With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine

DRIVING THE DAY

WHAT MARCO RUBIO IS READING — “Trump’s First-Term Errors Could Make or Break His Foreign Policy Agenda,” by Nahal Toosi: “He doesn’t like a steady process, has contradictory priorities and is better at destroying than building.”

HOUSE CALL — “GOP holds onto House majority — clinching the trifecta,” by Jordain Carney, Madison Fernandez and Olivia Beavers … Meanwhile … “Pennsylvania Senate race headed to recount as Casey trails McCormick by less than half a point,” by the Philly Inquirer’s Katie Bernard and Sean Collins Walsh

BARBARIANS AT THE GAETZ — Over the last 24 hours, Rep. MATT GAETZ (R-Fla.) (1) was named President-elect DONALD TRUMP’s pick to lead the Department of Justice, (2) was revealed to be days away from the likely release of a damning Ethics Committee report into allegations of he’d had sex with a minor (which he’s denied), (3) resigned from Congress, effectively snuffing out the Ethics probe, and (4) totally bigfooted Republicans’ plans for a show of unity coming out of yesterday’s Hill leadership elections.

Welcome to Trump’s Washington.

How did we get here? That story is still coming out, but here’s what we know. As of Monday, Gaetz was not on the short list to be Trump’s choice for attorney general. But Trump wasn’t satisfied with those options, our Meridith McGraw tells Playbook.

The view from Trump world: “None of the attorneys had what Trump wants, and they didn’t talk like Gaetz,” a Trump adviser tells The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo. “Everyone else looked at AG as if they were applying for a judicial appointment. They talked about their vaunted legal theories and constitutional bullshit. Gaetz was the only one who said, ‘yeah, I’ll go over there and start cuttin’ fuckin’ heads.’”

The Gaetz-for-AG plan came together yesterday, just hours before it was announced, Meridith tells us. It was hatched aboard Trump’s airplane en route to Washington, on which Gaetz was a passenger. A Trump official revealed more details to Playbook late last night: BORIS EPSHTEYN played a central role in the development, lobbying Trump to choose Gaetz while incoming White House chief of staff SUSIE WILES was in a different, adjacent room on the plane, apparently unaware.

Once Gaetz’s selection was announced, the chatter among top Republicans on Capitol Hill quickly turned to four questions:

1. Was Trump aware of the coming Ethics report on its Gaetz investigation?

The committee was planning to vote Friday on whether to release the report, as Punchbowl first reported. But if “Gaetz is no longer a member of the House, the report likely won’t be formally released,” as Olivia Beavers and Jordain Carney report.

Frankly, it seems implausible to us that this won’t come out — if not on Friday, then during Gaetz’s confirmation hearings (assuming, of course, that Trump doesn’t try to end-run around those with recess appointments to the Cabinet). The House leaks like a sieve, and the Senate Judiciary Committee is definitely going to want to see at least the underlying evidence in the report.

2. Is this for real?

Pretty much every Hill Republican we spoke with thinks there’s something strange going on here. One theory we heard over and over from bewildered Republicans is that perhaps by picking him, Trump is giving Gaetz an out from the Ethics report (which seems possible), and that Gaetz is returning the favor by becoming a sacrificial lamb who will ease the way for Trump’s eventual pick for AG (which seems like a stretch).

A separate theory we heard goes like this: Maybe Gaetz is resigning only from this Congress — so as to stymie the Ethics probe for now — with an intent to be seated for the next Congress come January. We find that very hard to believe, both because it doesn’t sound like it would realistically slow the Ethics report’s release, and because House Speaker MIKE JOHNSON has already spoken to Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS about holding a special election right away — which there would be no need for if Gaetz were planning to be seated in January.

3. Can Gaetz actually get the Senate votes to be confirmed?

It’s certainly possible, but count us as cautiously skeptical. (So is longtime Gaetz foe KEVIN McCARTHY, per Bloomberg.) Republicans will have a three-seat majority (with VP-elect JD VANCE available for any tie-breaking needed), so if four senators bounce, it’s a wrap. And the early reactions haven’t exactly been encouraging for Gaetz:

Sen. SUSAN COLLINS (R-Maine) told reporters she was shocked. “Obviously, the president has the right to nominate whomever he wishes,” she said. “But this is why the Senate’s advise and consent process is so important. I’m sure that there will be many, many questions raised at Mr. Gaetz’s hearing, if in fact the nomination goes forward.”

Sen. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-Alaska): “I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general. … I’m looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.”

Sen. THOM TILLIS (R-N.C.): “I have very few skills, vote counting is one, and I think he’s got a lot of work to get 50.”

Sen. TODD YOUNG (R-Ind.), asked for comment, immediately started praising Secretary of State nominee MARCO RUBIO (R-Fla.) instead.

Sen. BILL CASSIDY (R-La.) dodged our very own Ursula Perano with an excuse we haven’t heard before: “I’m trying to go fix a toilet between getting back for a vote. Life’s a little hectic right now.”

We’re also personally wondering what MITCH McCONNELL is thinking right now. Could delivering a thundering rejection of Trump’s preferred top cop be one of his first acts back in the GOP rank-and-file?

4. Beyond an AG, what is Trump trying to get out of this?

One of the sharpest initial reactions we saw came from NYT columnist Ezra Klein. “Demanding Senate Republicans back Gaetz as attorney general and [PETE] HEGSETH as Defense Secretary is the 2024 version of forcing SEAN SPICER to say it was the largest inauguration crowd ever,” Klein wrote on X. “These aren’t just appointments. They’re loyalty tests.”

In that way, it’s a test for every Republican in the Senate to see how they respond to Trump’s wishes. It’s also a test for incoming Senate Majority Leader JOHN THUNE, who won election yesterday — becoming the conference’s first new leader in a generation, as McConnell steps aside — only to have that news dwarfed by the Gaetz story.

Think of it as Senate Republicans’ version of the Kobayashi Maru — the famous exam in “Star Trek” that presents trainees with a no-win situation. It isn’t meant to be passed; it’s intended to reveal something about the people who take it.

What exactly it reveals about Senate Republicans, we’re about to find out.

Related reads: “Even Republicans are stunned by Trump’s Gaetz Cabinet pick: ‘Absolute gut punch,’” by Natalie Allison, Megan Messerly, Meridith McGraw and Lisa Kashinsky … “‘Reckless pick': Lawmakers express doubts that Gaetz can get confirmed as attorney general,” by Anthony Adragna … “You thought DOJ staffers were in full-blown freakout before …,” by Kyle Cheney, Josh Gerstein, Erica Orden and Betsy Woodruff Swan

Good Thursday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade and Eugene Daniels.

STAT OF THE DAY — “Prime-time viewership at MSNBC has fallen 53 percent from October, and jumped 21 percent on Fox News,” reports NYT’s John Koblin

FOLLOW THE LEADER — Yesterday was Election Day for Republicans on Capitol Hill.

On the Senate side, Thune defeated JOHN CORNYN (R-Texas) on the second ballot and RICK SCOTT (R-Fla.) on the first ballot, marking the first time since 2007 that Senate Republicans will be led by someone other than Mitch McConnell. Replacing Thune as whip will be JOHN BARRASSO (R-Wyo.); TOM COTTON (R-Ark.) will be the new chair of the Senate Republican Conference. More from Ursula Perano

On the House side, MIKE JOHNSON clinched the GOP nomination for another term as Speaker of the House. But he’s not popping those champagne bottles just yet: the real test will come in January, when he’ll face a formal vote on the House floor — and conservative hardliners have signaled they’re not going to make it easy for him. More from Jordain Carney and Olivia Beavers

‘NEVER TRUMPERS’ LICK WOUNDS — A prominent group of “never Trump” conservatives, including GEORGE CONWAY, MICHAEL LUTTIG and BARBARA COMSTOCK, gathered in Georgetown last night to lament the election results and warn about the dangers of Trump’s early personnel moves, our Josh Gerstein reports. Mention of Trump’s selection of Gaetz to be AG triggered audible gasps and snickering from the crowd. Trump is naming a Cabinet of “Putinists and pedophiles,” Comstock said to laughter and groans.

Trump White House counsel DON McGAHN spoke, although he emphasized to POLITICO in advance that he wasn’t throwing in with the anti-Trump crowd. McGahn said Trump can legitimately claim a mandate to force an overhaul of the Justice Department. “He was very loud and proud, notorious, open and very clear that he thought the Department of Justice and the FBI needed significant change and reform. There is a lot of that baked into the cake given his victory that was pretty strong and pretty decisive,” McGahn said.

McGahn stopped short of endorsing Trump’s calls for criminal prosecution of his political enemies and argued that judges would stop any such retribution. But former Obama White House counsel BOB BAUER warned that even investigations could be ruinous. “We all know that the very process of investigation could be the end goal of any kind of political initiative in the Department of Justice,” Bauer said. “We just don’t want to have a country in which that sort of thing happens.”

WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY

On the Hill

The Senate will meet at 10 a.m. to take up a judicial nomination and vote on DAVID HUITEMA’s nomination to be director of the Office of Government Ethics.

The House will meet at 10 a.m., with first and last votes expected at 1:45 p.m.

3 things to watch …

Amid all the leadership election developments yesterday, House Republicans clinched a deal that could make the tight majority somewhat easier to manage: Conservative hard-liners agreed to raise the threshold for the infamous “motion to vacate” — i.e., ousting a sitting speaker — from one vote to nine. They agreed, Olivia Beavers and Meredith Lee Hill report, after moderate members agreed to drop rule-change proposals that would punish House Republicans who break with leadership on key votes.

While Thune ascension grabbed the headlines, other contested races were settled downballot yesterday. In the House, Rep. LISA McCLAIN (R-Mich.) emerged as the new GOP conference chair, while Rep. KEVIN HERN (R-Okla.) unseated Rep. GARY PALMER (R-Ala.) as policy chair and Rep. ERIN HOUCHIN (R-Ind.) took the conference secretary post. And in the Senate, Cotton’s 35-18 victory over Sen. JONI ERNST (R-Iowa) for GOP conference chair means the Top 3 Senate GOP leadership positions will continue to be all-male, as they have been since Maine Sen. MARGARET CHASE SMITH’s 1973 retirement.

Will new legislation regulating artificial intelligence pass in the lame duck? Watch the NDAA, because if anything is going to move, it will be attached to the annual defense policy bill. Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER did not name AI on a short list of end-of-session priorities he cited to reporters yesterday, as Mohar Chatterjee reported for Inside Congress. But Schumer said he’s still talking to Speaker MIKE JOHNSON, and a spokesperson for Johnson said the speaker supports attaching a package of China- and AI-related legislation to the Pentagon bill.

At the White House

Biden will travel to Lima, Peru, for the APEC summit. More on the trip from AP’s Isabel Debre and David Biller

Harris will receive briefings and conduct internal meetings with White House staff.

PLAYBOOK READS

TRANSITION LENSES

WHAT THE HEGSETH — In light of PETE HEGSETH’s nomination as Defense secretary, our colleague Jack Detsch spoke with six current and former Pentagon officials yesterday to get a download on how the pick was landing. “They, like many other officials in Washington, were not only surprised by the move but also skeptical that Hegseth would be able to run such a complex bureaucracy.”

One DOD official called it a “deadly serious job” and said Hegseth “strikes me as a mainly performative person who is best known for talking about wokeness and not doing anything meaningful on national security post serving in the military.”

Quite the quote: “Would you trust him to run Walmart?” said a former DOD official. “Because that’s how many employees we have.”

Meanwhile, the transition team is said to be “drawing up a list of military officers to be fired,” which could include Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair C.Q. BROWN, whom Hegseth has openly questioned “whether he would have gotten the job if he were not Black,” Reuters’ Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali report. The list of officers to jettison largely include those with ties to Trump’s former Joint Chiefs Chair MARK MILLEY.

Related read: “From women in combat to Trump’s border wall, here are the policies Pete Hegseth has spoken out on,” by Andrew Howard and Brittany Gibson

Not just at DOD: “‘Left turn and off the bridge’: Trump’s spy pick stuns intel world,” by John Sakellariadis: “The president-elect’s announcement of [TULSI GABBARD’s] nomination as Director of National Intelligence stunned members of Congress, along with current and former members of the intelligence community.”

More top reads:

ELISE STEFANIK, Trump’s pick to serve as U.S. ambassador to the U.N., is “refusing to stand by her previous push for Ukraine’s NATO membership — a stance she once framed as critical to regional stability,” CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski reports. “Her office also declined to say whether she still believes Russia committed genocide in Ukraine, as she said in 2022.”

Aides to Trump are “readying unconventional strategies to implement at least some recommendations from a new government spending commission with or without congressional approval,” WaPo’s Jeff Stein, Elizabeth Dwoskin, Cat Zakrzewski and Jacob Bogage report. Specifically, the Trump hands are looking at ways to “impound” congressionally appropriated funds, sidestepping the 1974 law requiring presidents to spend them as directed.

There’s been lots of chatter across the pond about who gets the duty of dealing with Trump as the British ambassador to Washington. But what about the person Trump will send in the other direction? Our colleague Emilio Casalicchio hears the two top names in the frame right now are New York Jets boss WOODY JOHNSON, who wants to return to London for a second Trump-era stint, and former WWE-turned-Small Business Administrator LINDA McMAHON.

SERGIO GOR, a close ally of DONALD TRUMP JR., “has been offered the low-profile, influential job leading the Presidential Personnel Office,” Semafor’s Shelby Talcott reports. Gor reportedly beat out BLAKE MASTERS for the role, which will see him help vet new appointees.

Trump told the NY Post that he and Biden had a “really good meeting” at the White House yesterday, adding that the two discussed the transition process, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East. “I wanted to know his views on where we are and what he thinks. And he gave them to me, he was very gracious,” Trump said.

AMERICA AND THE WORLD

HOW IT’S PLAYING — At the U.N. gathering in Baku, Azerbaijan, this week, prime ministers lined up at the podium to deliver dire speeches about the urgency of dealing with climate change.

But back in Washington, Trump is moving at lightning speed to assemble a Cabinet that could throw all of those warnings to the wind, delivering on his promises to dismember the climate legacy of Biden and erect an alternative vision for government, Karl Mathiesen, Zack Colman, Sara Schonhardt and Zia Weise write.

More top reads:

A top envoy of Israeli PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU made a stop in Mar-a-Lago this week, where he told Trump and JARED KUSHNER that Israel is “rushing to advance a cease-fire deal in Lebanon,” WaPo’s Shira Rubin, Suzan Haidamous and John Hudson report, “with the aim of delivering an early foreign policy win to the president-elect.”

With Trump pushing for truce talks between Ukraine and Russia, top officials in Kyiv said that “defending Ukraine’s interests in potential talks would hinge not on territorial boundaries, which are likely to be determined by the fighting, but on what assurances are in place to make a cease-fire hold,” NYT’s Andrew Kramer reports.

Federal investigators confirmed yesterday that hackers affiliated with China broke inside telecommunications providers and stole data relating to lawful wiretaps, signaling a major counterintelligence failure, John Sakellariadis and Maggie Miller report.

ALL POLITICS

RECRIMINATION STATION — As Democrats sort out the reasons why they fell so short on Election Day, there is a feeling that the party “failed, some Democrats and young progressives said, to confront the cultural issues motivating Gen Z men, and to offer a coherent message on pocketbook issues that would appeal to them,” NYT’s Benjamin Oreskes and Kellen Browning report. In other words, Democrats are in search of a “bro whisperer” after the Trump campaign so successfully connected with and turned out young men to vote for him and help send him back to the White House.

Speaking of … JENNIFER PALMIERI said yesterday that the Harris campaign’s decision to not sit for an interview on JOE ROGAN’s popular podcast was due to “concerns at how the interview would be perceived within the Democratic party,” FT’s Joshua Franklin and Anna Nicolaou report. “There was a backlash with some of our progressive staff that didn’t want her to be on it,” Palmieri said. (She later backtracked, saying it was actually a scheduling issue.)

CONGRESS

DOWN THE HATCH — Rep. MICHAEL McCAUL (R-Texas) was “detained by police at Dulles International Airport earlier this month in an incident that he described as ‘the result of a poor decision’ to mix Ambien and alcohol,” Semafor’s Kadia Goba reports.

UHH, WHOOPS — Jurors in former Sen. BOB MENENDEZ’s (D-N.J.) corruption trial had access to evidence they should not have seen, federal prosecutors disclosed yesterday in a surprise legal filing, Ry Rivard reports.

THE WHITE HOUSE

HE SAID, XI SAID — “Biden to meet for a final time with Xi this week as a new Trump era of China relations begins,” by CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Sam Fossum and Samantha Waldenberg: “The meeting, set for Saturday on the sidelines of a summit of Pacific leaders in Peru, serves as a bookend to the president’s high stakes attempts to position the US against an increasingly assertive Beijing. It will be the third sit-down between the two leaders since Biden took office.”

POLICY CORNER

ANTITRUST THE PROCESS — “FTC antitrust case against Meta can move to trial, court rules,” by WaPo’s Cristiano Lima-Strong

EYES EMOJI — “FBI Seizes Polymarket Founder’s Phone in Raid of Home,” by WSJ’s Alexander Osipovich

PLAYBOOKERS

Chris LaCivita is reconnecting with nature … or something like that.

Nikki Haley said Donald Trump was “shallow” for publicly saying he wouldn’t invite her back to his administration.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vax nonprofit took a big hit last year.

Eric Adams is a fan of Elon Musk joining the Trump administration.

SPOTTED: DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at Bourbon Steak yesterday. … Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) having dinner with Peter Baker, Wolf Blitzer, Sally Quinn, Phil Rucker, Susan Glasser, Jim Acosta and Margaret Carlson at a private gathering last night.

OUT AND ABOUT — In celebration of Recycling Week and the Congressional Recycling Caucus, the Plastics Industry Association presented the 2024 Congressional Recycling Champion Award to Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a retiring co-chair of the Congressional Recycling Caucus, at a ceremony held in Dirksen. SPOTTED: Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), Matt Seaholm and Robin Wiener. Pics

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Rep.-elect Tony Wied (R-Wis.) has added Tyler Houlton as chief of staff, Abby Natoli as director of operations and Aidan Strongreen as comms director. Houlton is a Trump DHS alum, Natoli was previously D.C. scheduler for Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), and Strongreen was Wied’s campaign manager.

— Roddy Flynn will be chief of staff for Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.). He currently is executive director of the Delaware Broadband Office and is a Biden-Harris Commerce Department, Mary Gay Scanlon and LGBTQ Equality Caucus and Equality PAC alum.

TRANSITIONS — Michelle Peters Wellington is now VP of comms at Vistagen. She previously was EVP at SKDK. … Edith Jorge-Tuñón will take over as president of the Republican State Leadership Committee when current president Dee Duncan steps down at the end of the year. Jorge-Tuñón is currently deputy executive director.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Reps. Greg Pence (R-Ind.) and Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) … Condoleezza Rice (7-0) … Valerie Jarrett … Ben Rhodes … Tony Powell … New Hampshire Democratic Chair Ray Buckley … Jacob Freedman … Peter Lattman … Liz Morrison of No Labels … Sarah Binder … John Jameson … Joshua Friedlander … WaPo’s Paige Cunningham … Rachel Noerdlinger … Randolph Court of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation … Ed Reno ... Ashley Yehl Flanagan … Brianna Manzelli … Jonathan Landman … Bella Grabowski … Courtney Alexander … Ryan Duffin of House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik’s (R-N.Y.) office … Dusty Vaughan … POLITICO’s Lauren Lanza … Jeff Danziger … Madeleine Weast … King Charles III

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