This summer at the Republican National Convention, the Trump campaign did an elaborate troll of Fox News that saw Donald Trump Jr. bring the exiled Tucker Carlson to a Fox appearance, making a number of Carlson’s old colleagues “clearly uncomfortable,” as NOTUS’ Reese Gorman reported at the time.
It was all part of a very public effort to tear down Fox News’ credibility with the MAGA set after months of frustration. Then-candidate Donald Trump posted in June that “Nobody can trust” Fox, and there was a broad feeling in Trumpworld that the network was backing Ron DeSantis in the primary. Trump Jr. had even claimed he’d been blocked from going on Fox until Sean Hannity stepped in.
That was then. Now, a Fox News gig — or at least regular appearances — seems to be the golden ticket into President-elect Trump’s cabinet.
What happened? A couple of us have been calling around a bit and stumbled on one narrative: Being on a TV network is much different than running a TV network in the minds of Trump and his circle. Trump has always maintained good relationships with the top on-air talent, one person close to the Trump campaign told NOTUS’ Jasmine Wright recently.
Trump also likes people who are willing to stand boldly (and often misinformed-ly) in the face of public health orthodoxy or social movements popular in the mainstream. Pete Hegseth isn’t just a handsome TV type, he’s also a guy who wrote a book saying the military has become dangerously woke. We heard from more than one person that nobody should be surprised that voices who easily espouse the MAGA mantra are getting picked.
Another person told Jasmine that bringing Fox back into the fold is all part of Trump’s choice to put formerly strident opponents like JD Vance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard into his inner circle once they recant. Trump is in “forgiveness mode,” this person said. But that doesn’t mean the days of trolling Fox News are over.
“Forget is different,” the insider said. “He don’t forget shit.”
—Evan McMorris-Santoro
Lawmakers Hope Elon’s Space Priorities Take Flight With Trump
Speaking of Trumpworld, lawmakers are hoping that a certain influential Mar-a-Lago regular will help give the U.S. space program a much-needed liftoff, NOTUS’ Mark Alfred reports.
“We don’t have a space program that’s worth anything,” said Rep. Rich McCormick, a Republican on the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee. “I’m very thankful for people like Elon Musk. We used to be the innovative country that was leading the world. Now we have to rely on the private industry to keep us competitive.”
To give Musk a boost, Rep. Kevin Kiley is proposing legislation that would help the world’s richest man cut through some red tape. While in Texas last week to watch SpaceX’s fifth Starship test flight, he announced a bill to stop the FAA from regulating spaceflight, full stop.
Some lawmakers have already raised concerns about Musk’s business conflicts of interest while he co-captains the Department of Government Efficiency. But given that Musk recently declared that Starship will “make life multiplanetary,” there’s plenty of reason to believe he’ll pay special attention to spaceflight regulation.
Front Page
- Republicans and Democrats Hope for a Crumb of AI Legislation Before Trump Takes Office: There’s a last-ditch effort to make some progress on AI regulation.
- Two Florida Special Elections Will Test the Power of MAGA in Trump’s Second Term: The special elections in two red House districts to replace Mike Waltz and Matt Gaetz will take place shortly after Trump returns to the White House.
- The CBC Sees Trump’s Mass Deportation Promises as an Affront to Black Americans: The caucus is uniquely concerned about how Trump’s immigration policies will hit Black communities.
Alvin Bragg’s Next Move
It turns out that Alvin Bragg’s best chance at preserving Trump’s felony conviction is to hope nothing happens. Former prosecutors tell NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery that the Manhattan DA’s hands are tied: If Trump gets sentenced, it will almost certainly end up at the Supreme Court, which has been Trump-friendly of late. The best bad option for Bragg is to hope Trump forgets about this one, leaving the jury’s guilty verdict intact.
“And that’s as good as we’re going to get,” former prosecutor John Moscow said, noting that demanding Trump be sentenced is nothing but a fool’s errand. “If you’re the DA, you have to wonder about the precedential value of having a higher court overturn this conviction. If you don’t sentence him, they can’t.”
Dems Formalize Fighting Among Themselves
While Democrats are still wrapping their heads around the last election, they’re also bracing themselves for the first real fight over the party’s future.
The DNC set its new leadership elections for January, and party members told NOTUS’ Calen Razor they are looking for major changes from the next leader. We’re hearing the top sticking points include:
- More transparency over the national budget and how it’s being spent
- A platform that seeks to retain party loyalists who are drifting from the party
- A willingness to shake up the status quo, especially as the party continues to wrestle with fallout from Joe Biden’s campaign
As Democratic strategist Raj Goyle summed it all up: “This is not a nip and tuck kind of moment.”
Number You Should Know
$1.5 billion
That’s the boost that the domestic steel industry saw annually between 2018 and 2021 due to tariffs imposed during the first Trump administration, according to a report from the U.S. International Trade Commission. The aluminum industry saw a $1.3 billion jump. The same tariffs, however, are estimated to have caused a slow in production for other American industries, such as machinery manufacturing, by $3.4 billion annually, on average.
But as Trump rolls out his new 25% blanket tariff plan on Mexico and Canada, NOTUS’ Haley Byrd Wilt and Reese Gorman report that Republican lawmakers are insistent the pros will still outweigh the cons.
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.
- House GOP Strategy to Freeze $20.2B in IRS Funding Is Paying Off by Cady Stanton and Doug Sword at Tax Notes
- Despite warnings from bird flu experts, it’s business as usual in California dairy country by Susanne Rust and Melissa Gomez at the Los Angeles Times
- Email Leaked to HuffPost Shows State Department Anxiety About Leaks to HuffPost by Akbar Shahid Ahmed at HuffPost
Be Social: NOTUS’ Hottest Thanksgiving Takes
Since you’re already preparing to field your family’s hot political takes this week, we at NOTUS thought we’d offer a different controversial conversation starter.
We polled the newsroom about their most shocking (read: terrible) Thanksgiving opinions and uncovered some truly jaw-dropping positions.
Here are the top three from our newsroom. (Editor’s note: These are not the official positions of NOTUS or the Allbritton Journalism Institute.)
- “I have a real issue with fruit pies in general, the filling makes the bottom crust very soggy almost no matter what.” —NOTUS reporter and AJI fellow Nuha Dolby
- “Stuffing was originally meant to be thrown out for the farm animals to eat and it still should be.” —NOTUS reporter and AJI fellow John T. Seward
- “All Thanksgiving food is bad! Literally every dish. Turkey is so dry. Yams with marshmallows is so horribly sweet. Casserole in all forms is bad. And cranberry out of a can?? Don’t get me started.” —NOTUS reporter and AJI fellow Katherine Swartz
Katherine was given a chance to retract these statements. “I have no shame,” she responded.
Tell Us Your Thoughts
What is your hottest Thanksgiving take?
Send your thoughts to newsletters@notus.org.
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