| | | | |  | | By Garrett Ross | | Presented by |  | | | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | | BREAKING — DOJ IG MICHAEL HOROWITZ just released his long-awaited report on the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. The topline, via Kyle Cheney: “NO evidence that there were any undercover FBI employees at the Capitol or nearby protests,” though some FBI informants were present. Read the report
|  Donald Trump said the final stretch of his campaign — "72 Days of Fury," as he calls it — were largely to thank for his reelection. | AP | COVERING HIMSELF IN GLORY — DONALD TRUMP was officially bestowed as Time’s “Person of the Year” this morning, with a glossy mag interview and cover story featuring plenty of details on how he’s approaching his second administration, plus some interesting quotes from VP-elect JD VANCE and incoming chief of staff SUSIE WILES. One to note: “It’s going to start in the first hour,” Trump said of pardoning Jan. 6 Capitol rioters. “Maybe the first nine minutes.” A bite from the story, by Eric Cortellessa: “Trump has a ready explanation for his improbable resurrection. He even has a name for its climactic final act. ‘I called it 72 Days of Fury,’ he says as the interview gets under way. ‘We hit the nerve of the country. The country was angry.’ It wasn’t just the MAGA faithful. Trump harnessed deep national discontent about the economy, immigration, and cultural issues. His grievances resonated with suburban moms and retirees, Latino and Black men, young voters and tech edgelords. “While Democrats estimated that most of the country wanted a President who would uphold the norms of liberal democracy, Trump saw a nation ready to smash them, tapping into a growing sense that the system was rigged. If America was craving change, it is about to see how much Trump can deliver.” Time EIC Sam Jacobs on the pick: “On the cusp of his second presidency, all of us — from his most fanatical supporters to his most fervent critics — are living in the Age of Trump.” HOW TRUMP IS WORKING THE HILL — “Did you hear we have another member? We have 221 members,” Rep. RYAN ZINKE (R-Mont.) recently said. “Trump’s in the House on every issue.” Though he meant it as a joke, it’s an instructive one about how the president-elect is approaching the transition period as Republicans prepare to take control of both chambers on Capitol Hill. Trump’s primary focus is expending enough political capital to ensure that his Cabinet picks make it through the confirmation process so that the admin can start delivering on his campaign pledges ASAP. “He regularly talks to senators about his nominees, ensuring they’re on a path to confirmation next year,” Lisa Kashinsky and Anthony Adragna report. “He’s speaking with incoming Senate Majority Leader JOHN THUNE and Speaker MIKE JOHNSON about his legislative priorities, namely how to quickly pass immigration, energy and tax policies in major party-line bills. “But he’s been silent, at least publicly, about his preferences on the end-of-year spending bill and the Dec. 20 government shutdown deadline, despite calls from Republicans to weigh in.” It’s a notable tack that Trump is taking, given that “Republicans have privately groused that they felt they squandered their majorities in 2017, wasting their previous Washington trifecta on unsuccessful efforts to repeal Obamacare.” And although intra-party divisions are already cropping up over the party’s strategy over taxes and the border, GOP leaders are working to get everyone on the same page ahead of next year. In the meantime, they’re mostly putting Congress on autopilot in the lame duck. More on the waiting game: “Republicans Watch for Trump to Break Impasse on 2025 Plans,” by WSJ’s Richard Rubin Good Thursday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at gross@politico.com. WHAT THE TRUMP TRANSITION IS READING — “A Wish List From CEOs for the Trump Administration,” by WSJ AFTERNOON LISTEN — Alex Burns, POLITICO’s head of news in Washington, sat down with Anne McElvoy and Kate Day, POLITICO’s deputy editor-in-chief in Europe, at Westminster’s INHouse this morning for a special episode of “Power Play” to chew the fat on what to expect from Trump 2.0. Listen and subscribe
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Learn more about open source AI. | | | | | 7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW | | |  Whether the stream of headlines surrounding Pete Hegseth will impact his confirmation remains to be seen. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | 1. THE LATEST DRIP: The controversial headlines surrounding PETE HEGSETH, Trump’s pick to lead the Defense Department, seemed to have subsided for a few days. But CNN’s KFile is up with a fresh look into the nominee’s past beliefs and statements. Hegseth has “repeatedly criticized policies allowing gay people to serve openly in the US military, calling them part of a ‘Marxist’ agenda to prioritize social justice over combat readiness,” CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck report. “In his 2024 book ‘The War on Warriors’ and in subsequent media promotions this year, Hegseth described both the original ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ (DADT) policy and its repeal in 2011 as a ‘gateway’ and a ‘camouflage’ for broader cultural changes that he claims have undermined military cohesion and effectiveness. In a 2015 appearance on Fox News, Hegseth also argued these policies like repealing DADT ‘erode standards’ in favor of political goals like social engineering.” But the stream of headlines may not result in much, given the intense pressure campaign weighing on Republican senators. “Whether Mr. Hegseth is ultimately confirmed or not, the past week is already seen as a resounding success by people close to Mr. Trump. It is their first test run of a blunt-force pressure strategy that will be replicated again and again, whenever a Republican gets in the way of Mr. Trump,” NYT’s Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman write. 2. KNOWING HARMEET DHILLON: Trump’s pick to lead DOJ’s civil rights division, who should be no stranger to Playbook readers, built a national profile as the ultimate San Francisco contrarian and “has for years played a central role in culture-war legal battles over diversity, free speech and Covid closures in California and nationally,” Dustin Gardiner writes from San Francisco. “She’s also been a fierce Trump loyalist from the start. Her ideology and track record of taking on splashy conservative causes in the Golden State likely signal a fundamental shift in the DOJ’s approach to civil rights, upending conventional ideas about whose rights the division is focused on protecting.”
| | | | Billions in spending. Critical foreign aid. Immigration reform. The final weeks of 2024 could bring major policy changes. Inside Congress provides daily insights into how Congressional leaders are navigating these high-stakes issues. Subscribe today. | | | | | 3. DEPARTURE PATTERN: FAA Administrator MIKE WHITAKER announced today that he will resign instead of serving as the head of the agency in the second Trump administration, offering Trump the chance to determine who will take the job next, Oriana Pawlyk writes. “Whitaker took over the five-year position in October 2023 at a troubled moment for the agency as it grappled with a rash of aviation near-collisions and challenges in replenishing its depleted air traffic controller workforce — all before a door panel flew off a Boeing 737 MAX midair rattling the flying public.” 4. SHOCKING STORY OUT OF SYRIA: TRAVIS TIMMERMAN, a U.S. citizen, told NBC’s Matt Bradley, Richard Engel and Chantal Da Silva that he “spent months in a Syrian prison after crossing into the country on a ‘pilgrimage’ to Damascus” before being released by rebel forces following the fall of the Assad regime this week. “When one man repeatedly offered to put him in touch with U.S. officials, he replied that he was ‘okay for right now.’ He later told NBC News that he felt his imprisonment was ‘actually good for me,’ describing it as ‘a time of solace, of meditation and I'm stronger for it.’ He said he now planned to go to Jordan before attempting to return to Damascus and would look to get in touch with his family, whom he said he had not spoken with yet.”
| | | | Write your own chapter in the new Washington. From the Lame Duck Congress Series to New Administration insights, POLITICO Pro delivers intelligence across 22+ policy areas to help you anticipate and navigate change. Discover how a Pro subscription empowers you. Learn more today. | | | | | 5. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: “Hamas Concedes on Israeli Troops in Gaza, Raising Hopes for Hostage Deal,” by WSJ’s Summer Said: “The militant group told mediators for the first time that it would agree to a deal that would allow Israeli forces to remain in Gaza temporarily when the fighting stops. Hamas also handed over a list of hostages, including U.S. citizens, whom it would release under a cease-fire pact, something it hasn’t done since the first truce in the conflict last year. The new plan, proposed by Cairo and backed by the U.S., seeks to build on momentum generated by the cease-fire in Lebanon secured in November, which has broadly held despite both Israel and Hezbollah accusing each other of violations.” Related read: In an effort to secure a cease-fire deal before Trump’s inauguration in January, “the director of the Israeli Mossad met with Qatar's prime minister in Doha on Wednesday for talks about a hostage-release and ceasefire in Gaza deal,” Axios’ Barak Ravid reports. 6. WAR IN UKRAINE: Trump has made clear that he wants to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, but the details of what that looks like in the president-elect’s mind are now coming into focus. “At a meeting in Paris on Dec. 7, Trump told Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY and French President EMMANUEL MACRON that he doesn’t support Ukrainian membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but that he wanted to see a strong, well-armed Ukraine emerge from any cessation of fighting,” report WSJ’s Laurence Norman in Berlin, Jane Lytvynenko in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Stacy Meichtry in Warsaw. “Trump said that Europe should play the main role in defending and supporting Ukraine and that he wanted European troops present in Ukraine to monitor a cease-fire, according to the officials. He hasn’t ruled out U.S. support for the arrangement, although no U.S. troops would be involved, the officials said.” 7. UNSPEEDY DELIVERY: “The Postal Service’s electric mail trucks are way behind schedule,” by WaPo’s Jacob Bogage: “The Postal Service is slated to purchase 60,000 ‘Next Generation Delivery Vehicles,’ or NGDVs — mostly electric — from defense contractor Oshkosh, which has a long history of producing military and heavy industrial vehicles, but not postal trucks. Congress provided $3 billion for the nearly $10 billion project in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, one of Biden’s chief legislative accomplishments. But as of November, the Postal Service had received only 93 of the Oshkosh trucks, the agency told The Washington Post — far fewer than the 3,000 originally expected by now.”
| | | | A message from Meta:   | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Lisa Murkowski told No Labels that she doesn’t like labels. Anthony Weiner (who’s 60!) is still thinking about a comeback. Mark McCloskey wants a DOGE appointment. The Library of Congress had some trouble with its Christmas tree topper. OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at The Hill’s “Meet the New Members” event in partnership with NewsNation at the Samsung Executive Briefing Center yesterday: Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) and Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), Reps.-elect Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), Nick Begich (R-Alaska), Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.), Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.) and LaMonica McIver (D-N.J. ), Kellie Meyer, Mychael Schnell, Julia Manchester, Cate Martel, Sarakshi Rai, Zach Schonfeld, Niall Stanage, Rina Shah, Cherie Grzech, Bill Sammon, Mike Viqueira and Blake Burman. — SPOTTED at the annual Feldman Strategies holiday happy hour at Stoney’s last night: Andrew Feldman, Randi Weingarten, Sara Nelson, Steve Clemons, Sean Savett, Rodericka Applewhaite, Josh Marcus-Blank, Jennifer Jacobs, Will Weissert, Kadia Goba, Julia Manchester, Mychael Schnell, Samuel Lau, Geoff Burgan, Andrew Crook, Taylor Garland, Natalia Perez Santos, Olivia Cappello, Hannah Muldavin, Marcus Richards, Alex Floyd, Aida Ross, Lauren Hitt, James Singer, Natalie Gould, Andrew DeStefano, Will Rasky, Skye Perryman, Colin Rogero, Alice Miranda Ollstein, Kirk Bado, Emily Trifone and Emma Thomas. — SPOTTED at the Western Caucus Foundation’s annual holiday reception last night: Reps. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.), GT Thompson (R-Penn.), Mike Bost (R-Ill.), Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.), John Duarte (R-Calif.), Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), Vince Fong (R-Calif.) and David Rouzer (R-N.C.), Del. Amata Radewagen (R-American Samoa), Kate MacGregor, Kevin Eastman and Darrell Henry. — The Hispanic Lobbyists Association hosted a holiday party and farewell to its 2023-24 board of directors at the UPS townhouse on Capitol Hill last night, where the HLA also announced its new board for 2025-26: President Ivelisse Porroa-Garcia, VP Osiris Morel, Treasurer Art Motta, Secretary Erica Romero, comms chief Vanessa Saenz, and at-large members Norberto Salinas, Carlos Becerra, Maria Luisa Boyce, Manny Bonilla, Maria Amalla, Emely Sanchez, Gregorio Rubio, Pedro Montenegro, Corina Scheuren and Carla Pierre Rynerson. SPOTTED: Reps. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), Andrea Salinas (D-Ore.) and Rob Menendez (D-N.J.). TRANSITIONS — Rep. Marc Veasey’s (D-Texas) office announced a slate of hiring moves: Ahmed Elsayed is taking over as chief of staff from Nicole Varner, who is departing in 2025 to become executive director at the Congressional Black Caucus PAC. Elsayed previously was chief of staff for Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.). Edward Do (Walrod) is now comms director for Veasey and previously was with the NGO Health and International Economic Development sector from Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Tobacconomics Project. Luke Dube will be legislative director and deputy chief of staff. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike DeBonis, deputy editor Zack Stanton and Playbook Daily Briefing producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
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