Good morning! Jelly Roll, Kid Rock, the guy from “The Apprentice”, a conservative Southern Baptist, the weird Kennedy, and the guy trying to die on Mars walk into a room. No, it’s not the intro to a joke. It’s how the president-elect and his pals spent their weekend. Donald Trump & Co. attended UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Saturday night.

Trump gave podcaster UFC announcer Joe Rogan a hug, everybody danced to “YMCA,” winning fighter Jon Jones gave Trump his title belt, and the gang took some selfies that seem to be the bizarro 2024 versions of that weird Ellen pic from the Oscars that one time. Never a dull moment.

In other news, Betty White is getting a stamp next year and scammers are getting scammed by an AI granny.

TRUMP

🪙 Fight for Treasury ramps up as Trump staffs up

Donald Trump’s hiring spree shows no signs of slowing down. He’s got two dozen Cabinet officials to pick, even more White House staffers to hire, and even more sub-Cabinet jobs to fill. After all, the administrator of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation ain’t going to hire himself.

Not everyone who gets name-dropped by the media will get picked. Sometimes the buzz itself is the real reward, though. There’s no better way to signal your private-sector value than by getting the New York Times to mention you as a possible secretary of Something-or-Other.

Chris Wright will serve as secretary of Energy. Despite its name, the Department of Energy (DOE) is primarily focused on managing the U.S.’s nuclear weapons stockpile. But it does oversee tons of energy-related research and doles out billions in loans for energy projects.

• Wright is an MIT grad, the CEO of a fracking company, and a board member of a nuclear energy company.

• Liberals won’t like his position on climate change. But Wright calls himself an environmentalist and believes making energy more affordable for the poor is the first step in solving the “climate challenge.”

Steven Cheung will serve as White House director of communications. From just down the hall from the Oval Office, Cheung will oversee the administration's media strategy, speechwriting team, and press team.

• Cheung held the same role for the 2024 campaign. His 20-year career in politics has included stints with then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and in the OG Trump administration.

Karoline Leavitt will serve as White House press secretary. Cheung’s the boss, but Leavitt will be the public face on TV holding those daily press briefings. At 27, the new mom and Trump 2024 spokesperson will be the youngest press secretary in U.S. history.

Will Scharf will serve as White House staff secretary. His office is low-key but influential. It controls communications and paper flow through the White House and decides what ends up on the president’s desk.

• Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh held this job from ‘03 to ‘06 before being appointed to the federal bench.

• Scharf is a Harvard Law grad and former federal prosecutor who lost a bid for attorney general of Missouri in 2022. Sometimes losing really is winning.

Future: With most of Trump’s announced hires either White House staffers or national security-focused roles, his economic team remains empty. The internal fight for control of the Treasury Department is likely a contributing factor there.

GOVERNMENT

💰️ The Department of Government of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Trump's new Musk-led advisory commission on cutting waste, has its eyes on the Department of Defense (DoD). Some of that might be found in "cost-plus" contracts that guarantee a set profit for the outside companies that build equipment like Navy ships. If they blow the budget, the government picks up the tab. On a totally unrelated note, the DoD on Friday failed its seventh financial audit in a row. The largest federal agency isn’t quite sure where exactly its $824 billion budget is going.

⚡ President-elect Donald Trump announced the creation of the National Energy Council. The group will "oversee a path to U.S. energy dominance by cutting red tape" and "focusing on innovation" instead of "unnecessary" regulations. Incoming Energy Secretary Chris Wright will be a member and incoming Interior Secretary Doug Burgum will serve as chair. No other members have been announced but expect more Cabinet secretaries and agency heads. Similar bodies, like the National Security Council and the National Economic Council, exist to help coordinate policy across diverse arms of the government.

🇨🇳 At an economic summit in Peru on Saturday, President Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the last time. Xi — Chinese last names come first — was focused on the future, however, and said China is "ready to work with" Trump to improve the unsteady U.S.-China relationship. But Xi isn’t the only world leader prepping for a new administration. The European Union is bracing for potential tariffs and wants to buy more American energy. Some Trump allies, meanwhile, believe Iran is suddenly trying to play nice.

CABINET

☑️ Avoid Senate confirmation fights with this one weird trick

As with any president, Donald Trump wants his Cabinet picks to get the jobs. But they’ll have to win approval from a majority of the Senate first. While Republicans will control the chamber, just four Republican “no” votes will be enough to sink a nominee assuming unified Democratic opposition. Some picks, like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will have to overcome hefty ideological disagreements. Others have personal problems.

Pete Hegseth: The Defense Department nominee is under fire for two religious tattoos — one a Latin phrase and one a Jerusalem cross. Some claim both are associated with white nationalists but JD Vance called that “anti-Christian bigotry.”

• Hegseth in 2020 paid off a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017. His lawyer said that was done so Hegseth wouldn't lose his job and called the claim extortion.

Matt Gaetz: The road to confirmation is long for the potential attorney general due to pre-existing scandals and his poor relationships with congressional Republicans. Trump reportedly made the pick in haste but is all-in on seeing Gaetz confirmed. Despite this, some sources indicate that most Senate Republicans oppose the nomination.

• House Speaker Mike Johnson says the unreleased House Ethics Committee report on Gaetz should stay that way (standard procedure since Gaetz resigned from Congress). But some Republican senators want to see the report.

What’s the best way for Trump to avoid watching his nominees go down in flames in the Senate? Skip the Senate altogether.

Back in ye olden days, Congress often only met for a few months each year. With high-level presidential appointments like Cabinet officials and judges needing the Senate’s approval, that could be… a problem. Thankfully, the Constitution allows presidential appointees to take office immediately when Congress is on a break — no Senate required.

• Per the Supreme Court, a recess is only a recess if Congress is out for at least 10 days straight.

• To avoid this, a few members from both houses of Congress typically clock in for a few minutes during breaks.

Donald Trump wants to use these so-called “recess appointments” to push his picks through without the Senate’s input. Getting the Senate on board with that might prove difficult. But Trump might have the authority to adjourn the Senate himself — if the House goes along with the plan.

• Recess appointments aren’t rare historically, but the Senate has never voluntarily adjourned itself to allow for them.

In other political news… Kamala Harris is still raising money to cover her campaign debt. The “gold-standard” political poll was so bad this year that its creator quit the business. New Jersey’s weird, off-year, 2025 race for governor is already underway. Liberal ballot measures went down in flames this year. And some House Democrats think former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has overstayed her welcome.

TRIVIA

When he rides off into the sunset in January, President Biden will close out a long, long, loooong career in politics. But it had to begin at some point. In what century year was Joe Biden first elected to public office?

Hint: Richard Nixon was president at the time.

BRIEFS

● Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt plans to turn over the "526 illegal immigrants" sitting in Oklahoma state prisons to the feds for deportation when Trump takes office. Stitt says these inmates cost the state $13 million per year and shouldn’t be here.

● The CDC over the weekend confirmed the first U.S. case of the more severe strain of mpox. The California resident, who recently traveled to the site of an ongoing outbreak in East Africa, is in good shape and is isolating at home.

● Days after a similar incident in Haiti, a bullet struck a Southwest flight as it prepared to take off. Nobody was hurt but 100 people were probably really annoyed. Dallas police are investigating.

● President Biden for the first time authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied weapons to strike deep inside Russia. Meanwhile, Ukraine's president says he wants to end the war in 2025 through "diplomatic means."

● U.S. officials claim an Israeli attack on Iran in October destroyed an active Iranian nuclear weapons research facility. Over in Lebanon, a strike in Beirut killed a key Hezbollah terrorist leader and the government is considering a U.S.-backed ceasefire.

● Turns out nobody watches cable news. CNN plans to lay off hundreds of staff as it manages just 85,000 viewers in primetime in the key 25-54 demographic. Next door, MSNBC’s only getting 77,000. For its part, Fox News landed 568,000.

QUOTE

ANSWER

He’s spent the past four years as president. Before that, he was out of office for four years. Before that, he spent eight years as VP. Before that, he spent a cool 36 years in the U.S. Senate. And finally, before that, he spent two years on his local county council. He was elected to that post way back in 1970.

Biden was so young when he started out that when he was elected to the Senate in 1972, he wasn’t even old enough to take office. He turned 30 a few weeks after Election Day, though, so it was all good.