brokers.

“In order to beat back the filibuster from Democrats, to enact your Republican agenda, you’re gonna have to have all your votes, right?” Murkowski told NOTUS. “You have to have your Republicans.”

“That gives people like me — even though I might not have supported Trump in the election — it gives me an opportunity to say, ‘Well, have you thought about this as a consideration?’” she continued. “It means that they’ve got to count their votes right if you’re going to try to avoid being blocked by the Democrats.”

Plus, if Collins and Murkowski were to join forces with just two other senators to, say, block a controversial cabinet nominee, Trump might have a problem on his hands.

Sen. Thom Tillis, the next most likely senator to buck Trump, told NOTUS not to count Collins and Murkowski out just yet: “Frankly, I think any four members can play a pivotal role.”

Read the story here.

Trump Faces a Gaetz Crash

Trump’s attempts to get Republican senators on board with Matt Gaetz’s attorney general nomination is “receiving an overwhelmingly negative reaction,” NOTUS’ Reese Gorman reports.

Trump and his surrogates have been putting in calls to senators to shore up support for Gaetz. Instead, as one source familiar with the calls told Reese, multiple senators have now told Trump they won’t vote to confirm Gaetz.

As one source put it: “Matt Gaetz is toxic among House Republicans. Among Senate Republicans, he is radioactive.”

A Trump transition spokesperson called the story “fake news” and said it would “age poorly when Matt Gaetz is sworn in as the Attorney General.”

Meanwhile, the House is keeping the fires burning for Trump. Reese and NOTUS’ Mark Alfred report on the Republican consensus take on the Ethics Committee report: that it should be buried and never see the light of day.

“It’s obvious I got a personal beef with the cat, right? But this is not ‘show friends,’ it’s ‘show business,’” Rep. Derrick Van Orden said.

Read the Senate story here. | Read the House story here.

Front Page

• Steven Horsford Privately Weighed Another Bid for CBC Chair: The group would have had to change their bylaws to allow Horsford another term.
• Could Lara Trump Replace Marco Rubio in the Senate?: Some Republicans are thrilled the RNC co-chair — who is Trump’s daughter-in-law — has been floated as a potential replacement if Rubio is confirmed as secretary of state.
• Republicans Are Leaning Toward a Shutdown Fight in Trump’s First 100 Days: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has changed his tune on government funding in recent days.
• Republicans in Virginia Are Confident They Can Break a Decade-Long Political Curse: After Trump made gains in the state, Republicans are hoping to build on the momentum.

McBride Guides Democrats Through an Anti-Trans Thicket

After Rep. Nancy Mace made it explicit that she wants incoming House GOP leaders to ban Rep.-elect Sarah McBride from women’s restrooms in the Capitol, Democrats asked McBride how they should respond. As the first openly trans person elected to Congress, McBride told fellow Dems the rhetoric coming from Republicans was a “distraction,” NOTUS’ Oriana González reports.

“She doesn’t want to be seen as a victim,” one member told Oriana of McBride’s guidance behind the scenes. “She wants us to focus on the work we’re going to do and she nobly is saying, ‘Yes, dismiss it, but also … we got work we need to do, don’t forget that.’”

Read the story here.

One Last Time: Dems Can’t Message on Biden

Newly elected Democratic senators from swing states joined Chuck Schumer to speak with reporters Tuesday about what they learned from the election and what they plan to do in the future. The assembled Democrats made it clear that they don’t blame Joe Biden for losing the majority. At least, they don’t explicitly blame him.

“I’m not going to say anything bad about Joe Biden,” Schumer told the assembled press. Minutes later, the swing-state winners were asked why they prevailed when Kamala Harris didn’t. It was awkward.

“What I saw on the ground, the Harris campaign did a great race,” Ruben Gallego said. “The problem was that people did not have enough time to know her.”

That answer begs the question, of course, of who was responsible for Harris having only about 100 days to introduce herself to voters.

—Alex Roarty

Not Us

We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.

• How Wisconsin Lost Control of the Strange Disease Killing Its Deer by Jimmy Tobias for The Nation
• The Osprey’s safety issues spiked over five years and caused deaths. Pilots still want to fly it by Tara Copp, Kevin Vineys and Aaron M. Kessler for the Associated Press
• Charlie Palmer Steak is Closing in DC by Jessica Sidman for Washingtonian
• Populist Nebraska Senate candidate launches PAC to elect working-class candidates by Holly Otterbein for Politico

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