President-elect Donald Trump is considering a former GOP lieutenant governor of California and a former USDA official from his first term to serve as his next agriculture secretary, according to four people familiar with the transition conversations.

Abel Maldonado served as former California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lieutenant governor before stepping down to mount an unsuccessful run for Congress. Maldonado is the son of immigrant farmworkers, a winery owner, one-time mayor and former California state lawmaker.

Former Trump White House and USDA official Ray Starling’s name has been in the mix for some time, but his stock is rising among some Trump officials. They argue Starling is more of a mainstream pick and could reassure conservative-leaning agriculture groups that have been rattled by Trump’s decision to tap Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for HHS secretary, which gives him direct oversight of FDA.

Starling served as an informal adviser to the Trump campaign on agriculture and rural issues in the closing months of the presidential race. He is also a former chief of staff to Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and served as chief of staff for Trump’s first Agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, former Trump U.N. food official Kip Tom and longtime ally and donor Charles Herbster are also still under serious consideration for the agriculture secretary role.

Vice President-elect JD Vance will be on Capitol Hill this week arranging meetings between some of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks and key Republican senators who could determine their confirmations, according to two people familiar who were granted anonymity to discuss the plans.

Vance will be on Capitol Hill on Wednesday and Thursday, sitting in on some meetings with former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Pete Hegseth, Trump’s picks for attorney general and Defense secretary respectively, and key senators. Some Republican senators have already expressed scrutiny over the two controversial Cabinet nominations. CNN was first to report the plans.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), nominated to be U.N. ambassador, and former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), tapped to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs, will also be at the Capitol this week for meetings, said Brian Hughes, a Trump-Vance Transition spokesperson.

“President Trump’s incoming administration is moving at an accelerated schedule in order to make good on getting key nominees confirmed in order to start delivering for the American people,” Hughes said in a statement. “Rep. Collins (VA), Rep. Gaetz (DOJ), Pete Hegseth (DOD), and Rep. Stefanik (UN) will all begin their meetings this week with additional Hill visits to continue after the Thanksgiving recess.”

Despite coming up short in their fight for the majority, House Democrats aren’t tossing their leaders aside.

The caucus opted to keep their top slate of leaders in Tuesday’s party elections, with every single top Democratic leader reelected without opposition.

It’s a mark of confidence, even as the party girds for another Congress in the minority. Even with public and private venting over the future of their party, alongside debate over the Democratic message, most in the party were satisfied with their performance in congressional elections.

Though the House majority fell just out of reach for Democrats, members aren’t blaming party leaders for their Election Day performance. Purple-district incumbents generally outran the top of the ticket, and the majority of them are coming back to Washington. The party flipped several seats around the country, too, ensuring a similar margin in the new Congress — if not a slightly narrower one, depending on the outcome of some uncalled races. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team will now face partisan battles with President-elect Donald Trump while searching for bipartisan deals and protecting their vulnerable incumbents.

“We are prepared to work hard to find bipartisan common ground with our Republican colleagues and the incoming administration on any issue, whenever and wherever possible, but at the same period of time, we will push back against far-right extremism, whenever necessary,” Jeffries told reporters.

In interviews with House Democrats from various geographic and ideological sides of the caucus, lawmakers expressed confidence in their leadership and wanted to give them another term in their slots. As the top House Democrats embark on a series of listening sessions with rank-and-file lawmakers, backbenchers believe their leaders will be responsive to their requests.

“Those tough seats — we outperformed the top of the ticket dramatically,” said Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.). “The reason that I’m supporting the current leadership is because they’ve made a commitment that they want and understand the need to take a broader look at how those of us who outran the ticket, from two to almost nine points, did it, and a willingness to listen to us, to make positive change in the party.”

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), who is running unopposed to lead the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the loss of the majority isn’t leadership’s fault.

“I think our leaders worked really hard. We ran our strategy, and I think that we’re all recognizing where there were parts of a strategy that didn’t work,” he told POLITICO. “So I don’t judge our leaders based on them being perfect. I think we judge our leaders on whether or not we’re willing to learn from what worked, learn from what didn’t work and change.”

One swing-district Democrat also didn’t blame leadership.

“Their leadership had nothing to do with [losing the House.] I support Hakeem, Pete, Katherine. I support them,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas).

Besides, as other senior lawmakers saw it, their leaders hadn’t been able to get a shot at governing in the majority.

“They haven’t led yet,” said Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), a former whip.

Democratic leaders drew applause and cheers Tuesday morning, with lawmakers from a broad cross-section of the caucus giving their nominating speeches. Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.) nominated Jeffries, Reps. Don Davis (D-N.C.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) nominated Clark, and Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) gave the nomination speech for Aguilar, while Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) made the motion to nominate him.

There was only one competitive election for an incumbent leadership position: the chair of their policy and communications arm. Current chair Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) defeated a challenge from Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) by a 152-59 vote. Crockett, a first-term lawmaker, had raised some eyebrows in the caucus with her last-minute bid against Dingell.

One outstanding question for Democratic leaders: the future of the DCCC chair, which became an appointed position after a rules change in the last leadership elections. Some lawmakers have privately griped about the performance of their campaign arm, though a push to change course has not materialized. Chair Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) is expected to stay if Jeffries asks her to, and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) has publicly swatted down rumors she’s interested in the job.

“I told her I think she should stay this morning, but that’s up to Hakeem and Suzan,” said Craig when asked about keeping DelBene as chair of the campaign arm.

Two seasoned Defense Department insiders are in the running to be the Pentagon’s No. 2, and names of other possible nominees are swirling as the Trump transition team looks to fill top posts in the Army, Navy and Air Force.

Potential nominees for deputy defense secretary include former Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie and former Pentagon No. 2 David Norquist — both veterans of President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration.

POLITICO spoke with seven people who were granted anonymity to discuss deliberations within the Trump team. As with all things, nothing is certain until Trump makes his decision, and as his surprise pick of Fox News personality and Army veteran Pete Hegseth proved, there are plenty of known unknowns when trying to peer into the crystal ball of his inner circle.

Wilkie, who is leading Trump’s transition effort at DOD, is in the mix for deputy defense secretary, according to three people familiar with the talk inside the transition team.

Wilkie already enjoys some support on Capitol Hill. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who employed Wilkie as a Senate aide, said he was unaware as to whether Wilkie was in the mix for the job but said he’d be “a huge get, him being in that role, maybe being a mentor and adviser,” to Hegseth.

“I hope right now that he’s being considered for a Cabinet-level post,” Tillis said.

Also being mentioned to take the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian job is David Norquist, a longtime Washington DOD official who also served in the role for the last two years of Trump’s first term, as well as being the department’s chief financial officer in that administration. He is the president and CEO of the National Defense Industrial Association, a defense industry trade group.

The trade group’s spokesperson, Rachel Sutherland, said she had no insight into “Norquist’s intentions or any considerations he may have regarding a potential position with the new administration.”

Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump’s transition team, declined to discuss the specific nominees.

The deputy secretary performs the crucial role of overseeing the Defense Department’s day-to-day operations. But the job could take on even greater significance if Hegseth, who does not have Defense Department experience beyond his National Guard service, is confirmed.

The Trump transition team has yet to sign a memorandum of understanding to get presidential transition planning underway with the Pentagon, spokesperson Sabrina Singh said on Monday. Officials in the building are ready and waiting to work with the Trump transition staff, she added.

Also in the mix for other military roles:

Defeated U.S. Senate candidate Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain, has also been floated for multiple roles, including deputy secretary and Navy secretary, two people said. Cao served as an explosive ordnance officer in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia before running for office. Cao would seem to fit with the incoming Trump administration’s push to combat “wokeness” in the military.

Rep. Mike Garcia, who was narrowly defeated in a bid to retain his battleground California House seat, is also a contender for Navy secretary, two people close to the transition said. A former F/A-18 fighter pilot who flew more than 30 combat missions during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Garcia has hewed to hawkish defense positions, chastising fellow Republicans for blocking last year’s $826 billion Pentagon spending bill. .

Rep. Ronny Jackson, a retired Navy captain and sitting Texas lawmaker who became close to Trump as his chief medical adviser during his first administration, has also been floated for Navy secretary, according to two people. His appointment would be tricky as it would further cut into the narrow Republican margin in the House, though picking Jackson would give Trump a fierce loyalist in the Navy’s top job. Jackson initially retired as a rear admiral, but he was later demoted due to the results of a DOD Inspector General investigation into his conduct as White House physician.

John Phelan, a Florida-based private investor and a major donor to Trump, has also been mentioned as a potential Navy secretary candidate, three people said. One of the people added that the wealthy financier did not specifically ask for the role, but that it was floated within Trump’s camp.

Former Rep. Chris Stewart is in the mix to be Trump’s Air Force secretary, according to one person familiar with the process. Stewart is a former Air Force officer, piloted the B-1B bomber and holds three world records for his flights. The Utah Republican was an appropriator and senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, where he was a solid defender of Trump during the panel’s role in the former president’s first impeachment related to his dealing with Ukraine.

Over at the Army, Chris Miller — the former acting defense secretary in Trump’s tumultuous final weeks in office — has been mentioned as a possible nominee, one person said. Miller, a retired Army Special Forces colonel, also served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center before being elevated to acting secretary when Trump fired Mark Esper. Miller would be a controversial pick, given his leadership during the Jan. 6 riots and his often gregarious tell-it-like-it-is demeanor.

Dan Driscoll, a North Carolina businessman and Yale law school classmate of Vice President-elect JD Vance, has also been mentioned as a potential Army secretary nominee, one person said. Driscoll served as a second lieutenant in the Army and deployed to Iraq. He ran unsuccessfully for a House seat in North Carolina in 2020 on a national security-based platform that included support for Trump’s border wall with Mexico.

The House Ethics Committee is scheduled to meet Wednesday. And if members vote on whether to share their investigative findings about attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz, it would only take one Republican to trigger the release of the report.

The panel is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, and it only requires a majority vote in the private meeting to release the report. A tie would defer to the party that controls the House — meaning if all Republicans voted against releasing it, the report would not be published.

But it would only take one, combined with all Democrats, to share the report, either with senators or publicly.

Republicans on the committee have largely declined to comment on the upcoming meeting at all, let alone whether they would vote to release the report. But Democrats have made it clear they want to share the investigative findings, at least with senators who will consider confirming Gaetz to the powerful post atop the Justice Department.

“I think the Senate should have a chance to take a look at any evidence they think is relevant to the decision they have to make,” said panel member Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.). “They’ve got a constitutional obligation to have advice and consent on this nomination. It’s an important one.”

He said he’d also be open to letting the general public see the report.

Pennsylvania Rep. Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, indicated Monday night that she believes the report should be published. Other Democrats on the panel pointed to her comments, indicating they agreed with her. Two Democrats did not respond to a request for comment.

Republicans on the committee are still keeping quiet, however, on what should happen to the report. Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) told POLITICO after GOP members met privately on Monday that he and Speaker Mike Johnson spoke over the weekend. The speaker shared his viewpoint on not releasing the report, according to Guest. He declined to discuss the subject of the Monday meeting, as did other members.

Asked about Wild’s belief that the report should be made public, Johnson said Tuesday: “I’ve made my position very clear.” In addition to his call with Guest, Johnson has said publicly that he doesn’t think it would be proper for the panel to release a report about a person who is no longer a member of the House.

Johnson also indicated he would not support giving the Senate Judiciary Committee access to the report.

“I have no idea about the contents of the report,” he added, when pressed on reported allegations, including that Gaetz had sex with a minor. “My job is to protect the institution. And I’ve made very clear that I think it’s an important guardrail for our institution that we not use the House Ethics Committee to investigate and report on persons who are not members of this body. Matt Gaetz is not a member of the body anymore.” Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing amid the investigations.

Lawmakers have hotly debated releasing the report after Gaetz resigned from Congress last week. There is precedent for Ethics releasing reports about former members, though typically the panel ends investigations and does not release reports about former members.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declined to comment on the report Tuesday morning. But other Democrats who aren’t on the panel are pushing for its release, too. A group of nearly a hundred House Democrats, led by Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), sent a letter to the Ethics panel calling for the report’s public release.

House Republican leaders laid out their biggest legislative priorities for next year in a closed-door Tuesday meeting, including funding the U.S.-Mexico border wall, cutting various Democratic policies and spending programs enacted under Joe Biden, and locking in Donald Trump’s tax cuts.

In their weekly conference meeting, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) highlighted the various pillars they aim to pass using a so-called reconciliation bill, a procedural tool they can use to pass legislation without Democratic support when they control both the Senate and House majorities next year. Priorities also included easing energy costs for consumers by reducing regulations and cutting down on the size and scope of the administrative state.

“I assembled committee chairs last week to go through what we will be doing in budget reconciliation starting in January. … We laid out a very aggressive first 100 days agenda,” Scalise told reporters after the closed-door meeting.

“What we’re focused on right now is being ready [on] day one. … We’re already making plans, working with President Trump,” he added.

House and Senate GOP leaders have been privately discussing for months what they want to pass under reconciliation. Scalise has been privately talking with committee chairs and the various factions within the House GOP as leadership has sought to collect ideas over the summer. He didn’t point to many specific details of the policy agenda in the meeting Tuesday, but explained the overall goals over the next two years.

“We laid out this morning for the House Republicans … kind of the overarching points, the overarching pieces of the reconciliation package,” Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after the meeting.

Additionally, Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) announced in the meeting that Republican leaders would be doing listening sessions with members on reconciliation next month, according to another person in the room, who was granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

Republicans are also trying to figure out whether they can count the president-elect’s tariff plan to offset the cost of other policies included in the reconciliation package. A member questioned that assertion during the meeting, though people who were in the room indicated lawmakers have not determined if that is possible yet.

“We are going to be having a lot of discussions with President Trump about the framework. Obviously, keeping the current tax rates where they are — not having any tax increases — is the main objective,” Scalise told POLITICO after the meeting. “There were a lot of other items that President Trump put on the table during the campaign that we want to work with him on. So we’ve got to look at the numbers, make sure everything adds up, because budget reconciliation does give you some limitations.”

The Senate has strict parameters on what it can include in a reconciliation bill — it essentially comes down to what is a change to the budget, which is allowed, vs. what is a change to policy, which is not. The Senate parliamentarian is responsible for ruling on whether certain priorities can pass via reconciliation or not.

Jen Scholtes contributed to this report. 

Here’s what we’re watching in transition world today:

 🗓️ What we’re watching

The House Ethics Committee is under continued pressure to release its report on attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz. Speaker Mike Johnson has said the report should remain under wraps as prominent Democrats call for its release. The committee is set to meet on Wednesday. 
Despite moving quickly to pick a number of top Cabinet positions, President-elect Donald Trump is hung up on who to pick for Treasury secretary. He’s long fixated on stock markets and interest rates, choosing someone who would create great disruption could upset markets. 

👀 What’s Trump up to?

Joining Elon Musk at a SpaceX launch in Texas.

🚨What’s up with the nominees?

All eyes are on Gaetz as his nomination hangs in the balance and nearly a dozen GOP senators won’t commit to confirming him for attorney general. Rep. Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, said Monday she wants her panel’s report on Gaetz to be released to the public. 
Democratic-aligned health care advocacy groups launched a “Stop RFK War Room” effort to fight Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to be HHS secretary. The groups plan to convince swing GOP senators to oppose his nomination.

📝ICYMI: Here are the latest Cabinet picks 

Sean Duffy, Fox News contributor and former reality TV star, was nominated as Transportation Secretary

⏱️What Cabinet secretary announcements are we still waiting on?

Treasury
Agriculture
Commerce
Labor
HUD
Education
Trade

Speaker Mike Johnson said he’s working on a solution to address GOP concerns about transgender women using women’s restrooms on the House side of Capitol Hill, as Rep.-elect Sarah McBride is poised to assume office as the first openly transgender lawmaker in January.

“This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before and we’re going to do that in a deliberate fashion … and we will accommodate the needs of every single person,” Johnson said at a press conference Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the leader of the effort to bar transgender women from women’s bathrooms, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-N.C.), said Johnson has committed to including her language in the House rules.

“He has told me he’ll include it in the rules package and if he doesn’t, then I’ll file a privileged motion to force a vote on it,” Mace told reporters. “This is the left’s war on women, and I aim to stop it.”

She added: “There are female members who are deeply concerned about the policy up here.”

Johnson wouldn’t go that far on whether he’d committed to including the language in the rules.

“I’m not going to engage on that,” he said.

Separately, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) threatened during a closed-door GOP conference meeting Tuesday morning that she would fight a transgender woman for using women’s restrooms in the Capitol, according to two sources.

Greene said after that meeting that Johnson has backed her up on the point that “biological men” shouldn’t be using women’s bathrooms.

The full House will vote to approve a rules package in early January, which only requires a simple majority to pass. That means Republicans will be able to clear a rules package without Democratic support.

Mace’s resolution, announced Monday, is clearly aimed at McBride (D-Del.), who brushed aside the Mace-led effort as a distraction by Republicans in a statement on Monday.

Democrats vowed to defend McBride against the GOP effort.

“This is [Mace] just trying to cry out for getting [Donald] Trump’s approval, and it’s sort of pathetic. So we’ll deal with it when it comes up,” said Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus.

“It’s extraordinarily unfortunate that Mace brings this up,” added Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “I don’t think it was ever brought up in Delaware. Nobody had any problem. [McBride’s] a woman, and I think Mace is simply demagoguing this issue for her own political ends.”

Olivia Beavers, Daniella Diaz and Nicholas Wu contributed.

A Jan. 6 defendant facing five felony charges could be on trial at the precise moment power changes hand from President Joe Biden to President-elect Donald Trump — an uncomfortable prospect for prosecutors bracing for a leadership change that could upend cases stemming from the attack on the Capitol.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich on Tuesday denied a bid by defendant Michael Picciuto to postpone his Jan. 13 trial into April, who cited the prospect of a pardon from Trump and the potential awkwardness of being on trial at the moment the transfer of power occurs as a reason to delay.

“The chances of this going a week could easily actually roll into the date of the inauguration itself,” Picciuto’s attorney Jay Crook said.

But Friedrich, a Trump appointee, said the hope for a pardon is “entirely speculative in nature.” Trump has not indicated whether any future pardons would extend to all members of the Jan. 6 mob or only those facing misdemeanor charges. And she said she was hopeful that Picciuto’s trial would be over before crashing into the new administration.

“Delaying every January 6th case with the expectation that some or all will result in a pardon is an unmanageable suggestion,” she said.

About 200 Jan. 6 defendants have faced trials over the last four years, and Picciuto’s could be the last if Trump and his new Justice Department leadership act quickly to pull the plug on lingering prosecutions.

Senate Republicans moved to slow down the pace of judicial nomination confirmations in the waning days of Joe Biden’s presidency on Monday evening, forcing the chamber into hours of routine votes.

What happened? Senators initially confirmed Embry Kidd to an appeals court post by a 49-45 vote on Monday evening. But then the roadblocks began.

Moving between executive session — to consider nominations — and legislative session — to consider bills — is normally done by unanimous consent, but Republicans forced votes on those procedural actions throughout the evening.

Those votes only required a simple majority, so Democrats were able to easily pass them. But they had to stay close to the chamber.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was unbowed by the procedural obstacles. “We’ll keep going,” he said Monday on the floor. “The Senate is going to keep prioritizing judicial and administrative confirmations this week, this month, and for the rest of this year.”

As the votes wore on, patience grew short. Schumer vowed to enforce vote time limits, cutting them off after 12 minutes. “It doesn’t matter who’s here,” he said.

In the end: Schumer made a series of procedural motions to end debate on the following 12 judicial picks.

Mustafa Kasubhai to be district judge for the District of Oregon
Sarah Russell to be district judge for the District of Connecticut
Rebecca Pennell to be district judge for the Eastern District of Washington
Brian Murphy to be district judge for the District of Massachusetts
Anne Hwang to be district judge for the Central District of California
Cynthia Dixon to be district judge for the Central District of California
Catherine Henry to be district judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Sparkle Sooknanan to be district judge for the District of Columbia
Amir Ali to be district judge for the District of Columbia
Noël Wise to be district judge for the Northern District of California
Gail Weilheimer to be district judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Sharad Desai to be district judge for the District of Arizona

Remember: President-elect Donald Trump has called on Senate Republicans to block additional judicial confirmations before Biden’s term ends. They can’t do that on their own, but can significantly drag out the process.

Next up: The Senate will be in for votes at 11:30 a.m., with action on some of these judicial picks throughout the day.