Principals

☞ White House: The Bidens will host a Hanukkah reception at the White House tonight, where the president will talk about pushing back on antisemitism, according to a White House official.

☞ Chuck Schumer: The text of the omnibus is expected to be finalized today, meaning the Senate can quickly get to work on passing it this week. The Electoral Count Act — which aims to prevent another Jan. 6 — made it into the final bill, according to a source familiar with the process.

☞ Mitch McConnell: This will be another week of McConnell navigating criticism from his right flank (and probably not caring much) as he tries to get the omnibus across the finish line. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas suggested McConnell would shoulder blame for what he termed a “crisis” at the southern border if he moves forward with the spending bill in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

☞ Nancy Pelosi: Pelosi started the Congress with her own office being invaded by rioters, now the committee she created to investigate the incident is on the verge of its final report and possible criminal referrals today. The rest of the House is not expected back until Wednesday.

☞ Kevin McCarthy: Donald Trump is whipping for the Republican leader with a message to the Never Kevin’ers who plan to oppose him for speaker: “I think it’s a very dangerous game that’s being played,” he told Breitbart News.

It’s here: The last meeting of the Jan. 6 committee. The panel convenes this afternoon to vote on additional criminal referrals regarding ex-President Donald Trump, who attacked its members as “scoundrels” and “thugs” over the weekend. The committee will also release a summary of its widely anticipated report, while the full version is expected to drop Wednesday. Finally, it will consider how to penalize Republican lawmakers who evaded subpoenas, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. said on CNN Sunday. The White House is closely watching whether the committee moves to reprimand Kevin McCarthy or Jim Jordan, given that they’re expected to hold the speaker’s gavel and chair of the House Judiciary Committee, respectively, in the next Congress. The White House will likely bring up such actions to attack Republicans when they subpoena witnesses in Biden probes next year.

Republicans, who have laid the groundwork to investigate the committee’s work, are planning some counterprogramming of their own by releasing a report that focuses on security failures at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and casts the select committee’s work as a partisan exercise, according to Axios.

Five members of the Proud Boys, including former leader Enrique Tarrio, will face trial on seditious conspiracy charges. Jury selection begins today in Washington.

The psychodrama at Twitter is still going strong. In the latest development, Elon Musk tweeted a poll asking whether he should step down as CEO and promised to abide by the result. This morning, the “yes” side won, with 57% of the vote. Now we wait for the Twitter electoral college to weigh in.

Relatedly, Semafor reported that Democrats are laying plans (however reluctantly) to potentially leave the platform after Musk started suspending a bunch of journalists.

— Morgan Chalfant

Punchbowl News: Incoming Republican committee leaders who already have their chairs locked up are releasing a letter today backing McCarthy for speaker. “We cannot begin our vital committee work – on legislation, investigations, oversight, or even staffing – until our conference coalesces around our elected nominee for Speaker of the House,” it warns.

Playbook: While the criminal referrals will make the biggest headlines, Politico looks at some of the still-unanswered questions about January 6th that the final report and materials might shed light on.

The Early 202: The House Ways and Means Committee is expected to meet about how to handle Trump’s tax returns this week, with time quickly running out before Republicans take over. But the Senate Finance Committee (which will stay under Democratic control) is simultaneously “discussing whether it would take up the issue of Trump’s taxes,” the Washington Post reports.

How a pro-DeSantis group is planning to take down Donald Trump

THE NEWS

A super PAC urging Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to run for president in 2024 is gearing up to take on Donald Trump in the new year by any means necessary.

“Ron to the Rescue,” founded by Republican strategist John Thomas, emerged just after the midterms with an ad declaring that “America needs Ron DeSantis” and pitching his success as Joe Biden’s failure to keep a good state down. But they’re also preparing to go on offense if the cold war between Ron and Don turns into a hot one.

“We’re not afraid to take the gloves off,” Thomas told Semafor. “If the former president decides to get nasty with DeSantis … we will defend the governor.”

Thomas isn’t a “Never Trumper,” he insisted, nor is he a blind DeSantis superfan. As recently as August, he thought the Florida governor shouldn’t run for president after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago and the party seemed to be rallying back to Trump’s side. But the midterm results, which featured a strong performance by DeSantis and a series of losses among Trump-backed candidates, convinced him it was time to go all-in.

“Ron to the Rescue” is not sanctioned by DeSantis’s inner circle — the governor’s representatives have made clear publicly that they are operating independently, and not just in the technical legal sense. “Whether well intentioned or not, the organizers of these PACs have not been in contact with DeSantis leadership and such efforts may create confusion amongst supporters of the Governor and his policies,” DeSantis’ counsel wrote in a memo last month.

Still, Thomas is hoping his group can act as a command center for DeSantis surrogates during the potentially long, awkward period in which Trump has the field mostly to himself. Thomas says they expect to name state chairs with Trump ties and roll out a number of former senior Trump administration officials to act as surrogates in January.

Thomas said that the super PAC will try to “exploit some of the former president’s vulnerabilities” and contrast him with DeSantis on topics like Trump’s relationship to Dr. Anthony Fauci, his COVID-19 policies, and the Second Amendment, where Thomas pointed to Trump’s ban on bump stocks.

But perhaps the biggest point of contrast is the argument that talking heads, some Republicans, and polls have been making for months now — that of electability.

“Trump can’t win,” Thomas said. “And we’re going to remind voters of what they already know to be true — that he’s lost the last three elections, or three and a half elections if you count the runoff.”

Beyond coordinating on-air fights with Trump, Thomas is working to build up a volunteer grassroots list that can be given to DeSantis should he decide to run and plans to scoop up operatives who could become part of an official campaign later on.

“We’re going to basically put them all on retainer and have them start organizing, but more importantly, we’re taking them off the table so they don’t go to work for Trump,” Thomas said.

SHELBY’S VIEW:

It remains to be seen whether “Ron to the Rescue” takes off — they’re hoping to raise over $50 million by the end of 2023, a far cry from the “low seven figures” Thomas says they’ve already pulled in. But the election is also unlikely to be decided by super PACs. In 2016, Trump annihilated rivals like Jeb Bush despite their flush outside support. If DeSantis himself can’t stand up to him onstage and rebut him on the trail, all the money in the world won’t save him.

ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT

While Trump has survived key stretches without a traditional campaign or outside super PAC in the past, many of his own former staff and supporters have told me his latest campaign rollout has been disastrous and that he looks more vulnerable than at any point since 2016. He may have a harder time shouting down a well-coordinated organization, especially when much of conservative media seems sympathetic to DeSantis so far.

7 Times Hakeem Jeffries Has Said The Phrase “Bend the Knee”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is not going to “bend the knee.” Not to Republicans. Not to socialists in his party. Probably not even if his personal trainer tells him to do a lunge.

How do we know? Because he’s said so, over and over. The House Democratic leader in waiting loves a good pop culture reference, but seems to have a particular weakness for the Game of Thrones catchphrase (which is Westerosi for “give in”). Here are seven instances we found of him dropping it.

On August 2, 2020, Jeffries’ campaign account tweets: “Never. Bend. The. Knee.” Apropos of what, we’re not sure.

On June 26, 2021, Jeffries tells MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that he expects House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will “bend the knee to Donald Trump” when it comes to selecting members for the Jan. 6 committee.

In an August 10, 2021 Atlantic article, Jeffries responds to criticism  that he’s too moderate, and takes a now-notorious shot at his party’s left flank. “I’m a Black progressive Democrat concerned with addressing racial and social and economic injustice with the fierce urgency of now. … There will never be a moment where I bend the knee to hard-left democratic socialism.”

On Nov. 12, 2021, Jeffries tweets: “The cult must be confused. We will NEVER bend the knee to haters, bigots, and insurrectionists.”

On Dec. 13, 2021, Politico publishes an article about whether Jeffries and McCarthy will be able to overcome their testy relationship and work together now and then. “There will still be challenges in governing this institution in a collegiate way with Republicans who continue to bend the knee to the former president,” Jeffries says.

On August 22, 2022, Jeffries takes another shot at his party’s left left in City & State New York. “There are some forces on the left that want to define progressive as ‘you bend the knee, and we tell you what to do, and if you fail to fall in line, you’re a machine Democrat or a corporate sellout,’” he said. “That’s a joke.”

On Oct. 14, 2022, Jeffries tweets: “We will never bend the knee to the election deniers who poison our democracy.”

Asked about his fondness for the phrase, a Jeffries spokeswoman said it was part of a rhetorical strategy that “uses repetition for emphasis.” She also said Jeffries has been watching House of the Dragon, but had no word on how he thinks it stacks up to the original GoT.

— Jordan Weissmann and Kadia Goba

One Good Text with ... Incoming congressman and former prosecutor Dan Goldman

WHAT THE LEFT ISN’T READING: A new “Twitter Files” release showed contacts between the FBI and Twitter about foreign election influence.

WHAT THE RIGHT ISN’T READING: Details uncovered by the Washington Post cast doubt on Elon Musk’s efforts to blame a Twitter account tracking his private jet in an alleged stalking incident involving his family.

—with our partners at Ground News

Tippling while Rome burns: Politico delivers an inside look at how Democracy for America, the long-running progressive advocacy group founded by Howard Dean, went bankrupt amid gross mismanagement. The juicy lead detail: As the org was collapsing, its CEO, who apparently refused to do basic fundraising while pursuing side-hustles as a lawyer and real estate agent, decided to tack a multi-day sommelier course in Napa onto the end of a work trip.

Tainted spinach is causing Australians to suffer hallucinations, the New York Times reports. Experts are blaming “anticholinergic syndrome,” a type of poisoning associated with some plants that can inhibit a brain chemical related to memory. So, add that to your list of things to worry about in the world.

Rep.-elect George Santos, who helped flip the House for Republicans by winning a seat in Long Island, may have fictionalized much of his biography, including working at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and whether he started a nonprofit animal rescue group, according to an investigation by the New York Times. In response, a Santos spokesman issued a statement saying it was “no surprise that Congressman-elect Santos has enemies at The New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations.”

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— Steve Clemons