Kari Lake is a leading contender for the nomination as Donald Trump’s ambassador to Mexico, Semafor reports.

“More than 75 Nobel Prize winners have signed a letter urging senators not to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services,” the New York Times reports.

“The letter marks the first time in recent memory that Nobel laureates have banded together against a Cabinet choice.”

“Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Donald Trump, on Monday sought to walk back the president-elect’s recent statement that he believes the members of the House’s Jan. 6 committee who investigated him should be jailed,” Politico reports.

Said Miller: “What President Trump said, if you listen to the entire ‘Meet the Press’ interview, is he wants everyone who he puts into key positions of leadership … to apply the law equally to everybody… As far as the politics aspect, if you listen to the entire interview with President Trump, he said he’s going to leave that up to the law enforcement agents in charge, including Pam Bondi and Kash Patel.”

Jonathan Chait: “A very strange disjuncture has opened up in Washington between the serene mood and the alarming developments that are under way. The surface is calm because the Republican presidential candidate won the election, and Democrats, the only one of the two major parties committed on principle to upholding the legitimacy of election results, conceded defeat and are cooperating in the peaceful transition of power. Whatever energy the chastened Democrats can muster at the moment is aimed inward, at factional struggles over their future direction.”

“Meanwhile, what is actually happening in the capital is, by any rational standard, disturbing. Donald Trump is filling his administration with ‘loyalists,’ a prerogative his opponents have grudgingly accepted as his due. Yet he is defining loyalist in maximal terms, including the belief that Trump legitimately won the 2020 election and was justified in his attempt to seize power. The winners are rewriting the history of the insurrection, and their version of history is about to acquire the force of law.”

The Guardian: “As Donald Trump gathered his supporters, family and friends at Mar-a-Lago on U.S. election day last month to wait for the results to trickle in, a small group of far-right Germans went largely unnoticed.”

“Among them was the purported semi-professional, one-time porn actor, self-confessed former cocaine user, convicted thief and hard-right candidate for the German parliament Phillipp-Anders Rau. Together with a compact delegation of young political activists and influencers, Rau posed for the cameras with the American president-elect at his invitation, chanting ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ in English and German.”

Wall Street Journal: “Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, Trump’s pick for surgeon general, sells her own line of vitamins. Kash Patel, Trump’s choice to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, recommended pills on Truth Social in February that he said could ‘rid your body of the harms’ from Covid-19 vaccines.”

“Mehmet Oz, the TV personality whom Trump named to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, promotes supplements sold by online retailer iHerb. He has advertised multivitamins, supplements for “brain power” and fish-oil pills that he said “probably slowed” the progression of his mother’s Alzheimer’s disease.”

“Doctors and public-health experts said close ties between Trump’s nominees and supplement makers could give more leeway to an industry that is lightly regulated and sells products that are largely unproven.”

“Pete Hegseth’s attorney has threatened legal action against a woman who accused President-elect Donald Trump’s selection for defense secretary of sexual assault — if she repeats what he calls ‘false’ claims and his client ultimately fails to get confirmed,” ABC News reports.

Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, will begin her meetings with senators today, just as she faces renewed scrutiny for expressing sympathy for ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in the past, Politico reports.

“As President-elect Donald Trump’s transition teams move into federal agencies, thousands of civil servants — and some of the Biden appointees they work for — are scrambling to insulate themselves from the new administration’s promised purge,” the Washington Post reports.

“Federal employees are scrubbing their Facebook and X accounts for any negative posts about Trump. Some, including at least one prominent official who testified in Trump’s first impeachment inquiry, are weighing putting in retirement papers, while others maneuver to transfer to seemingly safer agencies. D.C. recruiting firms are seeing booming business from those looking for private-sector work.”

Donald Trump is hawking perfume and cologne now.

“Republicans from Capitol Hill to the White House are battling internally over the basic tenets of Donald Trump’s first 100-day agenda — including which priorities should come first — in a preview of the landmines looming over the GOP’s ambitious agenda despite controlling all of Washington,” CNN reports.

President-elect Donald Trump named Alina Habba, one of his personal attorneys and fiercest media surrogates, as counselor to the president on Sunday, The Hill reports.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) posted on X that she wants to give Pete Hegseth a “fair hearing” to be Defense Secretary.

Playbook: “That may sound unremarkable, but it’s a reminder of something that is: No Republican — not even Ernst — is yet willing to publicly and explicitly oppose his nomination.”

“Now, a new pressure campaign aims to keep it that way.”

Donald Trump said that everyone who served on the congressional committee that investigated Jan. 6 should go to prison, the New York Times reports.

But he then says “no,” when pressed on whether he would direct his attorney general to send them to jail.

Jonathan Swan: “Trump is sending clear public signals to his nominees that he wants retribution, although he is then saying he will not direct them to act. But by saying that Jack Smith is ‘corrupt’ and that members of the Jan. 6 committee belong in prison, Trump is making no secret of what he wants his Justice Department to do.”

Associated Press: “Having won the election and sweeping to power, Republicans are planning an ambitious 100-day agenda with President-elect Donald Trump in the White House and GOP lawmakers in a congressional majority to accomplish their policy goals.”

“Atop the list is the plan to renew some $4 trillion in expiring GOP tax cuts, a signature domestic achievement of Trump’s first term and an issue that may define his return to the White House.”

“President-elect Donald Trump vowed to make immediate and sweeping changes after he takes office on Jan. 20, such as pardons for those convicted in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and said he wants to find a legislative solution to keep Dreamers in the country legally,” NBC News reports.

“Trump also said he’ll work to extend the tax cuts passed in his first term. He said he will not seek to impose restrictions on abortion pills. He plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and try to end birthright citizenship. And he said the pardons for Jan. 6 rioters will happen on day one, arguing many have endured overly harsh treatment in prison.”