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In today’s issue:
- Johnson fights for his gavel
- FBI: New Orleans, Las Vegas deaths not linked
- Details behind Chinese Treasury Department hack
- New Syrian government begins diplomatic visits
Today is Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) moment of truth.
On the first day of the 119th Congress, will his fellow House Republicans let him keep the Speaker’s gavel? Or will Johnson’s quest to remain in charge of a fractious conference look more like that of his predecessor, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who endured a 15-ballot odyssey to win the post?
Late Thursday, Johnson, who has received President-elect Trump’s crucial endorsement, was still scrambling for votes. In the 119th Congress’s razor-tight GOP majority, he can afford to lose only one Republican vote provided there’s full attendance, and all Democrats vote for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
He’s already lost that one vote: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has repeatedly said he won’t vote for Johnson. And he faces another critical skeptic in Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), who recently called on Johnson to make a series of public commitments on spending issues.
“I think those are your big two right now,” a senior House Republican told The Hill of Massie and Spartz.
Another wildcard: Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas), who said Thursday that he is looking for a “third option” to avoid “the status quo” in the House.
The other holdouts are largely seeking promises on spending cuts and assurances that rank-and-file members will be involved in negotiations for high-stakes legislation moving forward, multiple sources told The Hill’s Emily Brooks and Mychael Schnell, two topics that hard-line Republicans have griped about for months.
One source said each holdout had specific, individual concerns, making it more difficult for Johnson to appease the entire group.
Still, Johnson voiced optimism Thursday.
“People are talking through process changes they want, and those kinds of things,” he said. “And I’m open to that. And I think tomorrow’s going to go well.”
But Johnson is trying to combat the past as a prologue. The Speaker has been clear that he does not want to make side deals with different factions like McCarthy did, sources told The Hill. The former Speaker’s deals notably included a lowering of the threshold for a motion to vacate to just one member. That allowed former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to kickstart a vote that ousted McCarthy in October 2023, ushering in two weeks of chaos that culminated in Johnson’s own election as Speaker.
Johnson’s outlook turned a bit rosier Thursday as he met with members and after strategizing with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. As for the holdouts, one undecided Republican lawmaker predicted the group would ultimately back Johnson, but would not say if that support would come before the first round of voting Friday or after a few failed ballots.
“We’re probably likely to support Johnson, but want to basically get a vision put down on paper and understand that things are gonna change going forward,” the lawmaker said.
There are other unknowns to consider. Johnson’s performance during the Speaker election will speak to his ability to wrangle his conference over the next two years, after the last Congress was marked by Republican infighting and unproductive legislative sessions.
Further, Johnson has Trump’s support now, but a poor showing today at noon could affect his relationship with the president-elect and his legislative priorities.
For an idea of Johnson and new Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s (R-S.D.) to-do list, The Hill’s Al Weaver breaks down everything you need to know about the first day of the new Congress.
▪ The Hill: Whip list: Lawmakers to watch in today’s Speaker vote.
▪ The Hill: Five things to watch during today’s vote.
The Senate’s big job is confirming Trump’s Cabinet picks. As The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports, Trump’s nominees face a slow grind in the Senate despite calls by GOP senators to speed up the confirmation of Trump’s picks in the wake of the attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas. Trump’s choices to head the Department of Homeland Security, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (D), and Justice Department, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, are on faster tracks, but his picks to head the FBI and Defense Department and to serve as director of national intelligence — Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, respectively — are the most controversial of his nominees, and they face protracted fights.
Other hurdles? Paperwork holdups and the slow start of FBI background checks.
“There’s been a challenge in getting completed background checks and getting the Office of Government Ethics 278 form done for nominees, and that’s slowed things down for a number of committees,” a Senate GOP aide said.
President Biden on Thursday awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who got a standing ovation from former colleagues, for their work leading the bipartisan select House committee that probed the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Democratic lawmakers and many Republicans initially condemned that riot as a deadly melee carried out by violent Trump supporters, many of whom said after their arrests and criminal convictions that they believed they were heeding Trump’s call to halt the congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory. Subsequently, Trump denied any wrongdoing, argued that Cheney should be in jail and pledged if elected president to pardon members of the 2021 mob as “patriots.”
Lawmakers and law enforcement officials remain on edge ahead of major upcoming gatherings in Washington amid this week’s FBI investigations into a terror attack in New Orleans that killed 14 people and a violent Las Vegas suicide and explosion in front of a Trump-branded hotel. The two events are said by investigators to be unrelated, but each involved Army veterans and rented trucks. There will be a state funeral Jan. 9 for former President Carter, a political event Jan. 19 at Capital One Arena organized by Trump and the Jan. 20 inauguration at the Capitol.
The Hill: The terror attack in New Orleans put a spotlight on inauguration security.
3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY:
▪ Biden is expected to announce that he decided to block the proposed sale of U.S. Steel to Japanese buyer Nippon Steel, The Washington Post reports.
▪ Nervous small businesses that use short-video marketing are bracing for a potential U.S. TikTok ban beginning Jan. 19.
▪ Mortgage rates rose for a third straight week to the highest level since July, according to Freddie Mac, further hindering demand in the already stagnant housing market. The average rate on a 30-year fixed rate loan was 6.62 percent a year ago and on Thursday was 6.91 percent.
LEADING THE DAY
© The Associated Press | Susan Walsh
Bourbon Street in New Orleans reopened on Thursday afternoon. Thousands of people later flocked to New Orleans’s Superdome to watch the Sugar Bowl after a day of terror-stoked delay. Biden spoke by videotape. Bomb-sniffing dogs worked the gates. Flags flew at half-staff.
And the families of 14 people killed and at least 30 wounded early Wednesday tried to make sense of a 42-year-old Texas Army veteran who officials said drove a rental truck to Louisiana to plow through a Bourbon Street crowd before being shot dead.
The suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who spent more than a decade in the military, acted alone, according to the FBI, which revised its narrative after initially saying the bureau was searching for possible terrorist accomplices.
“We do not assess at this point that anyone else is involved in this attack except for Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the subject you’ve already been briefed on,” said Deputy Assistant Christopher Raia of the FBI Counterterrorism Division.
In Las Vegas Thursday, authorities said they ruled out terrorism or any “definitive link” between the events in New Orleans and a Cybertruck explosion in Nevada on Wednesday. A man inside a rented electric vehicle packed with fireworks, camping fuel and gasoline, which was parked in front of a Trump-branded hotel, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head before the vehicle exploded, authorities said. The deceased suspect in the Las Vegas drama was 37-year-old active-duty Army Green Beret Matthew Livelsberger of Colorado. No one outside the fortified truck was seriously injured and the hotel was unscathed.
In each case, authorities are continuing to search for motivations as fears of political violence rise and the new Congress convenes, the Biden presidency ends, key federal security agencies see personnel turnover, and Washington prepares for an inauguration later this month.
The violence in two major tourist cities sparked public questions about possible military extremism. Political motivations have not been ruled out and remain among many questions about why a former Army specialist and an active-duty Special Forces soldier each drove long distances to their deaths involving trucks rented using the Turo app.
The Hill’s Niall Stanage in The Memo reports how the New Orleans mass killing was pulled into partisan political battles.
WHERE AND WHEN
- The House will meet at 11 a.m. The Senate will meet at 11:45 a.m.
- The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will host an Oval Office ceremony at 12:20 p.m. for the recipients of the Medal of Valor. The president will speak at 5 p.m. in the East Room for a separate Medal of Honor ceremony that will honor seven U.S. Army soldiers who served in the wars in Korea and Vietnam.
- Vice President Harris will swear in members of the Senate at noon.
- The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1:15 p.m.
ZOOM IN
© The Associated Press | Jon Elswick
TREASURY HACK: Hackers affiliated with the Chinese government breached a highly sensitive office in the Treasury Department that administers economic sanctions against countries and groups of individuals, The Washington Post reports. The sanctions are one of the most potent tools possessed by the United States to achieve national security aims, according to U.S. officials. In executing the hack, current and former officials said a top area of interest for the Chinese government would be Chinese entities that the U.S. government may be considering designating for financial sanctions.
The full impact of the breach, which was disclosed by the Treasury in a letter to Congress on Monday, is still being assessed. Republican lawmakers are urging the department to provide answers on the cybersecurity attack, as outlined in a letter obtained by The Hill.
“This breach of federal government information is extremely concerning. As you know, Treasury maintains some of the most highly sensitive information on U.S. persons throughout government, including tax information, business beneficial ownership, and suspicious activity reports,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, and House Financial Services Committee Vice Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Bloomberg News: The hack involved the computers of Treasury Department leaders.
TRUMP TRANSITION: At Treasury, where major tax legislation will be a Republican goal this year, the president-elect said Thursday he will appoint Ken Kies, experienced former Capitol Hill aide and lobbyist, as assistant secretary for tax policy, among other personnel choices for the department, including Manhattan Institute senior fellow Daniel Katz as Treasury chief of staff; Alexandra Preate, as senior counselor; and investment trader Hunter McMaster as director of policy planning.
For diplomatic posts, Trump late Thursday said he will nominate Cuba-born Benjamin Leon Jr., a GOP donor, ally of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and multimillionaire executive who built his fortune in the healthcare industry, to be ambassador to Spain. Trump also named businessman and investor Joe Popolo, also a Republican donor, to be U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands.
NET NEUTRALITY: A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the Federal Communications Commission lacked the authority to restore certain net neutrality rules last year, handing a blow to commission Democrats and the Biden administration, who pushed for revived open internet measures. The ruling, by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, overturned last year’s communications commission vote, which reinstated the net neutrality rules barring broadband providers from blocking or throttling internet traffic to some websites and speeding up access to others that pay extra fees.
ELSEWHERE
© The Associated Press | Leo Correa
In their first visit abroad, Syria’s new foreign and defense ministers met with Saudi Arabian Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman in Riyadh on Thursday. The landmark first foreign visit comes just a month after Syrian rebels, led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Since then, Syria’s new caretaker government has worked to establish international ties and distance itself from HTS’s roots as an affiliate of al Qaeda. The country’s new leader has said he expects elections within the next four years.
Today, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock visited Damascus and toured Syria’s notorious Sednaya prison during a visit aimed at marking a “political new beginning” between the EU and Syria.
▪ The New York Times: The rebels’ path to victory is littered with evidence of Syria’s defeated military. It also reflects the sizable task of trying to put the country back together.
▪ CNN: Syria’s new government is facing backlash after announcing changes to the school curriculum, including introducing what some critics say is an Islamist slant to teaching.
In response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, far-reaching sanctions have been imposed by dozens of countries on Russian banks, businesses and people since 2022. But as Trump prepares to take office, questions about the sanctions’ effectiveness — and future — are expected to come under renewed scrutiny. Trump has said he wants “to use sanctions as little as possible” and has made clear that there will be a shift in American policy toward Ukraine, having promised to end the war in a single day.
The New York Times reports experts believe that sanctions and continued military aid are almost certain to be bargaining chips in any negotiations.
▪ The Hill: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Trump is “capable” of stopping Russian President Vladimir Putin.
▪ NBC News: Ukraine stopped a major natural gas pipeline from supplying Russian energy to Europe on Wednesday in the hopes of hurting its invader financially.
▪ NBC News: Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol defied arrest in standoff with officials over martial law order.
OPINION
■ Congress — yes, even the members you dislike — should get a pay raise, by The Washington Post editorial board.
■ How Trump’s second inaugural address could deliver the biggest shock of all, by Jeremy S. Adams, opinion contributor, The Hill.
THE CLOSER
© The Associated Press | Pablo Martinez Monsivais
And finally … ❄️ Brrr. An Arctic blast is ahead this week, expected to send temperatures plummeting from the northern Rockies through the East Coast.
Originating in Siberia, a bitter cold air mass will likely produce dangerous wind chills across portions of the Southeast and send temperatures below freezing as far south as the Gulf Coast and Florida. The eastern U.S. is expected this weekend to experience a second shot of cold air before a third moves in next week.
It could send wind chill factors and freezing temperatures to levels unseen for several years, particularly in the Midwest and along the Eastern Seaboard. During January’s second week, more than 30 states could record subzero temperatures.
But don’t dust off the skis or assemble a snowman kit just yet. Yes, meteorological confidence about forecasts of frigid temps is high, but predictions of widespread snow accumulation remain less certain.
Check The Washington Post for more weather details.
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