Principals

1. Treasury secretary search
2. Biden’s Ukraine shift
3. Trump’s Washington
4. GOP tension over Gaetz
5. Johnson’s next tests
6. Shrinking share say they’re thriving
7. GOP in Baku

PDB: White House prepares disaster funding request

Biden in Brazil for G20 … Spirit Airlines files for bankruptcy … WSJ: How Dems blew it on inflation

Trump hunts for a treasury secretary

The internal battle over Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary pick is growing — and spilling into public view. Trump, one person told Semafor, had hoped in recent days that Fox Business host Larry Kudlow would accept the position, but he just signed a new deal with the network and has no plans to leave. This has left Trump with his initial options, and we’ve learned he’s not particularly enthusiastic about their overt jockeying for the position. Scott Bessent, seen as a leading contender and backed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, met with Trump late last week in Florida, signaling to some that he might have a leg up. But then Elon Musk argued on X in favor of Cantor Fitzgerald CEO and transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick. Now some Trump allies are speculating that he may look for an entirely new Treasury candidate. Trump is expected to meet with new contenders this week, including former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh and Apollo CEO Marc Rowan, The New York Times reported.

— Shelby Talcott

Biden’s late change to Ukraine policy

Joe Biden gave a farewell gift to Ukraine policy with two months left in office. The US president authorized Ukraine to use long-range weapons called ATACMS to strike targets inside Russia, in what was described as a response to North Korea’s decision to send thousands of troops to fight alongside the Russians. Biden had long resisted such a move due to fears of escalation, despite consistent public pressure from the Ukrainians and other advocates for a more aggressive response. “Good decision — albeit 998 days too late,” one European official told Semafor. However, US officials don’t believe the decision will “change the course of the war,” The New York Times reported. When Donald Trump takes office, he is expected to push for a swift end to the conflict, and is currently weighing plans to tap a Ukraine peace envoy to that end.

— Morgan Chalfant

Trump’s Washington: Elon Musk

Every week until Inauguration Day, Semafor’s team will profile someone who will play an influential role for Donald Trump in his administration, on Capitol Hill, or on the outside.

Billionaire Elon Musk spent millions to help elect Donald Trump — and became a key MAGA-world figure in his own right. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has been seen over the last few weeks camped out at Mar-a-Lago, and Semafor has learned he’s wielding his influence over the transition. That includes sitting in on meetings and important phone calls with world leaders; he even publicly weighed in over the weekend on who should head up Treasury. Some Trump allies have been irked by Musk’s consistent presence, but Trump himself hasn’t seemed fazed: Musk was part of his entourage at Saturday’s UFC fight, and the president-elect tapped Musk to co-lead an outside-government agency dubbed the “Department of Government Efficiency.” Some inside Trump’s orbit insist Musk is a welcome part of the team, noting that his influence appears to only be growing.

— Shelby Talcott

Republicans prepare for talks over Gaetz ethics report

The House and Senate will be battling over Matt Gaetz’s nomination to be attorney general. Speaker Mike Johnson reiterated his belief that the House Ethics Committee’s report on Gaetz should not be released, saying on “Fox News Sunday” that “doing so would open a Pandora’s box, because the jurisdiction of the Ethics Committee is limited to those who are serving in the institution.” However, several key GOP senators say they want some access to the investigation, which was looking into allegations ranging from drug use to sexual misconduct. Sen. Markwayne Mullin said on “Meet the Press” that the committee should “absolutely” share the report with the Senate, though whether it goes public might “be part of the negotiations” between the two chambers. Senate Republicans will likely, at a minimum, insist on reviewing the report privately.

— Burgess Everett

Morgan Luttrell is a Republican congressman from Texas. He weighed in on Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who has faced scrutiny in recent days as a result of a sexual assault allegation that he denies.

Why Johnson’s Trump bump may not last

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s job looks safer than ever — for now, Semafor’s Kadia Goba reports. Hardliners who floated a challenge to Johnson during internal House Republican elections abandoned the idea after Trump endorsed him, a development that was closely followed by a deal on new rules to require nine members to force a vote to fire the speaker. “I want the president … to take the field with the team that he wants on the field,” said Rep. Eli Crane, who voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. But conservatives may change their tune as the House heads toward year-end battles over funding, defense policy, and extending federal farm programs. Johnson said Sunday that the House would likely seek to delay the funding debate into next year, when Republicans have control of the White House and Congress.

Fewer US employees say they’re thriving

Just half of US employees say they are thriving in their lives — the lowest result since Gallup started polling the question in 2009. Forty-five percent of US employees said they are struggling, while 4% said they are suffering, according to data released by Gallup today. The figures likely reflect continued dissatisfaction with the state of the US economy, despite signs of it turning a corner as inflation eases. In contrast, the US saw a record-high share — 61% — of US employees who described themselves as thriving in January 2016 and 2017 — at the end of Barack Obama’s term, just before Donald Trump took office.

GOP previews climate strategy at COP

Congressional Republicans visited COP29 to pitch their favored solution to the climate crisis: Increasing US natural gas exports. The push toward renewables has weakened global energy security, said Rep. August Pfluger, R-Tex., whose district includes the Permian Basin, one of the largest US drilling hotspots. That argument is likely to form the backbone of US climate and energy policy in the Trump administration. Pfluger also previewed the GOP strategy on the Inflation Reduction Act, saying any elements that don’t drive down energy costs could get scrapped. Fewer Democrats were in Baku and seemed resigned about stepping to the sidelines: “Effective in January, the US government will be defecting from any position of responsibility,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, told reporters, and urged the European Union to “stick to their guns” on its carbon import tariff.

— Tim McDonnell

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Senate Democrats are largely keeping quiet on the controversies surrounding Donald Trump’s nominees, seeing little reason to enter a brewing fight between Trump and Republicans over the picks. “Republicans have made this mess, they have to clean it up,” one Democratic insider said.

Playbook: Joel Leppard, an attorney representing two women who have made allegations against Matt Gaetz, will do several network TV interviews today and allege that his clients told investigators they attended “sex parties” with the former Florida congressman in 2017 and 2018.

WaPo: Trump is unlikely to make as big of an imprint on the federal judiciary as he did in his first term. If the Senate confirms President Biden’s remaining nominees, Trump will enter office with just 36 judicial vacancies left to fill.

Axios: Elon Musk is butting heads with Boris Epshteyn, questioning whether the longtime Trump adviser has too much influence in Trump’s Cabinet search.

White House

• Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young said in a new memo that the Biden administration would send a request to Congress for additional disaster relief funding “in the coming days.”
• During their meeting over the weekend, President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to not give artificial intelligence control over nuclear weapons.

Congress

• More than half of Republican senators do not believe that Matt Gaetz will get through confirmation. — NBC
• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries insisted his predecessor Nancy Pelosi is not undermining his leadership in her public comments.

Transition

• Donald Trump tapped Karoline Leavitt as his White House press secretary, Steven Cheung as his communications director, and fracking executive Chris Wright as his energy secretary. Trump also selected FCC commissioner Brendan Carr to run the agency.
• Trump may remove FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Kash Patel and Mike Rogers are on the list of his potential replacements.
• Trump’s transition team is making a list of current and former senior US military officials directly involved in the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and “exploring whether they could be court-martialed for their involvement.” — NBC

Business

• Hasbro is in the crosshairs of Donald Trump’s next trade war with China. — WSJ

Polls

• Ann Selzer is leaving election polling.

Foreign Policy

• Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine’s energy grid over the weekend.
• Donald Trump’s desire for peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia “is finding growing acceptance in Europe.” — WSJ

Big Read

• Close Donald Trump allies are looking to profit from the resurging MAGA movement with companies positioned to appeal to “anti-woke” and “values-driven” sentiment, the Financial Times writes.

Blindspot

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, curated with help from our partners at Ground News.

What the Left isn’t reading: Bill Maher fumed at the Democratic Party for losing the 2024 election due to an “aggressively anti-common sense agenda.”

What the Right isn’t reading: Saudi Arabia has executed 101 foreigners so far this year, AFP reported.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Elana Schor, Morgan Chalfant

Reporters: Burgess Everett, Kadia Goba, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

One of the most talked-about writers in business and culture journalism last year wasn’t employed by The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg, Semafor’s Max Tani wrote.

He caught up with Emily Sundberg to chat about the second anniversary of her newsletter Feed Me, the announcement of a new podcast, and a redesign with a slicker, more ad-friendly visual branding and an ouroboros logo to match.

“I’ve been using a bootleg logo of Citibank for the past year, and I was really hoping to get a cease-and-desist from them,” she said. “That would have been really funny to post a letterhead saying that my newsletter was using their iconic logo, but I never got it. I realized I need to have an iconic logo. I can’t take a bank’s logo.”

Read Max’s Q&A with Emily.