“Brace yourself for the most progressive — and aggressive — Senate Banking Committee chair in decades,” Politico reports.
“Elizabeth Warren, the longtime Wall Street antagonist poised to take over the Banking panel next year, is preparing a sweeping policy and oversight agenda that will put her in a key position to influence the Democratic Party’s debate over economic populism ahead of 2028.”
“President Donald Trump said after Tuesday’s midterm drubbing he wants to ‘work with’ Democrats. Now Hakeem Jeffries has to decide if his party will play ball,” Politico reports.
“As he prepares to lead a massive House Democratic majority, perhaps the presumptive speaker’s toughest call will be how to handle Trump. After years of dismissing and denigrating the president, Jeffries has to weigh varying opinions inside his caucus: Some, including incoming red-district freshmen, want to attempt collaboration, while plenty of others want total war.”
“Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s most recent calendar, released Friday, shows no record of a conversation with President Donald Trump, even while Trump has said he spoke with Warsh about how to vote at a meeting in September,” the Washington Post reports.
“It’s the fifth calendar since Warsh took office in May to list no meeting or call with the president, though several Senate Democrats asked him this summer to add any such contacts to his publicly released calendars.”
“Lawmakers return to Washington on Monday for the first time since Democrats reclaimed the House and the Senate in the midterm elections, setting up a legislative sprint before the transfer of power on Jan. 3,” the Washington Post reports.
“Some Republicans are pushing to do as much as they can before they lose control.”
“Congress is scheduled to be in session for five more weeks before the end of the year — but some Republicans in both chambers are urging their colleagues to work weekends and holidays to confirm as many of President Donald Trump’s nominees and pass as much legislation as they can in the lame-duck session.”
“And we know the truth. Donald Trump led an insurrection. His goal was to remain in power after the American people had voted him out of office. That’s the truth. It was a violent assault. The rioters weren’t ‘peaceful protesters.’ They came armed to stop the official certification of a legitimate election. The criminals who attacked law-enforcement officers that day didn’t deserve pardons. They deserved prison terms. To this day, Trump and his supporters continue to preen and posture like they’re supporters of law enforcement. Here’s my view: You don’t get to turn a blind eye to cops being punched, speared, sprayed, and brutalized and call yourself a friend of law enforcement. What Trump did on January 6, 2021, should never be forgotten. It should follow him to his grave.”
— Former President Joe Biden, in an excerpt of his new memoir in The Atlantic.
“Democrats intend to find a more prominent location to display a memorial plaque honoring the law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — which Republicans currently have relegated to the basement of the building,” Politico reports.
“Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, confirmed to Politico he plans to facilitate the move when his party retakes the majority in January. And while he is still working out the logistics, the relocation would send a strong message about how Congress remembers a widely traumatic event that remains politically divisive.”
Punchbowl News: “What was supposed to be a hectic lame-duck session is now a power struggle between ascendant Democrats and President Donald Trump. The odds of a government shutdown have increased dramatically since Democrats’ big win on Tuesday – fueled in part by the public’s opposition to the Iran war – with a Dec. 11 funding deadline looming.”
“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer meet privately this week. One of the challenges they face is whether to provoke a shutdown over Iran. Especially Schumer.”
“Despite helping deliver a massive Election Day, Schumer is facing calls from some progressives for his ouster. It won’t happen, but it raises the stakes for him in the funding fight.”
“Dozens of Democratic House freshmen descended on the Hill this week for new member orientation as their party starts debating how exactly it’ll flex its newfound power,” Politico reports.
“More than 100 incoming members and prospects — overwhelmingly Democrats, but also new Republicans — flooded the halls of Capitol Hill yesterday, with vibes landing somewhere between excitement and newbie nervousness.”
“President Trump’s Republicans just found out the hard way what other political parties are seeing across western democracies: Voters are fed up, they have lost trust in political parties and they don’t have much patience when they feel politicians aren’t listening,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The massive shift in the midterm elections is a sign of a new political era taking hold from Paris, Texas, to Paris, France. Voters are becoming less attached to the parties their parents voted for and are more likely to try out new parties or new political pitches, on the left and right.”
“And while they are willing to give insurgent parties or populist figures like Trump a shot, they will also lose patience quickly if they don’t deliver.”
“For decades, the safest consensus position for a politician of either party looking to keep their job in Washington has been to support continued U.S. aid to Israel. After this week, it looks increasingly clear a new political reality is emerging: that the relationship between the two countries needs to fundamentally change,” the Washington Post reports.
“Elon Musk’s sprawling empire — from rockets to robots, electric cars to AI — is facing a political onslaught with few parallels in modern corporate history,” Axios reports.
“The world’s richest man confronts a constellation of risks spanning the halls of Congress, his Texas industrial empire, Wall Street and his vision for AI supremacy.”
“To Democrats, Musk embodies corrosive forces of the MAGA era — extreme wealth, billionaire influence over government, the gutting of federal institutions, the poisoning of social media and the unchecked power of AI.”
“President Donald Trump pushed back Sunday on Vice President JD Vance’s social media post blaming the Iran war for Republicans’ midterm losses, saying Vance left out whether he would make the same decision again. Trump said he would,” Politico reports.
Said Trump: “He was right, other than one thing. He should have made one other statement. ‘If you had it to do again, would you do it again?’ The answer is yes.”
Wall Street Journal: “Trump acknowledged that his hard-line immigration policies may have hurt Republicans in Tuesday’s midterm elections—and he expressed openness to reaching a compromise on the issue with newly empowered Democrats.”
Said Trump: “For getting people out, I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out.”
But he added: “When you go into a hotel and you have a woman that’s worked there as—you know, as a maid, as a cleaner, as a this, as a that, as a waitress, a lotta good things, great job—and all of a sudden, they’re being taken outta the country, it’s tough.”
“The president suggested that immigration was an area where he could work with Democrats, saying that such a deal would be ‘something that’s actually doable.’”
“President Trump defended Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Sunday night, even as the company’s board launched an investigation into his affair with a suspected Chinese spy,” Axios reports.
“The blowback to Huang’s relationship is only getting more intense by the hour, with multiple members of Congress calling for probes and investors saying the news could put a cloud over the entire AI trade.”
“It was the tale of two election nights for prediction markets,” Politico reports.
“Kalshi and Polymarket, the two dominant platforms, foretold Democrats’ sweeping victories in the midterms — and well before much of the pundit class — affirming to supporters their value as forecasting tools. But the Democratic wave could also mark the beginning of an uncomfortable new era of scrutiny for the companies in Washington.”
“President Donald Trump’s regulators have embraced the prediction markets over the last two years, clearing the way for them to quickly expand their businesses with a frenzy of new wagers on politics, sports and stocks. Now, Democrats are gearing up for an aggressive oversight regime that is expected to put the upstart industry under intense pressure from Capitol Hill.”
New York Times: “Just as Mr. Trump cited a jumble of objectives as the war began — collapsing the Iranian government, dismantling the remnants of its nuclear program, restricting the country’s missile arsenal and ending Iranian help to proxies in the region — he is struggling to articulate how much more the United States should expend in the deeply unpopular conflict.”
“Ahead of what would become a public feud on social media this weekend, James Blair, President Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, sent Calley Means, a former top health adviser, a warning,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Said Blair: “If you are gonna try to knife me, I’m happy to return the favor.”
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is positioning himself for a presidential run. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is running away from the idea of his own campaign for the White House,” Axios reports.
“The political posturing of the two Florida Republicans — or the efforts to draft either for 2028 — underscores the sudden volatility of the way-too-early GOP preprimary campaign to succeed President Trump.”
“Before Tuesday’s midterm Republican wipeout, the party’s 2028 primary looked like a relatively easy coronation for Vice President Vance (if he runs, as expected). Now there’s a nascent movement to kneecap Vance and promote other possible opponents.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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