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

🗓️ What we’re watching

• Six of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees will face Senate panels today on their path to potential confirmation. Attorney General-designate Pam Bondi is up first, and her confirmation is looking likely, as many Democrats have softened their opinion of her since she served as Trump’s personal attorney in 2020. 
• At 10 a.m., Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio, Transportation secretary pick Sean Duffy, CIA director choice John Ratcliffe and Energy secretary pick Chris Wright will appear before Senate committees. At 1 p.m., Russell Vought, Trump’s pick for OMB director, will have his hearing. 
• Defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth faced a grueling confirmation hearing Tuesday, which might be good news for another one of Trump’s controversial picks, Tulsi Gabbard, Jonathan Martin writes this morning. 
• U.S. national security agencies are warning that Trump’s inauguration will be “an attractive potential target” for violent extremists. 

👀 What’s Trump up to?

• On Tuesday, and following similar comments from Steve Bannon at a POLITICO event, Trump said he will create a new agency called the External Revenue Service to collect tariffs and other forms of revenue that come from foreign sources. 

🚨What’s up with the nominees?

• Hegseth got the nod of support from key GOP Sen. Joni Ernst. 
• Secretary of Commerce-designate Howard Lutnick’s confirmation hearing is being delayed by paperwork.

📝ICYMI: Here are Trump’s latest administration picks 

• Trump announced Keith Sonderling as his pick to be deputy Labor secretary.
• Ross Worthington is expected to be Trump’s head speechwriter in the White House, Sophia Cai and Dasha Burns reported Tuesday.

Ross Worthington is expected to be President-elect Donald Trump’s head speechwriter in the White House, according to three people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

It may be an indication that there will be a heavy focus on policy in the second Trump administration. Worthington and Vince Haley, the incoming director of the domestic policy council, crafted policy-infused speeches for Trump on the campaign trail, as well as the first drafts of scripts Trump used to record the policy videos that appeared on his campaign website.

Trump praised his speechwriters but frequently went off script and had a habit of freelancing large portions of his speeches before returning to the teleprompter.

Both Worthington and Haley worked under Stephen Miller — the incoming deputy chief of staff for policy — in the first Trump White House, co-managing the White House speechwriting shop.

Worthington was deputy communications director for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign and later authored a book with Gingrich.

Pete Hegseth has won over Sen. Joni Ernst.

The Iowa senator said Tuesday she will be voting to confirm Hegseth to the next Defense secretary, a crucial endorsement for a nomination that seemed to be on shaky ground a few weeks ago.

Ernst told an Iowa radio show that said the former Fox News host was able to adequately answer all her questions during his confirmation hearing before the Armed Services Committee.

“He pointed out the woke issues at the Pentagon and I think we’re at a point where now we can start moving forward. People know where he stands on these issues,” Ernst said. “I will be supporting President Trump’s pick for secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.”

Ernst — a combat veteran and sexual assault survivor — was considered a pivotal vote after she raised concerns over Hegseth’s past comments saying women should not be able to serve in combat, as well as several allegations of sexual misconduct.

At his confirmation hearing, Hegseth walked back his past remarks on women in the military, telling Ernst that “women will have access to ground combat roles.”

Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans met Tuesday to discuss where they might find billions of dollars in potential cuts to existing health care programs — including by making changes to the safety-net program Medicaid.

Finding such cost savings will be a key to financing incoming President Donald Trump’s domestic policy agenda, which Congressional Republicans want to advance as quickly as possible through the budget reconciliation process.

“We’re still in the process of just throwing mud up against the wall to see what sticks,” Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), chair of the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, told reporters after the meeting. “Today we got down to some specifics, but we don’t have a consensus on what we’re going to do yet.”

Committee Republicans on Tuesday discussed making changes to pharmacy benefit managers, which negotiate drug prices on behalf of insurers. There has been a major bipartisan push to regulate their business practices to lower drug costs for consumers.

They also talked about how to recapture savings from enhanced premium subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans as well as whether they could enact so-called “site-neutral payment policy” — another bipartisan proposal which would stop hospitals from getting paid more by Medicare for the same care received at a doctor’s office.

Bipartisan solutions aren’t going to make the Republican reconciliation process a cross-the-aisle affair, however, as GOP lawmakers also continue to go after cuts to Medicaid, which would prompt significant backlash from Democrats and from many Republicans, too.

“It’s really hard. We have to find ways to make savings without harming health care for recipients,” said Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), who chairs the panel’s environment subcommittee. “We’re trying to help the program by making it more affordable … We’ve got to try and thread the needle.”

Ultimately, the ideas presented at the closed-door meeting have been floated previously by committee leaders, and the full committee chair, Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), presented similar proposals to House Republicans earlier this month.

Guthrie, who plans to convene another meeting Thursday of Energy and Commerce Republicans to discuss reconciliation bill savings in the energy and environment arena, said the Tuesday health care meeting had an “informational” tone laying out what options are available.

“We looked at all the options,” Guthrie said.

President-elect Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are meeting over a round of golf on Tuesday, as key decisions loom in the state they both call home.

The meetup is taking place as Trump backed DeSantis’ recent call for a special session in Florida to address illegal immigration — despite reticence from Republican leaders in the Legislature — and as the governor is getting closer to unveiling his pick for Senate to replace Trump administration-bound Marco Rubio.

News of the golf meeting was confirmed by four people familiar with the details, granted anonymity to discuss internal planning. The Trump transition and the governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Rubio, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, is facing the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee for his confirmation hearing on Wednesday and is expected to be one of Trump’s first Cabinet members to be sworn in. POLITICO previously reported that DeSantis is leaning toward appointing state Attorney General Ashley Moody to fill Rubio’s Senate seat, which would then be up for an election in 2026.

DeSantis said publicly on Monday that he hasn’t made a decision, but has repeatedly stressed during the last couple of weeks that whoever he chooses must agree with Trump’s agenda and have a record of addressing illegal immigration. DeSantis and Trump ran a bitter presidential primary against each other but began to patch things up over a meeting in Florida in April. Trump even considered DeSantis for defense secretary late last year when his first choice, Pete Hegseth, appeared to be floundering.

Another Florida official who’s future hangs in the balance as Trump and DeSantis appear to iron out policy and personnel details is state Sen. Joe Gruters (R-Sarasota), a close Trump ally who has clashed with DeSantis. Gruters has Trump’s endorsement to become the chief financial officer of the state in the 2026 election, but DeSantis may appoint state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-Spring Hill) to the seat.

That seat is available sooner than 2026 because the current officeholder, CFO Jimmy Patronis, is running for the 1st Congressional District, the seat that Matt Gaetz vacated before dropping out of the running to be attorney general. Should DeSantis somehow appoint Gruters, then he would have a leg up as an incumbent in two years. Trump has also backed Gruters to become treasurer of the Republican National Committee.

DeSantis attended a dinner with other Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago last week, where he called out reporters for what he viewed as uneven coverage between Republican and Democratic governors in the midst of overseeing natural disasters.

DeSantis called for the special session days after that meeting, and indicated that he had insight into Trump’s forthcoming executive orders on immigration. He wants the Florida Legislature to put state funds into local governments “in the tens of millions” of dollars, coupled with giving local officials more power to be able to take on more functions that are typically carried out by federal immigration officials.

Howard Lutnick, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Commerce Department, is the latest cabinet contender to have his confirmation hearing held up by paperwork delays.

“It will be soon,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, in a brief interview. “We’re waiting for the paperwork to be completed.”

Cruz, whose panel has oversight over the Commerce Department and will be handling Lutnick’s confirmation process, has yet to schedule his hearing.

Lutnick, a billionaire and longtime friend of Trump, has been tapped to implement the incoming administration’s tariff and trade agenda — a source of anxiety among some Republicans who worry about whether that agenda will be one that results in higher costs on consumer goods and trade wars.

Well known on Wall Street, Lutnick rebuilt the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of the company’s employees, including his brother. He has also co-chaired Trump’s 2024 transition team.

Lutnick is expected to be confirmed easily by Republicans, but he’s among those whose paperwork delays are causing a backlog in the GOP’s ability to put Trump’s cabinet in place quickly.

A delayed FBI background check on Monday pushed back a hearing originally scheduled for Tuesday for Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.). Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, also had a hearing slated for Tuesday pushed back over paperwork.

A spokesperson for Lutnick didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

American flags will fly full-staff for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday after all, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Tuesday, “to celebrate our country coming together behind the inauguration of our 47th President.”

President Joe Biden ordered that flags be lowered to half-staff for 30 days after former President Jimmy Carter died last month, in keeping with tradition following the death of the president. They will return to half-staff the day after the inauguration, Johnson added in the X post.

The raised flags will set a different tone for Trump’s swearing-in ceremony. The president-elect had criticized Democrats for being “giddy” about the flags flying at half-mast during his second inauguration.

“Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it,” Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this month. Now, Trump will have a similar pomp-and-circumstance to match his first inauguration eight years ago.

The Biden administration had previously declined to reconsider the positioning of the flags for the inauguration.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated how many years ago was Trump’s first inauguration. It was eight years ago.

GOP Sen. Curtis voices concern over Tulsi Gabbard nomination

lead image