Good morning! “Hangover” star Mike Tyson is about to find out what it really means to be 58 years old. The former heavyweight champ retired from boxing in 2005 but will step back into the ring again tonight to fight 27-year-old Jake Paul. The bout streams at 8:00 Eastern tonight on Netflix.

TRUMP

⚖️ Trump wants Gaetz to lead Justice

President-elect Trump feels he was railroaded in Term #1 by insubordinate career staffers at the Department of Justice (DOJ). This time around, he wants an ally to go in and clean house. Enter: Matt Gaetz.

Trump has chosen ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general (AG). As the top dog at the DOJ, Gaetz will oversee most federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the DEA, and the ATF. Additionally, the DOJ’s legal divisions are full of important political levers, the uses of which change drastically depending on who’s in the White House. As a result, this may be the most important political post in the Cabinet.

• Gaetz represented Florida in the House from 2017 until… well, until Wednesday. Gaetz abruptly resigned from Congress this week to focus on his nomination battle…. or maaaybe to squash a damaging scandal.

This is easily Trump’s most controversial pick so far. As a right-wing force in the House, Matt Gaetz led the charge in 2023 to overthrow then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy despite them both being Republicans. He’s very unpopular with other members of Congress and is known as something of a provocateur.

Scandal, you say? This one's a doozy. Gaetz, 42, was investigated by the FBI for trafficking and paying 17-year-old girls for sex. The case was dropped in 2022 without charges. But that's a tough thing to shake off for anyone, much less a guy trying to lead the Justice Department.

• Obviously, Gaetz denies everything and, again, he was never charged with any crime.

Until his resignation, Gaetz was under investigation by his peers. in Congress. The House Ethics Committee was looking into him for sex crimes, drug use, campaign cash abuse, and showing sexual videos to other members on the House floor. Sen. Markwayne Mullin spoke to CNN about that last one in 2023.

• The committee was planning to release its report on Gaetz today. But they can only investigate current members. Since Gaetz resigned, he’s off-limits.

• The committee can break that rule and still release its report if it chooses. Back in the 1980s, Rep. Bill Boner (yes, you read that right) found out the hard way that resigning doesn’t always stop the bad news from dropping.

The chair of the Ethics Committee, Rep. Michael Guest, says he’s not releasing the report. Gaetz's resignation makes an internal investigation moot. But Gaetz has plenty of enemies who could leak this thing. And senators from both parties say they want to take a look before voting on his confirmation. The attorney for Gaetz’s young accuser is also demanding the report’s release.

• The curious timing of Gaetz’s resignation isn’t necessarily nefarious. He told House Speaker Mike Johnson that he resigned now so his replacement could be elected more quickly.

Will he be confirmed? Maybe. But every Democratic senator is sure to vote against him. And many Republicans are concerned, too. Said one Republican senator, "I think he’s got a lot of work to do to get" enough votes for confirmation.

• This isn’t related to anything really, but Matt Gaetz grew up in the house from “The Truman Show.”

Other legal nominees

Todd Blanche will serve as deputy attorney general, just below Gaetz in the org chart. Just below Gaetz in the org chart. He’s a former federal prosecutor best known as the defense attorney who represented Trump in the president’s 2024 felony hush money trial.

D. John Sauer will serve as solicitor general of the United States and report to the attorney general. Sauer and his office will argue the federal government’s side in Supreme Court cases involving the feds. He recently spent six years doing the same job for the state of Missouri.

Jay Clayton will serve as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) The DOJ's 94 U.S. attorneys are the federal government's top criminal prosecutors spread out in, yes, 94 districts across the country. His Trump 1.0 experience as the top Wall Street regulator will come in handy this time around — the SDNY includes Manhattan.

GOVERNMENT

👨‍⚖️ Now that Election Day has come and gone, Congress's lame-duck session is underway. Republicans may have won the majority. But the new members don't take office until January 3, so Senate Democrats are trying to squeeze in as many new federal judges as they can. They've confirmed three Biden-nominated judges so far this week and have two more teed up for tomorrow.

☢️ The Biden administration this week released a roadmap for tripling U.S. nuclear energy capacity by 2050. The U.S. currently produces 18% of its electricity using nuclear energy. Biden's plan includes new nuclear plants, upgrades to existing plants, and the restarting of retired plants as part of Biden's zero-emissions goal. The industry enjoys growing bipartisan support, including from President-elect Trump.

👽️ A House subcommittee held a very serious hearing on Wednesday. It's title? "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth." Former officials from NASA and the Department of Defense joined an independent journalist in confirming their belief that the federal government has been hiding E.T. in the basement for decades.

TRUMP

🤝 Trump hiring spree continues

President-elect Donald Trump isn’t slowing down with these nominations. Thankfully, he’ll have some help soon. Trump chose business exec and former Senate aide Sergio Gor to lead the Presidential Personnel Office.

Marco Rubio will serve as secretary of State. As the son of two Cuban immigrants, he’ll be the first Hispanic person to serve as America’s top diplomat. The highest-ranked Cabinet gig is a nice landing spot for the guy who juuust missed out on VP.

• As head of the State Department (aka "Foggy Bottom”), his primary mission will be to carry out Trump’s foreign policy vision. That’ll include overseeing all 194 U.S. embassies around the world.

• All those negotiations, peace deals, and official visits add up — Hillary Clinton traveled 956,733 in her four years on the job.

Rubio’s represented Florida in the Senate since 2011. He was seen as a rising star in the Republican Party at the time and briefly ran for president in 2016 before getting nuked out of orbit on live TV by Chris Christie.

• His career has since recovered and he’s risen to the upper ranks of the Senate’s Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees. Expect him to breeze through the confirmation process with at least some bipartisan support.

Tulsi Gabbard will serve as the director of national intelligence (DNI). The DNI oversees the eighteen intelligence agencies that together comprise the U.S. Intelligence Community. She’ll direct everything from the CIA to the Department of Energy’s in-house intel group. DNI is an awkward job, however, as most of those agencies are also part of other, much larger departments. And presidents often like going directly to the CIA chief for information.

• Gabbard represented Hawaii in the House as a Democrat until 2021 and became a Republican in 2024. Her unorthodox foreign policy views are likely to bring some bipartisan opposition in the Senate.

Doug Burgum will serve as secretary of the Interior. The Interior Department includes the National Park Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs. But it also controls a whopping 20% of the entire country’s land area, so many conservatives believe its regulations kill economic growth in areas like energy and mining.

• Burgum is the governor of North Dakota. As a result of selling his software company to Microsoft back in 2001, he’s casually worth about $1 billion.

Doug Collins will serve as secretary of Veterans Affairs. It's one of the less prestigious Cabinet gigs but also one of the most important. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is responsible for providing lifelong medical care to military vets at a huge network of government-run hospitals.

• Collins represented Georgia in the House from 2013 to 2021 and is currently a colonel in the Air Force Reserve.

POLITICS

🏛️ Goodbye 2024, hello 2028

California’s literally still not done counting the votes in the 2024 election, but the shadow primary for 2028 is underway. Ambitious Democrats like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg are quietly laying the groundwork for potential bids.

Back in 2024, We now know why Kamala Harris skipped out on doing Joe Rogan’s podcast last month. Senior political aide Jennifer Palmieri, an alum of Hillary Clinton's winning 2016 campaign, admitted that Team Harris was worried about "backlash with some of our progressive staff."

The U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania is headed for a recount. Republican Dave McCormick has been declared the winner by media outlets and is in D.C. for Senate orientation. He leads longtime Democratic Sen. Bob Casey by 0.4%, which is below the state’s 0.5% threshold for an automatic statewide recount. As expected, the lawsuits are already flying.

Senate Republicans elected Sen. John Thune (R-SD) as their next party leader. Thune, who was first elected in 2004, beat out Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Florida Man Sen. Rick Scott for the job despite a late push from Elon Musk & Co. in favor of Scott.

• Current Republican leader Mitch McConnell, 82, is stepping aside after a couple of awkward (and sad) health scares in which he just... froze in place for like 30 seconds mid-sentence.

• John Thune will take the reins as Senate majority leader when Republicans officially take control on January 3. The current majority leader, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), will get demoted to minority leader.

As majority leader, Thune will control when to end debates, what is voted on, and when it’s voted on.

TRIVIA

The final step in the presidential election process occurs on January 6, 2025, when Congress officially counts the Electoral College votes and announces the winner. Per the Constitution, Vice President Kamala Harris will preside. That could be a little awkward considering she’ll be announcing her own defeat. But she’s not the first VP to be stuck in that position. Who is the most recent vice president to preside over the counting of Electoral College votes and announce their own defeat in the presidential race?

Hint: It’s in the 21st century.

TRUMP

🩺 Donald Trump hires himself a Kennedy

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon will not be “invited to be a part” of the new Trump administration. Trump went ahead and pointed this out in a Truth Social post yesterday afternoon, you know, just in case anyone was wondering. He did, however, announce yet another real pick.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will serve as secretary of Health and Human Services. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a behemoth with an annual budget of nearly $1.8 trillion — nearly twice as much as second place. The vast majority of that is doled out to beneficiaries via the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The long list of other agencies RFK will oversee includes:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

• The National Institutes of Health (NIH)

• The Indian Health Service (IHS)

Kennedy is a lifelong Democrat and nephew of JFK who’s spent the bulk of his career as an environmental attorney who dabbles in whale heads, dead bears, and brain worms (who among us). He initially challenged President Biden for the Democratic nomination. That didn’t work out, so he ran as an independent. That also didn’t work out, so he endorsed Donald Trump. That seems to have worked out quite nicely (though his siblings aren’t fans of the move).

• His path to confirmation by the Senate could be tough, however. Despite his family legacy, many Democrats aren’t big fans of his vaccine skepticism. And some pro-life Republicans may balk at the pick.

• But many conservative senators are already on board, and he got some (non-Senate) Democratic support from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.

Kennedy’s theme lately has been “Make America Healthy Again.” He believes the food system is causing chronic health problems for millions of Americans. Trump, in his announcement, said RFK would attack the “harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives” that are allegedly causing these problems.

• This is his first nomination but Kennedy came close once before. Back in 2008, Barack Obama nearly asked him to lead the EPA.

If confirmed, he’ll be the first Kennedy to serve in a president’s Cabinet since his father, Robert F. Kennedy, Sr., served as attorney general under JFK. He almost landed a similar role once before.

BRIEFS

● CIA official Asif W. Rahman was arrested in Cambodia this week and indicted under the Espionage Act. Rahman is accused of leaking classified intel about Israel's military plans in Iran.

● European Union governments are fighting for creative solutions to brain drain as talented young people move away. The problem is made more difficult by where everyone is moving: other, better parts of the E.U.

● The Onion won conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s Infowars site at auction. Jones has to sell his assets after losing a defamation lawsuit brought by families of Sandy Hook victims. The Onion plans to turn Infowars into media industry satire.

● A federal appeals court upheld an Indiana law banning gender transition meds for minors. The decision comes as the Supreme Court prepares to hear a challenge to a similar law in Tennessee.

● The nonprofit March of Dimes released its annual report card for maternal and infant health. For the third year in a row, the U.S. earned a D+ due to a high amount of preterm births.

QUOTE

ANSWER

Back in January 2001, Vice President Al Gore presided over the electoral count and officially announced his own defeat in one of the closest elections in U.S. history. Probably not a fun moment for ole Albert there.