House Ethics Committee Will Not Release Its Report on Matt Gaetz

There were a couple of interesting developments relating to Matt Gaetz yesterday. First, during a hearing, the House Ethics Committee was shown 27 PayPal and Venmo payments from Gaetz to two witnesses totalling over $10,000. The witnesses said that some of the payments were for sex. This was a brave thing for them to say since prostitution is illegal everywhere in the U.S. except a couple of counties in Nevada.

Then, the Committee voted against releasing its report on Gaetz, with all the Republicans on the evenly divided Committee voting against release. Chairman Michael Guest (R-MS) told reporters: "There was not an agreement to release the report" and then scooted off. Ranking member Susan Wild (D-PA) gave reporters a different story. She said: "There was no consensus on the issue." Sources said that the Committee would continue its work and take up the issue again in December.

Meanwhile, Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) said he will introduce a privileged motion to try to force the Ethics Committee to release the report. Under House rules, the House would have to consider the motion within 2 days. Of course, the Republicans have a majority in the current House and the next one, so they could simply vote down the motion.

To a considerable extent, the damage has already been done. Unless they were hiding under a rock all week, every senator now knows that: (1) Gaetz paid two women for sex and (2) he had sex with a minor. It is not clear if one of the women he paid was a minor, but from a political perspective, it doesn't really matter if his sex with a minor was paid or not. It is still statutory rape, with or without prostitution on top of it.

Even more senators are now coming out against Gaetz. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) yesterday said: "I think it's an extremely difficult path. In fact, I just don't see a path forward at this point." That's a "no" vote and it doesn't sound like he is open to being talked out of it (but see next item). (V)

Vance Has a New Job...

Vice president? That comes later, on Jan. 20. Besides, it isn't a job, it's a spare part. No, Donald Trump has assigned Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) actual work: He is a lobbyist. His job is to cajole recalcitrant senators into voting to confirm nominees who are totally unqualified for the positions to which they have nominated and who, in some cases, are expected (and determined) to destroy the agencies they would lead if confirmed. It's not an easy sell. If cajoling doesn't work, Vance can switch modes and start threatening them. That might do it.

Nominees aside, Vance has been in the Senate, a body that reveres seniority, for fewer than 2 years. In addition, he is very Trumpy (which is not appreciated by all the senators), populist, anti-Ukraine, and somewhat arrogant and abrasive. Some of his views, including those on childless women, do not sit well with most other senators.

Nevertheless, his assignment is to get his Senate colleagues to vote for Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, Robert Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and a bunch of other people completely unprepared for the jobs they have been given. Gaetz, in particular, will be an especially tough sell for Sens.-elect Tim Sheehy (R-MT) and John Curtis (R-UT) because Gaetz actively campaigned against them in the Republican primaries. Politicians tend not to forget that. So far, only one senator has listened to Vance and then come out in favor of Gaetz: Sen.-elect Bernie Moreno (R-OH). In a complete coincidence, Vance backed Moreno in the primary. Some of the others have questioned Gaetz' suitablility for AG while others have remained silent. Vance has his work cut out for him. If he fails and some of Trump's nominees are either rejected or forced to withdraw before a vote, Vance is going to get the blame. That may not work out well for him. He's lucky Trump can't fire the VP. Also, Vance probably knows how to fight back. He could tell Trump: "My favorite Amendment is the Second Amendment, but the Twenty-Fifth Amendment is the runner-up." (V)

...But He is Forgetting His Current One

Even though he is vice president-elect, J.D. Vance is still a senator and will continue to be until he resigns. If Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) decides on a replacement to appoint to Vance's seat before Jan. 3, 2025, the new senator could be sworn in before then and he or she will have more seniority than the five new senators to be sworn in on Jan. 3. Presumably, if DeWine tells Vance he has picked a replacement, Vance will resign immediately. But until Vance resigns, he is still a senator.

Turns out, that matters. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is racing to confirm as many judges as possible before Christmas, when the senators want to go home. The Democrats have 51 seats, but they often can't count on outgoing Sens. Joe Manchin (R-WV) and Krysten Sinema (I-AZ). If both of them vote against some nominee and so do all the Republicans, the nomination will fail 51-49.

However, this is where Vance (and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL) play a role. They have been missing all Senate votes since Trump picked them for their new jobs. This means the Republicans can muster only 47 votes against nominees. If the Democrats can get 49, that's enough to confirm judges without Manchin and Sinema. On a vote to confirm, the Democrats do not need a majority of all the senators, only a majority of those present and voting, so 49-47 does the job.

Republicans are furious at Vance (and Rubio) for not showing up for work and thus allowing Schumer to ram 10, 20, maybe 30 judges through. If they showed up and voted "no,"" those positions might remain open for Trump to fill. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) went public with this issue. He said: "If we don't show up, we lose. I don't care what the reasons were. We have fewer than 15 scheduled legislative days. You have to show up. Period. End of story. There's nothing more important." Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) expressed his frustration in a numerical way: "On a scale of 1 to 10, it is a 12."

On Tuesday, Embry Kidd was confirmed on a party-line vote for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He is he only the second Black man confirmed on any appellate court in the past 10 years. He is only 40, so he could easily serve for another 40+ years. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) was absent, so if all the Republicans had shown up, they could have blocked Kidd. Even with Fetterman present, it would have been a tie and Kamala Harris is in Hawaii right now and thus not available to break ties. She isn't any better than Vance and Rubio. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was none too happy with Kidd's confirmation. He said the people of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia "will suffer the consequences" [of a Black judge on the 11th Circuit Court]. (V)

Politics Makes for Strange Bedfellows

Nominations are not the only hot potatoes that Donald Trump is tossing at Congress. There are plenty of others. Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) are going to be the Democrats' top targets in 2026. Collins represents a blue state, Tillis is from a purple state. Although Trump carried North Carolina, Democrats were elected governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and superintendent of public instruction, so Democrats can definitely win statewide there. Both of the senators know that every vote they take on Trump's nominations could provide fodder for ads in 2026, so they will have to weigh their votes very carefully.

But other senators up in 2026, even those from deep red states, will also have to think carefully before voting blindly for all of Trump's nominees and bills. For example, will Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Steve Daines (R-MT) vote for tariffs on Chinese products (assuming Trump doesn't try to bypass Congress)? Those tariffs will create retaliatory tariffs that will bankrupt many farmers in their states. Do Rounds and Daines want to have to defend their votes in 2026?

What will Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) do when Trump orders ICE to deport illegal immigrants and ICE raids farms and businesses all over Texas, arresting all the brown people, some of whom are U.S. citizens, and puts them in internment camps for deportation with no due process? Those citizens may have friends and families who get to vote in 2026 and Democrats might just try to make hay (or alfalfa) from Cornyn's vote.

In short, many Republican senators up in 2026 will face dilemmas over and over in the next year. They may have to (repeatedly) choose between what Trump wants and face the music in the midterms, when the president's party usually gets hit hard, or abandon Trump, join with the Democrats (and their own constituents) and face a primary against an opponent supported by Trump.

These considerations could lead to odd alliances. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) might join forces concerning pork (literally), albeit for different reasons. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and former CIA agent and Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) are actually probably on the same page about national security and might work together to block the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard for DNI. There are likely to be more. Fundamentally, a lot of what Trump wants is not good for some senators' constituents, and the Democrats are surely going to try to peel votes away from Trump using the argument that senators who vote against their own constituents' interests do so at their own peril. (V)

A Cabinet of Vipers

The first Republican president famously had a cabinet consisting of a team of rivals. The next Republican president is busily outdoing Abraham Lincoln by assembling a team of vipers. Members of Lincoln's cabinet were merely jealous of each other. Members of Donald Trump's cabinet have completely different views of what is important about their jobs and the world. It will probably not be all smooth sailing.

The cabinet picks so far fall into three groups, as follows:

• MAGAts: Matt Gaetz, if confirmed, would try to burn down the DoJ—or what is left of it after all the senior lawyers quit in disgust. Then Donald Trump and his buddies would know that no matter what laws they broke, the eviscerated DoJ probably wouldn't come after them, and even if it did, it would be too weak to get convictions. Pete Hegseth wants to wage war on the Pentagon, eliminating generals whose cultural views don't align with his master's and reducing the role of women in the military. After all, piloting a drone is man's work. Border Czar Tom Homan and immigration "expert" Stephen Miller would crack down on immigrants and deport millions of them. All of these people are true-blue MAGA worshippers.
  
  
• Conservatives: The first Trump administration was stocked with normal conservative Republicans, both generals and civilians. Think: Jim Mattis, Steven Muchin, and John Bolton. Trump will be careful not to have too many of them this time, although he has already picked a few, including Marco Rubio, and Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Michael Waltz (R-FL). These people are all defense hawks. They want to project U.S. power around the world. That could be a major source of tension, as the MAGAts want to pull up the drawbridge and withdraw from the world. If the world burns, that's the world's problem, not theirs. If Putin wants to incorporate Ukraine into Russia, all the more power to him. And if he wants Poland and East Germany back, that's their problem.
  
  
• Renegade Democrats: Elon Musk, Robert Kennedy Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard are loose cannons. They each have their own agenda. They could easily clash with the MAGAts. Gabbard is an isolationist who thinks Rubio is a warmonger. They'll get along just peachy. Who knows, Trump might even get the idea of televising cabinet meetings as a reality show with the officers battling each other for supremacy.

None of these groups have any respect for the others. On top of that, there will be the usual rivalries. The first two groups will despise Musk for buying his way into Trump's inner circle and for his likely conflicts of interest. He plans to gut the government, but it is a safe bet that those parts of the government that give his companies big fat contracts will somehow be magically spared. It could be a rough ride. (V)

Republicans Can't Decide If They Want to Punt

The current government budget runs out on Dec. 20. If Congress does nothing, the government will shut down just before Christmas. Grinch-oriented Republicans would love that, but many of the others are afraid they might hear from their constituents about things like no Social Security checks, etc. In theory, Congress could put together a final budget, instead of just kicking the can down the road a few weeks each time, but Republicans can't agree on what they want. Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, wants to stop these games and pass an actual budget by then. So does the ranking Democrat, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT).

But other Republicans want a short delay until February or March so Donald Trump can take a sledgehammer to the budget. The problem there is that the budget is always a battle due to the Freedom Caucus. Trump will have so much other stuff on his plate in February that a lengthy fight over the budget could distract him from immigration and other priorities. These Republicans are willing to have one more year of Biden's budget and give Trump a year to come up with his own. For them, the other stuff is more important.

Arch-conservative Republicans are worried about being forced to approve yet another budget at the point of a gun, as has happened so many times. They want a continuing resolution until March, so they can work their magic on Trump and get him to wipe out whole chunks of government by simply removing all their funding. If funding for, say, the Dept. of Education went to zero in the new budget, they wouldn't have to have a massive fight trying to eliminate it and then fail due to a Senate filibuster. Just defund it and keep it around with no personnel. Then Secretary Linda McMahon could just sit around in her lovely office watching reruns of old wrestling matches or something.

FC Chair Andy Harris (R-MD) wants to include a provision in the budget to require all voters to show government-issued photo ID in order to vote. The problem with that is that to prevent the Senate Democrats from filibustering the budget, it has to be done by the budget reconciliation process. Under those rules, budget bills can't contain items that are not primarily budget related. If the Republicans try, the Senate parliamentarian would probably order that provision to be stripped. That is a fight that other Republicans don't want now.

So, there are at least possible Christmas presents from Congress:

1. A full budget for the next fiscal year.
2. A continuing resolution until February or March.
3. A government shutdown just before Christmas.

All of them are plausible. No one really wants #3, but that could be the consequence if the Republicans want to go to the mattresses on this. And remember, the Democrats control the Senate until Jan. 3 and are not going to accept a bill that guts the government. They would prefer that if that is going to happen, that Trump be president when it happens so he gets the full blame for it. (V)

Cue the Trade War

Donald Trump has often said that "tariff" is his favorite word and he intends to say it a lot as soon as he is in office. He will hit China hard, but also Europe, which exports more to the U.S. than it imports. The E.U. is well aware of Trump's plans and is making its own plans to respond when Trump pulls the trigger. Last time Trump did this, the E.U. levied highly focused tariffs carefully designed to hurt specific companies in specific states that could pressure Trump. For example, Harley-Davidson motorcycles were targeted because they are made in Wisconsin, a key swing state. Also, these tariffs quickly turned Paul Ryan, who is from Wisconsin, into an anti-tariff person. The effect of the tariffs was to reduce the sale of Harleys in Europe from 44,000 pre-tariff to 27,000 post-tariff. The cheapest Harley is about $13,000 and the most expensive one is about $150,000, so the loss is serious money. The E.U. also put tariffs on bourbon—not because so much bourbon is imported but because it comes from Kentucky, and the E.U. figured that the folks who make it might just have a chat with then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Ursula von der Leyen was recently reelected as the president of the European Commission. She is a big proponent of carefully targeted retaliatory tariffs. But before levying any, she would drag Trump to the World Trade Organization for adjudication. The WTO has no real power, but a loss there would give Trump a black eye internationally and might cue other countries to action.

In addition to tariffs, which are very visible and thus political, the E.U. could erect some technical barriers to trade. These often relate to product safety and product labeling. One dilly is the European deforestation regulation, which requires that imported agricultural and food products, such as wood, palm oil, soya, and cattle, must not be produced in a way that way that increases worldwide deforestation during their production process. Proving that your product does not cause deforestation is not easy. Nevertheless, it can stop products at the border more effectively than a tariff and if invoked, environmental groups will support the measure, whereas nearly all U.S. industries will oppose above-the-board tariffs.

Another weapon that can be used is procurement. When European governments need some product, they have to put out a request for bids. They can include a requirement that a certain percentage of the product be produced in the E.U. For example, a requirement that airplanes must have 30% or 50% European content would eliminate Boeing from most tenders. There are plenty of other tricks like this available and the E.U. is ready to use them if need be.

China generally doesn't play this kind of game. It just slaps a retaliatory tariff on U.S. products. For example, last time around, China put a tariff on soybeans that resulted in a huge loss to U.S. farmers when soybeans from Brazil became cheaper than American ones, despite the more efficient U.S. agriculture. American farmers lost a huge amount of money, but Trump was able to get Congress to pony up $28 billion in free money to rescue the farmers. With Congress trying to slash the budget now, getting enough votes in the House to bail out farmers again might not be so easy. (V)

Have Some Chips

Donald Trump famously opposes everything Barack Obama or Joe Biden did, even if it helps his base. In particular, the CHIPS Act, which provides $50 billion for companies to build semiconductor manufacturing plants in the U.S. would create many good-paying factory jobs in the U.S. that do not require a college degree. Trump wants to kill the program—because it was Biden's idea.

Consequently, Biden has instructed Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to go on a spending spree and spend all the money before Trump takes office. Once she has signed legally binding contracts with Intel, Micron, Samsung and other companies to build factories in the U.S. paid for in part by the U.S. government, it would be both legally and politically difficult for Trump to cancel them. Imagine a big ceremony somewhere at which Raimondo and the state's governor celebrate the deal to build a big factory in the state that will create some large number of direct jobs (at the factory) and indirect jobs (construction jobs building the factory, housing for the new factory workers, etc.). Lots of publicity ensues. Then a few months later Trump cancels the project. Probably even more publicity and not good publicity for Trump.

Raimondo's task now is to negotiate iron-clad contracts and pay the companies in advance so Trump will have a very difficult time undoing them. Once the money has been disbursed and the companies have hired architects, contractors, and others to start the planning, they will not give the money back easily, and the courts will back them up. "I want to destroy Biden's legacy" is not likely to impress the courts.

Building chip factories in the U.S. has another advantage besides job creation. It will lessen the U.S. dependence on chips made abroad, especially Taiwan and China. Thus, the Act also becomes a national security issue. If Trump tries to effectively kill the Act by not disbursing the funds appropriated in it, he will also have to fight off the national security hawks within the Republican Party. He is not going to want that fight in addition to all the others on tap. (V)

Young Americans Are Increasingly Getting Their News from Right-Wing Influencers

Once upon a time, in a land quite close by, people got their news from newspapers and broadcast television stations. For many people, those days are long gone. Among Americans 18-29, fully 40% get their news from online influencers and podcasters. For example, Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper typically have ca. 10 million listeners per podcast. By way of contrast, the biggest five newspapers in the U.S. by number of subscribers are The New York Times (8.8 million subscribers), The Wall Street Journal (3.1 million), The Washington Post (2.5 million), USA Today (2.0 million), and The Los Angeles Times (500,000). The papers also sell individual copies at newsstands, but those sales are 10-20% of the total at most. In other words, major podcasters rival or exceed all newspapers, and young people don't read newspapers.

A study of 500 popular news influencers shows that 63% are men, most have no background with news organizations, and more lean Republican than Democratic (27% to 21%). Half are nonpartisan. Nearly 85% are on eX-Twitter and 50% are on Instagram. The idea that social media sites ban conservatives is thus nonsense.

Social media influencers and podcasters differ from newspapers in a key way. Newspapers have items marked "news" and items marked "opinion" and they are distinct. Influencers and podcasters mix the two without distinguishing what is fact and what is opinion.

Donald Trump understood this shift better than Kamala Harris and used social media and influencers more than she did. He was also backstopped by Elon Musk, the owner of eX-Twitter, who spread lies and disinformation that was viewed over 2 billion times. (V)

New Jersey Governor's Race Heats Up

In odd-numbered years, political junkies are in the wilderness. There is not a lot on the menu then, other than a race for mayor here, a couple of local elections there. Fortunately, in years that match 4n +1, for some integer n, the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections provide some relief. Virginia is always interesting because the Commonwealth bans governors from a second consecutive term and both parties regularly win the governor's mansion in Richmond. New Jersey, a deep blue state, is usually a snoozer.

Not this year. So far, six Democrats and four Republicans are already in the race. Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, said: "It's going to be an epic battle for the ages." The Democrats are Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, former Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller and former state Sen. Steve Sweeney. On the Republican side, the contenders are State Sen. Jon Bramnick, former state Sen. Ed Durr, former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, and conservative radio host Bill Spadea.

Sherrill and Gottheimer are the best known of the bunch statewide. New Jersey is a blue state, but Donald Trump did better in New Jersey than in previous years, getting 46% of the vote (vs. 41% in 2020). The last time a Republican was elected governor of New Jersey was in 2014, when Chris Christie was reelected, but given the rightward movement of the whole country on Nov. 5, the general election could be competitive. (V)

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