The Hill

Lawmakers in both parties are generally offering support for President Biden’s decision to authorize a major shift in U.S. policy to allow Ukraine to use long-range U.S. missiles to attack sites in Russia.

The escalatory move came less than two weeks after President-elect Trump defeated Vice President Harris in the presidential election. The incoming president’s most vocal supporters on Capitol Hill have been much less enthusiastic to support Ukraine, and Donald Trump Jr. suggested Biden’s decision could trigger a third world war. 

But key figures in both parties said they thought the stronger U.S. policy was to back Ukraine’s ability to attack the Kremlin forces in Russia, particularly now that North Korean troops have also arrived on the scene. 

“It’s high time we do this and help Ukraine push [Russia] back and be victorious,” Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.) said. 

Republicans say the move came too late. 

“Better late than never, but it was late,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “I’ve been urging the administration to untie their hands for two years, and every weapons system they drag their feet and then they finally approve it. … Let them use everything we’re giving them. Stop putting restrictions on them.” 

The policy change spurred Moscow to lower the threshold for nuclear weapons use, renewing fears of a serious escalation in the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin updated his nuclear doctrine Tuesday to say an attack on Russia with conventional weapons from a nonnuclear state, but with the support of a nuclear-armed state, would be considered a joint attack.

That could trigger a nuclear response, the Kremlin said, as Putin appears to be issuing a major threat to the U.S. and Western allies. 

Rep. Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he was not worried about the bolder strategy, faulting Russia for ratcheting up the war by deploying North Korean troops.

“The escalation’s on the other side,” Meeks said. “So now to have the ability to go and take those weapons out, so they can stop the shooting at Ukraine — indiscriminately — is the right thing to do.“ 

But Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) sounded a more cautious note. 

“The administration should not take that as saber-rattling,” he said. “They should take the very serious elevation of a nuclear threat posture as a very serious threat.”

Biden on Sunday authorized Ukraine to use the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) inside Russia, though the White House has yet to publicly confirm the approval.  

ATACMS, which can strike at targets up to 190 miles away, will give Ukraine a much-needed edge, allowing Kyiv to hit critical ammunition depots and approaching troops. Ukraine has asked for the long-range missiles to hit inside of Russia since at least 2022 and increased lobbying for the capability in the past few months.

On Tuesday, Ukraine used the ATACMS for the first time in Russia, hitting an ammunition depot in Bryansk, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. 

Such missile strikes may also prove critical in Kursk, where Russian and North Korean troops are working to dislodge Ukrainian forces that took swaths of the territory in Russia in a surprise August attack. 

Trump has said he would end the war by the time he takes office Jan. 20. The ATACMS policy will give Ukraine more leverage in the expected negotiations, lawmakers say.

That’s because Russia has pounded Ukrainian troops on the battlefield for the past year-and-a-half and is slowly gaining more territory in eastern Ukraine, although Russian forces have also suffered heavy losses. 

“In a month-and-a-half, you’re going to have a new president, and Russia will probably sue for peace,” Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said. “So let them defend themselves, punch Russia back in the face.  

“Putin has a light at the end of the tunnel where he can save face. He’s not going to start a nuclear war with all of Europe and the United States when he knows in a month-and-a-half now, you’re going to have a new leadership.” 

But many of Trump’s biggest supporters on Capitol Hill have long called for an end to U.S. assistance to Ukraine and the war, and they are upset about the shift on ATACMS. 

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), Trump’s pick for national security adviser, said Monday on Fox News that it was “another step up the escalation ladder.” 

Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), who does not support more security funding for Ukraine, said the ATACMS move was a “continual escalation in the wrong direction.” 

“Biden is going to do what Biden’s done the last four years, which is destroy the country, destroy our position on the world stage, try and weaken us in every way when it comes to negotiations, to make it more difficult for President Trump to go ahead and focus on the ‘America First’ agenda,” he said. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he supported lifting the ATACMS restrictions because it could “lead to a diplomatic breakthrough,” but he also accused Biden of being “shallow” and trying to stymie Trump. 

“He’s trying to put Trump in a box,” Graham said, adding it was “odd that he decided to do this right after the election. … I just think that this was something he should have done to help Ukraine, and he’s playing politics with it. And I think that’s a crappy thing to do.” 

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said she was worried “about this last-minute shift in policy before Trump comes in to defuse the situation.” 

“I don’t understand the abrupt change in foreign policy on this matter. It’s concerning to me,” she said. “We all want Ukraine to win, but Trump’s going to be the new leader of the free world.” 

Critics fear Trump will give up territory in eastern Ukraine seized by Russia since the 2022 invasion. They have also pointed to his close relations with Putin, with Trump reportedly having called the Russian leader seven times since leaving office. 

But Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) argued Trump would not “hamstring Ukraine” in the negotiations. 

“He’s going to look at President Putin, who he’s met with,” he said, “and who he has both respect and a willingness to be tough with and give him a choice: Come to the table now, or we have to back Ukraine in a way that keeps you from getting further advantage. That’s the implied support.” 

Mike Lillis contributed.

President-elect Trump said Tuesday he is nominating television personality and doctor Mehmet Oz to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator. 

Oz unsuccessfully ran for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022 and has been Trump ally ever since.  

“There may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again,” Trump said in a statement, referring to the slogan pioneered by Robert F. Kennedy Jr, his nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.  

“Dr. Oz will be a leader in incentivizing Disease Prevention, so we get the best results in the World for every dollar we spend on Healthcare in our Great Country,” Trump said. “He will also cut waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive Government Agency, which is a third of our Nation’s Healthcare spend, and a quarter of our entire National Budget.” 

Like Kennedy, Oz has no experience running a massive bureaucracy. CMS operates Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the federal Healthcare.gov ObamaCare exchange. 

Medicaid covers nearly 80 million low-income people across all 50 states and D.C.  

Vice President-elect JD Vance (R-Ohio) revealed the Trump team is interviewing candidates to lead the FBI, a sign of plans to boot current Director Christopher Wray.

Vance’s comments came amid a spat on social platform X as he faced criticism for missing a Senate vote in which a judicial nominee of President Biden was approved.

“When this 11th Circuit vote happened, I was meeting with President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI Director,” Vance wrote on X.

“I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49-46 rather than 49-45,” he added.

Trump has become a vocal critic of the FBI and its leader, who he nominated to the job in 2017.

FBI directors serve 10-year terms, meaning Wray would not ordinarily leave his post until 2027, though the agency head can be removed by the president.

Among the names circulating for a possible new director is Kash Patel, a former national security official during the first Trump administration who is also now a board member for Trump’s media company.

Patel would be a controversial pick for the role, a Trump loyalist who sparked internal battles during President-elect Trump’s first term and has parroted his views in seeing the FBI as weaponized agency that improperly investigated him.

“The Deep State can not be trusted. They have weaponized the government for their own political and personal agenda,” Patel wrote in an email last week from his foundation, calling the investigation into Trump’s Russia ties “fraud.”

Former FBI Special Agent Daniel Brunner said if Trump chooses loyalist and former Trump administration aide Kash Patel to lead the FBI, it would do “massive damage” to the agency.

“Putting someone like Kash Patel in the position of director of the FBI is, I believe, extremely, extremely dangerous because … his resume isn’t traditional,” Brunner said Sunday.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D)  said Monday that she will work with President-elect Trump when he takes office in January, but won’t ”tolerate terrorizing communities”

Hobbs said at a press conference that she “will work with the Trump administration to continue efforts on border security.” 

However, asked about Trump’s pledge of mass deportations, she said she “will not tolerate misguided policies that don’t actually help with the critical work that’s happening here, that you’re seeing here today, that actually keeps our communities safe and secure.”

“I will not tolerate terrorizing communities or threatening Arizonans,” she added.

On Monday, the president-elect signaled his administration may use military assets to assist in his mass deportation pledge.

Trump responded “TRUE!!!” to a Truth Social post from Tom Fitton, head of conservative group Judicial Watch, who wrote that the incoming administration is “prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program.”

Trump transition team spokesperson Karoline Leavitt has said that the president-elect “will marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers in American history while simultaneously lowering costs for families.”

Hobbs said in her Monday press conference that she “will continue to put politics aside to deliver for Arizonans.”

“To the cartels and bad actors seeking to harm our communities, my message is clear: Arizona stands united against you,” she said.

Arizona has emerged as a hotly contested battleground in recent elections.

Trump beat Vice President Harris by more than 5 percentage points in Arizona, which President Biden narrowly won in 2020. Hobbs won her 2022 gubernatorial race against Republican Kari Lake by less than a point. Lake lost her Senate race this year to Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.).

The Hill has reached out to the Trump transition team for comment.

President-elect Trump’s attorney general nominee, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), is among the least favored of his Cabinet nominees, according to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill on Tuesday. 

Gaetz holds a 20 percent favorable rating and a 32 percent unfavorable rating, according to the poll. 

The findings come as Gaetz faces an avalanche of negative headlines related to allegations of sexual misconduct. On Monday, an attorney representing two women who testified before the House Ethics Committee told ABC News that Gaetz paid two of his clients for sex.

One of those women testified to the committee that she saw Gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17 at the time, according to the attorney.

Gaetz resigned from Congress last week shortly after Trump tapped him to serve as attorney general. The House Ethics Committee is slated to meet on Wednesday to discuss what happens to the now-defunct report on Gaetz. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for the report to be released due to its relevance to Gaetz’s upcoming confirmation hearings. However, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said he would like the report to remain private given Gaetz’s status as a former lawmaker. 

The latest polling also showed relatively low favorable ratings for Trump’s other Cabinet picks, including South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R), who he has tapped to serve as his Homeland Security secretary. According to the poll, Noem holds a 19 percent favorable rating and a 22 percent unfavorable rating. 

The survey was conducted Nov. 13-14 among 1,732 registered voters by the Harris Poll and HarrisX. Results are weighted for age, gender, region, race/ethnicity, marital status, household size, income, employment, education, political party, and political ideology where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online. The margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 2.3 points on a 95 percent confidence level. 

President-elect Trump’s latest Cabinet announcement came Monday evening, when he tapped Sean Duffy to be his Transportation secretary.

Since he was elected earlier this month, Trump has named to his second administration numerous officials, most of whom would need to be confirmed by the Senate.

Here are five things to know about Duffy:

Duffy is second Fox News personality nominated

Duffy served as co-host of Fox Business Network’s “The Bottom Line” since January 2023 and has been a staunch defender of the former president on the cable network since he was named a Fox News contributor in 2020. Duffy left the show on Monday, after he was tapped for the Cabinet post.

Trump also tapped Fox News’s Pete Hegseth, co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” to serve as secretary of Defense.

Duffy is a former member of Congress and district attorney

Duffy was elected to Congress in 2010, as part of the tea party wave. He represented Wisconsin for nine years, from 2011-19, when he resigned to care for his family, which at the time was expecting a child with a birth defect.

While in Congress, he served on the House Financial Services Committee and chaired its subcommittee on housing and insurance.

Prior to his congressional run, Duffy served as acting assistant district attorney and district attorney in Ashland County, Wis., from 2002 to 2010.

Duffy met his wife on a reality TV show

Before entering the political world, Duffy had a stint as a television star, appearing on MTV’s “The Real World: Boston” in 1997. He met his wife, Fox News co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy, on the set of MTV’s “Road Rules: All Stars” in 1998, The Associated Press reported.

They married in 1998 and have nine children, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Duffy is a former lumberjack athlete

Duffy began log rolling at age 5 and speech climbing, which local reports describe as “sprinting up 60 and 90 foot poles,” at age 13.

As of July 2012, Duffy held two speed climbing titles.

Duffy refused Trump on Wisconsin governor run

A couple of years after Duffy resigned from Congress, the former president publicly pressured his loyal supporter to run for governor in Wisconsin, saying he was “working hard to get very popular and capable Former Congressman Sean Duffy of Wisconsin to run.”

“He would be fantastic!” Trump said at the time, the AP reported. “A champion athlete, Sean loves the people of Wisconsin, and would be virtually unbeatable. His wife, Rachel, is likewise an incredible person. … Run Sean, Run!”

Duffy went on a conservative talk show in January 2022 to rule out the possibility of a governor’s run, saying he was devoting significant time to his family and running for statewide office would make that difficult.

“Hopefully I’m not riding off into the sunset,” Duffy said at the time. “I’m just running into the sunset right now. … If an opportunity presents itself, I’d like to come back and partake in Wisconsin politics.”

Comedian Jon Stewart said Monday that President-elect Trump made Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pay for his “insolence” by making him eat fast food.

On “The Daily Show,” a clip was played of Kennedy discussing the president-elect’s campaign diet, calling food Trump consumed “really, like, bad.”

Stewart called Kennedy’s comments “a friendly swipe,” then added later that Kennedy “will pay for his insolence.” A recent photo of Kennedy alongside Trump, Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and tech billionaire Elon Musk with food from McDonald’s then popped up on the screen.

“Hey, what’s up?” Stewart said in a mocking tone with the photo beside him, seemingly trying to portray a scene in which the food was forcefully given to Kennedy. “Hey, uh, Robert, come [over] here, you think that’s poisoned, eh? Eat it. Hey, uh, Robert, eat the whole thing.”

Kennedy has been tapped by Trump to head up the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week.

“Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!” the president-elect added.

Kennedy is seen as a controversial choice for HHS secretary due to multiple factors, including his anti-vaccine activism. He has said in recent interviews that he does not wish to get rid of any approved vaccines, but has also said health agencies haven’t done the necessary research on them.

A longtime Democrat, Kennedy launched a campaign to challenge President Biden for the party’s nomination last year but later switched to an independent bid. He eventually dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump.

The Hill has reached out to the Trump transition team for comment.

Fox News host Trey Gowdy warned Republicans against supporting President-elect Trump’s decision to elevate former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to serve as attorney general, calling the choice “absurd.”

Anchor Bill Hemmer, speaking Tuesday about the ongoing legal battles Trump faces — including the classified documents and election interference cases — asked Gowdy to weigh in during his appearance on “America’s Newsroom.”

“Do not use the justice system as a weapon,” Gowdy, a former GOP lawmaker who represented South Carolina, responded, as highlighted by Mediaite. “And the message for Republicans is, don’t do it on the other side, either, with this absurd AG pick that you just made.”

The president-elect began rolling out his choices to fill key Cabinet and administrative roles last week. His tapping of Gaetz, a right-wing firebrand, to head the Justice Department (DOJ) has raised eyebrows on both sides of the aisle.

“Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social at the time.

Gaetz, who resigned from Congress immediately after receiving Trump’s nod, has previously called for taking away funds and doing away with government agencies and departments including “the FBI, CDC, ATF, DOJ, every last one of them, if they do not come to heel.”

The former lawmaker has also been under investigation for sexual misconduct and illicit drug use claims by the same agency he’s been nominated to lead. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.

Pressure has been put on Republican leadership and the House Ethics Committee to release a report surrounding the probe of Gaetz.

While the Florida Republican has historically been a strong backer of Trump, he also has critics within his own party, most notably ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

“Justice is different,” Gowdy said Tuesday. “It is a combination of policy, law and also morality. You do not use our justice system as a political weapon. Voters rejected it in November, and they’re going to reject it if Republicans try to do it also.”

“Some things rise above the din,” he added. “The justice system is one of those things.”

The Hill has reached out to DOJ and the Trump transition team.

Fox News’s chief political analyst, Brit Hume, cautioned President-elect Trump not to proceed in his second term with the mindset that the American people elected him in a landslide, giving him a mandate to push through partisan policies.

“This was a clear and convincing win for Mr. Trump, to be sure, and, particularly when you think of all the stuff that had been thrown at him as he tried to be elected again, it’s impressive,” Hume said about the election, in a Monday interview on “Special Report” with Bret Baier.

“But whether it is a landslide producing a mandate is another matter,” he added.

Hume noted that while “we don’t elect people based on the popular vote,” Trump, by some updated counts, has dropped below 50 percent, and the popular vote “is one way to measure whether somebody has won a landslide.”

Another way, Hume said, is to count the number of states the candidate won. Trump won 30 in 2024, falling short of the near-sweep pulled off decades ago by Presidents Reagan, Nixon and Lyndon Johnson.

“Now, those were, those were true landslides, allowing a candidate or elected president, to claim a mandate,” Hume said.

Hume pointed to President Biden’s early years in the White House as a warning sign, noting Democrats similarly had control at the time of the White House, the Senate and the House, and Biden tried to push through some major pieces of legislation.

“Joe Biden won a narrow victory — convincing, perhaps, but narrow — in 2020, and once he got control of the Senate and had control of both houses, he started thinking that he was going to be the new FDR, and was going to pass all kinds of great social legislation, some of the results of which were an outbreak of inflation, from which his candidacy and his campaign never recovered,” Hume said. “So you have to be careful about these things. Mandates, real mandates, are rare, and landslides are perhaps even rarer.”

“My thought about this is: The President would be wise to ignore the talk from his supporters about what an enormous mandate he has and what a great landslide he won because thinking that can lead to trouble,” Hume added.

Hume said Trump following through with his promise of mass deportation would be an appropriate reading of Trump’s mandate, given how clear the president-elect was on his goal.

“Particularly on the deportation of illegal migrants,” Hume said, “he does, I think it’s fair to say, have an authority to do that, and the voters understood that that’s one of the things he said he was going to do, and he never back away from it.”

“If he moves ahead with that, I don’t think it’s an overreading of his authority, or his mandate,” Hume added.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk publicly backed President-elect Trump’s pick for attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), pushing back against concerns over allegations of misconduct against him.

Musk, in a statement early Tuesday on the social platform X, noted Gaetz has “an axe to grind,” which he said was necessary for the job.

“Matt Gaetz has 3 critical assets that are needed for the AG role: a big brain, a spine of steel and an axe to grind,” Musk wrote. “He is the Judge Dredd America needs to clean up a corrupt system and put powerful bad actors in prison.”

“Gaetz will be our Hammer of Justice,” he added.

Trump last week announced a series of nominations, including Gaetz for the top law enforcement post in the country. The announcement surprised even many Senate Republicans, some of whom have expressed concern about the pick.

The House Ethics Committee has for years been investigating Gaetz, exploring whether he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other allegations. He has vigorously denied allegations of wrongdoing, and the Justice Department, which previously investigated whether he had sex with a 17-year-old, declined to charge him with a crime.

Musk described the matter Tuesday as “case closed.”

“As for these accusations against him, I consider them worth less than nothing,” said Musk, who was tapped by Trump to co-lead the new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE).

“Under our laws, a man is considered innocent until proven guilty,” he continued. “If AG Garland (an unprincipled douchebag) could have secured a conviction against Gaetz, he would have, but he knew he could not. Case closed.”

With Gaetz’s resignation from the lower chamber, which immediately followed Trump’s announcement, the Ethics panel no longer has jurisdiction over him but could still vote to release the report.

Many lawmakers have called for the report to be released as part of the vetting process for Gaetz’s nomination.