House Republicans are primed for a nasty fight over their internal rules this week.

A review of the 20 amendments submitted to the current rules, first reported by POLITICO, indicate an ongoing clash between conservatives, who are looking to strip more power from leadership, and other members who want to see disruptive GOP lawmakers punished.

The amendments do not include proposed changes to the rules governing how to oust a speaker, known as a motion to vacate, though that doesn’t mean that fight is over. Currently, one member can trigger a vote to boot a speaker, and leadership and many House Republicans want to raise that threshold. Debate over that rule will likely reignite before the full House speakership vote on Jan. 3, when the party is slated to deliberate broader House rules after selecting a speaker.

And though the motion to vacate rules aren’t up for a vote just yet, several proposed amendments are directly related to it. Reps. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) and Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) sought to prevent another speaker ouster and subsequent gavel fight showdown with their amendments.

Huizenga proposed kicking members off committees for at least 90 days if they oppose a speaker on the House floor who received a two-thirds majority nomination vote from the conference. And Van Orden similarly pushed for members to lose their committee assignments if a group of members move to vacate the speaker against the wishes of the majority of their party — as was the case for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster.

Additionally, Huizenga and Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) submitted amendments that would punish lawmakers who block GOP-backed legislation from a floor passage vote, known as voting against the rule. Huizenga’s amendment floated an unspecified “penalty,” while LaLota’s would kick members who opposed rule votes off their committees.

From the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus side, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) sought to clarify the authority of a speaker pro tempore, the person who leads the House temporarily in the event of another speaker vacancy. His amendment, which says the position can only aid in the election of a new speaker, aims to settle discussions over what powers Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) had when he filled the role following the termination of McCarthy’s speakership.

Others like Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Andy Harris (R-Md.), the current chair of the House Freedom Caucus, aimed to curb the power of the GOP steering committee, a leadership-aligned panel that largely decides who will serve as panel chairs and membership.

Harris proposed other amendments aimed at limiting how long Republicans could serve in certain leadership positions. One says a member who is a committee head of one panel cannot immediately become chair or ranking member of another committee if they’ve already hit the term limit of three consecutive terms. Another seeks to limit any members from serving on the Steering Committee for more than three consecutive terms. A third would block members from serving on both a committee and on the Steering panel at the same time, which several have in the past.

Other notable amendment proposals:

Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) is proposing a rule that would create a new GOP leadership position known as the chair of the debt commission.
Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) wants to block Republicans from voting on their GOP leadership lineup before setting their internal rules. (In other words, allowing lawmakers to decide whether they like the rules package before they give their blessing to a speaker nominee.)
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) is trying to create more time for members to speak at the microphones during private GOP conference meetings, putting forward an amendment that would curb how much time GOP leadership spends updating its members. Roy also floated a new rule that would allow members to call for votes in a conference meeting to determine if a bill had the support of the majority of Republicans.
Reps. Cloud and Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) put forward a proposal that would limit the price tag of a bill that can pass under suspension — a procedural tool GOP leadership had used to bypass hard-liners when they opposed spending bills — at $100 million. For Palmer, the exception was if the bill included offsets. 

House Republicans will meet Thursday morning for a forum to discuss rule amendments and will convene again that afternoon to vote on their conference rules.

House conservatives are planning to force an internal vote on Mike Johnson’s speakership during Wednesday’s leadership election instead of throwing in an alternate candidate, two people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO.

Johnson’s critics in the House Freedom Caucus have been deliberating for days over how to push back against proposed internal rules changes and send a message to the Louisiana Republican. Hours earlier, members of the group still expected to likely put forth a formal challenger against Johnson, though they hadn’t publicly announced a name.

But the two people familiar with the discussions, granted anonymity to discuss private planning, said on Tuesday night that the group’s plan is now to force an internal vote. Essentially, that means they would prevent leadership from allowing Johnson to be nominated for speaker by a simple voice vote that would have allowed him to say he was nominated unanimously. Instead, members would go ahead with the secret ballot process, giving them the option to oppose Johnson’s speaker nomination without revealing who they are.

The Freedom Caucus met privately to discuss their plan for hours on Tuesday. The two people familiar added that the group would only formally throw in a challenger if their plan to force a ballot vote is blocked, but they don’t expect it to be.

“It’s counterproductive” to formally name a challenger, one of the people familiar said. They added that the group had three people willing to jump in as formal challengers.

Conservatives’ frustration with Johnson is being fueled by a series of rules proposals, circulated on Tuesday, which included several amendments to the House GOP’s rules that would punish members who broke with the conference on certain procedural and leadership votes.

Johnson told POLITICO Tuesday night that he didn’t support rule changes that would punish members. But that isn’t enough for some of his holdouts, who actively want him to go into a candidate forum tomorrow and tell his members to vote down those rule proposals. Without more forceful action from Johnson, conservatives believe the potential changes could be adopted during a Thursday meeting, when Republicans will set their internal rules.

The other person familiar with the discussions said that if Johnson tells his conference to vote down the proposed rules changes during an internal meeting on Wednesday morning, before the leadership elections, the group may drop their plan to force the secret-ballot vote.

“Stand up and tell the conference this is not going to happen. I’m not going to support this. Vote this down, and then everyone knows,” that person said.

The world’s richest person has a new job.

Elon Musk will lead a newly created “Department of Government Efficiency” that will spearhead efforts to shrink the federal government, President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday.

Musk will work with fellow Trump acolyte Vivek Ramaswamy to run DOGE — a winking reference to a joke cryptocurrency – and conclude their work by July 4, 2026, Trump said in a written statement announcing an effort that had been previewed during his campaign.

“They will work together to liberate our Economy, and make the U.S. Government accountable to ‘WE THE PEOPLE,’” the president-elect said.

Details of the department — such as the size of its staff, if any, and the scope of its mission — were not yet available.

The budget-cutting endeavor gives an unusual and influential role to Musk, who spent more than $100 million to help elect Trump and has billions in government contracts through his Space X and Starlink companies.

Ramaswamy ran in the Republican primary in 2024 but went on to become a passionate advocate for Trump on the campaign trail.

Trump floated the idea of naming Musk as the head of a government efficiency commission in September during a speech to the New York Economic Club.

Wisconsin GOP Senate candidate Eric Hovde is casting doubt on the results of his election following his loss to Democratic incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

“I was shocked by what unfolded on election night,” he said in a video posted to social media Tuesday. “At 1 a.m. I was receiving calls of congratulations, and based on the models, it appeared I would win the Senate race. Then, at 4 a.m. Milwaukee reported approximately 108,000 absentee ballots, with Senator Baldwin receiving nearly 90% of those ballots. Statistically, this outcome seems improbable.”

The latest unofficial results from Milwaukee show Baldwin winning 78 percent of the city’s vote, and it’s not unusual for absentee, or mail, ballots to be more Democratic than the overall vote.

Hovde and Baldwin had a tight — and at times, tense — race. The businessman had not commented since the Associated Press projected Baldwin’s win last Wednesday.

While he refrained from asking for a recount “because [recounts] don’t look at the integrity of a ballot,” Hovde said that he will announce his decision on how to proceed “once the final information is available and all options are reviewed.”

Part of Hovde’s argument referred to preliminary totals that Joe Biden received 10 million more votes in 2020 than Kamala Harris this year — even though some states are still counting substantial numbers of ballots.

“Since last Wednesday, numerous parties have reached out to me about voting inconsistencies, such as certain voting precincts in Milwaukee having turnout of over 150% of registered voters, and in some cases over 200%,” he said, without providing evidence.

Hovde also blamed Democrats for funding third party candidates Thomas Leager and Phil Anderson for drawing votes away from himself.

“If either of these candidates had not been in the race, the outcome would be different today,” he claimed.

Tammy Baldwin responded in a social media post on Tuesday, writing that Hovde “is spreading lies from the darkest corners of the internet to undercut our free and fair elections,” and calling for him to “stop this disgusting attack on our democracy and concede.”

On the eve of the House GOP’s leadership elections, Speaker Mike Johnson is making clear he does not back new internal GOP rules proposals that would take punitive measures against Republicans who prevent GOP bills from coming to the floor.

“I have made clear to members, as I’ve been having discussion with them, that I am not in favor of punitive measures and rules. I think that we are going to work together as a cohesive team. It’s a brand new time, a brand new day,” Johnson exclusively told POLITICO. “I don’t think we will have a need for party discipline and I expect everybody to be working on singing from the same sheet of music.”

His remarks come as Johnson, according to two sources, had privately told various members that he didn’t support punitive measures. POLITICO first reported over the weekend that centrists had filed an amendment to the rules to allow for members who voted against bringing GOP policies to the floor be removed from committees.

But some conservatives worry that even if Johnson doesn’t support it, a majority of his GOP conference will move to punish conservatives who block him from bringing bills to the floor, which became common practice last term. Republicans will meet on Thursday to vote on internal rules for the next Congress.

One GOP member, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly, added that leadership just “wants to just calm these waters and move forward,” but supporters of the rules proposal might be able to get “a majority to vote on Thursday … a certain way. We’ve got to address that.”

Another conservative put it this way: “If Johnson is going to try to change the rules and go backwards — I think that is where the motivation is coming from to mount an effort against him. … If he made a public commitment that he is not going to [punish members] or not going to change the motion to vacate, I think that it’ll be a slam dunk for him.”

Johnson’s remarks come as Republicans say he isn’t sweating a potential challenger from conservatives, despite some members saying they reserve the right to put one forward. Part of the reason hardliners are leaning toward mounting a challenge against Johnson is to attempt to push him rightwards on House rules.

Others are hoping that while they point the finger at Republicans being united while Democrats are in chaos, they will be able to avoid similar charges directed at them if a challenger emerges.

“Many of us would like to see Mike not having a challenge, but rather recognizing that he’s the only candidate,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), noting that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy faced a similar challenger from the right who only got about 30 votes. “Now the question is, why put up a candidate symbolically to be humiliated by getting a handful of votes.”

“There’s nobody you could put up that could propose anything more conservative,” he added.

The conservatives who want to see a challenger have so far failed to name who that member may be, but the group is expected to meet Tuesday night to discuss their plans.

“May or may not happen,” Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), a House Freedom Caucus member, said of a potential challenger. “Honestly, I don’t know that they will.”

Another member involved in the talks added that: “We’re reserving the right to have an alternative. I think we probably will.”

Johnson also said he expects Trump to endorse him Wednesday, before Republicans gather to vote by secret ballot about who will serve in their leadership lineup.

“He’s been talking very publicly everywhere about this, so I expect he’ll do it again tomorrow,” Johnson added.

President-elect Donald Trump will install William McGinley, a Republican campaign lawyer and former Trump White House adviser, as the White House counsel in the next administration, the Trump-Vance transition said Tuesday.

McGinley will be at the helm in one of the most powerful positions in the West Wing. As White House counsel, McGinley will provide legal advice on policy issues, government ethics, congressional oversight and the powers of the presidency. He will likely be among Trump’s closest advisers.

The White House counsel position does not require Senate confirmation.

“Bill is a smart and tenacious lawyer who will help me advance our America First agenda while fighting for election integrity and against the weaponization of law enforcement,” Trump said in a statement announcing the pick.

McGinley previously served as White House cabinet secretary in Trump’s first administration. In that role, he acted as a liaison between the White House and the Cabinet.

In his new role, McGinley is expected to be the primary conduit between Trump and the Justice Department, which the president-elect appeared to allude to in his statement.

That aspect of the job led to significant stresses in Trump’s relationship with the two lawyers who served in the post in his first term: Don McGahn and Pat Cipollone.

McGahn wound up as a key witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of allegations that Trump sought to obstruct an investigation into ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia.

Cipollone was an important witness for the House committee that probed the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and the events leading up to it. After the 2020 election, Cipollone also helped defuse a plan Trump was mulling to sack the acting attorney general and replace him with another lower-ranking official offering to advance Trump’s false election fraud claims.

McGinley left the Cabinet secretary job in July 2019. He has also worked at the law firm Holtzman Vogel, as a lobbyist for a connected firm and has held various positions providing legal advice to the Republican National Committee.

President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he will name real estate investor and philanthropist Steven Witkoff to be a special envoy to the Middle East.

In a statement, Trump said that Witkoff, a New York investor who owns a large property portfolio in New York and other major U.S. cities, “has made every project and community he has been involved with stronger and more prosperous.” He added: “Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud.”

Witkoff was already appointed the co-chair of Trump’s inauguration this January, alongside GOP donor and former Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia. He’s also a close friend of the president-elect, speaking at the Republican National Convention in July 2024. Witkoff was also on the golf course with Trump during a September assassination attempt against him in Florida.

It is unclear what the role of Middle East special envoy will entail under Trump, as special envoys are not standard diplomats. President Joe Biden appointed two Middle East special envoys, Lise Grande and David Satterfield, who specifically focus on humanitarian issues in the region emerging from the war in the Gaza Strip. And Trump appointed longtime adviser and lawyer Jason Greenblatt as a special envoy to the Middle East to help with the negotiations of the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel and four Arab countries normalize diplomatic relations.

As of 2023, special envoys are potentially subject to Senate confirmation, though the White House has managed to circumvent that law, as exhibited by the appointment of special climate envoy John Podesta. It is also unclear whether Trump plans to subject Witkoff to a confirmation process, though it is unlikely that he would encounter stiff resistance from Senate Republicans.

Witkoff was not the only Middle East diplomat whose role Trump announced on Tuesday. Trump also announced that he was appointing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee the U.S. ambassador to Israel.

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Tuesday that talk in Washington about Justice Sonia Sotomayor retiring and filling a Supreme Court vacancy before Democrats cede control of the chamber is “idle speculation” and not “realistic.”

“Whoever makes those calls [for a retirement] can’t count,” Durbin said. “Take a look at the calendar and tell me how in the world you could achieve that without setting aside the budget and the defense authorization act and all the other things that need to be done? I don’t think it’s a realistic idea.”

Many progressives have mounted a public pressure campaign for the 70-year-old justice to retire before the second Trump presidency, fearing a repeat of 2020, when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and Donald Trump replaced her with Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Sotomayor, though, has shown no openness to that idea, with close associates telling The Wall Street Journal that the justice intends to remain on the court.

Durbin told reporters he expected Democrats would continue aggressively processing judicial nominees throughout the lame-duck session — and hoped to reach consensus on a package of nominations, as Democrats agreed to in the waning days of the Trump presidency.

“I think we’ll reach that point,” he said of a package agreement.

House conservatives are planning to mount a symbolic challenger to Speaker Mike Johnson during Wednesday’s internal leadership election, according to two people familiar with the effort.

Conservatives have been discussing how to signal their frustration with Johnson for days, deliberations POLITICO first reported. They have talked about having a lawmaker actually run against the Louisiana Republican for the speakership nomination in the private vote Wednesday, as well as trying to vote against him or vote present.

The hardliners haven’t finalized a name yet, but one person familiar with the discussion, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations, said they expect Johnson to get a challenger on Wednesday. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, seemed to confirm that idea, remarking that it “seems likely” Johnson will have a challenger tomorrow.

“It seems pretty likely,” Roy added.

Roy did not give a name for who he expects to challenge Johnson and no one has publicly jumped into the race.

Regardless, Johnson is expected to easily reach the simple majority threshold to become his party’s speaker nominee on Wednesday. But a challenger would prevent him from winning the nomination by a voice vote, meaning Johnson and his supporters could not characterize it as a unanimous vote in his favor.

Counted ballots also mean lawmakers will get a sense of the size of Johnson’s opposition headed into a tougher speaker vote on Jan. 3, when he will need near-unanimity to keep the gavel. Republicans are expected to keep the House majority, but only narrowly.

Conservatives are frustrated with Johnson over his handling of legislative fights on Ukraine aid and government funding, but the opposition also has a practical motivation. They want concessions from Johnson on the House rules, including keeping the threshold for triggering a vote to oust the speaker at one member.

“I have a responsibility to protect my constituents’ ability to have a voice, make sure that the rules are structured such that we have a voice, continue to evolve the House in that direction and not to devolve the House back into its native swamp position. And so, I want to see what’s going to happen with the rules,” Roy said.

The decision by conservatives to run someone against Johnson was first reported by The Hill.