The White House News

Tuesday was the first day Texas lawmakers could file bills for next year’s legislative session, and they were not shy about submitting a record-breaking 1,500 in the first filing period.

Though there is no real advantage, staffers camped out behind the Senate chamber in order to file early.

The early rush will, however, give a glance into issues plaguing the Lone Star State before the 89th legislative session reconvenes in 2025.

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The bills filed covered everything from abortion, border security, restrictions on undocumented students receiving in-state tuition, proof of citizenship to register to vote and ways to lower property taxes or eliminate them altogether.

It is not uncommon for lawmakers to file thousands of bills during the session, but a majority never make it to the governor’s desk. The lowest bill numbers are reserved for the highest priority bills set by the House speaker and lieutenant governor in charge of the Senate.

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Republicans flipping control in the House and Senate will undoubtedly affect the upcoming legislative session, but many of them have not yet filed their bills.

Currently, the red state is expecting to have a surplus of $20 billion to fund the new mandates at the start of the 2025 session, according to state comptroller Glenn Hegar.

The incoming Senate Republican Conference will meet to hold secret ballot elections for several leadership positions on Wednesday morning, including the successor of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who will lead the Republican majority next year.

At 9:30 a.m., the conference for the 119th Congress will select a new leader, Republican whip, conference chair, Republican policy committee chair, vice conference chair and National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRS) chair.

Those vying for the coveted leader role are Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., and Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rick Scott, R-Fla. 

On Tuesday, 42 GOP senators gathered for a leader candidate forum led by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. Several of the lawmakers expressed satisfaction with how the discussion went, and Scott ended the evening by adding two additional endorsements. 

According to Lee, the Republicans discussed a range of issues, some procedural, some substantive, and some policy-oriented. 

President-elect Donald Trump notably has not made an endorsement in the Senate leader race. Scott’s race, however, has gained the support of high-profile Trump allies like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and X owner Elon Musk.

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Senate Republican conference Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyo., is running unopposed for whip, while Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., is running unopposed for vice conference chair. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., is unopposed in her bid for Republican policy committee chair and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., is running unopposed for NRSC chair.

Sens. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., will face off for the No. 3 GOP role of conference chair.

The Wednesday morning elections will take place in the old Senate chamber in the Capitol. Before each race, each candidate will have two nominating speeches from other senators. Then they’ll make their own case. There may be some discussion before senators vote, and the secret ballot will remain private unless individual senators decide to disclose who they chose. Even then, there is no way to verify.

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The elections could last for hours, with the 2022 elections lasting until 1 p.m. after Scott challenged McConnell in the leader race.

In order to be elected, a candidate must receive a majority vote from the 53-member conference. This means they must garner 27 votes.

Senators will not assume the new roles until the new Congress begins in January.

Just over a week after his sweeping election victory, former and future President Trump returns to the White House on Wednesday.

Trump is returning to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., his first time back in nearly four years, at the invitation of the man he knocked out of the 2024 White House race: President Biden.

The two presidents will sit down in the Oval Office around 11 a.m. ET, according to the White House.

For Biden, who ended his re-election bid in July a month after his disastrous debate performance against Trump reignited questions over whether the 81-year-old president was physically and mentally up for another four years in the White House and sparked calls for him to drop out of the race, the meeting with his predecessor and now successor may be awkward.

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Trump spent years verbally eviscerating Biden and his performance in the White House. And even after Biden ended his re-election bid, Trump continued to slam the president and his successor atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket, Vice President Harris.

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And Biden for a couple of years has labeled Trump a threat to the nation’s democracy.

But Biden, a traditionalist, wants to ensure a smooth transition between administrations.

“I assured him that I’d direct my entire administration to work with his team,” the president said of his call last week with Trump after the election when he made the invitation. 

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Trump’s team, in an apparent change of tone toward Biden, said the president-elect “looks forward to the meeting.”

Biden’s offer to Trump to visit the White House was an invitation he himself was never accorded.

Four years ago, in the wake of his election defeat at the hands of Biden, Trump refused to concede and tried unsuccessfully to overturn the results.

Breaking with longstanding tradition, Trump didn’t invite Biden to the White House. And two weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters aiming to upend congressional certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory, Trump left Washington ahead of the presidential inauguration of his successor, becoming the first sitting president in more than a century to skip a successor’s inauguration.

“President Biden’s decision to welcome President-elect Trump to the White House is a tribute to normalcy in the presidential transition process. What was denied to Joe Biden following his election is being restored to Biden’s credit,” veteran political scientist Wayne Lesperance told Fox News.

Lesperance, the president of New Hampshire-based New England College, called the invitation by Biden “a remarkable gesture in that it legitimizes Trump’s return to power by the nation’s leading Democrat and, hopefully, will be met with a commitment to orderly transitions in the future.”

The meeting will be the first between Biden and Trump since they faced off in their one and only debate on June 27 in Atlanta. The two presidents, along with Harris and Trump’s running mate, now-Vice President-elect Sen. JD Vance, stood next to each other on Sept. 11 in New York City’s Lower Manhattan at ceremonies for the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

This will be Trump’s second meeting at the White House with a departing president.

Eight years ago, after defeating Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton, Trump sat down at the White House with President Obama, who was finishing up his second term.

“We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed. Because, if you succeed, then the country succeeds,” Obama told Trump at the time.

While a tradition, the meeting between the incoming and outgoing presidents is not mandated.

A big question mark heading into the meeting: Will the vice president join Biden and Trump for any portion of the gathering?

Harris phoned Trump last week and congratulated him on his victory over her.

The last time a sitting vice president ran for president and lost was 24 years ago when then-Vice President Al Gore narrowly lost to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

Gore ended up joining Bush and outgoing President Clinton in the Oval Office for what was said to be a very awkward meeting.

House Republicans are gathering behind closed doors Wednesday to elect their leaders in the next Congress.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., are all running for their current roles again with no stated challengers as of Tuesday afternoon.

National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson, R-N.C., is also running for another term.

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Each of the four leaders will still have to pitch themselves to the House Republican Conference on Wednesday morning, and the election is expected later that afternoon.

But contests are expected for the No. 5 and No. 6 House GOP leadership roles. Three House Republicans have confirmed they are running for House GOP conference chair: Reps. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., Kat Cammack, R-Fla., and Lisa McClain, R-Mich.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is not running for the role again after she was tapped to be ambassador to the United Nations in the new Trump administration.

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That position is in charge of overseeing and executing the conference’s messaging as well as setting up conference-wide meetings.

Two Republicans are also vying for the role of House GOP policy committee chair: Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern, R-Okla., is challenging current Policy Committee Chair Gary Palmer, R-Ala.

Hern, who is term-limited for leading the House GOP’s de facto conservative think tank, has been actively campaigning for the role.

Fox News Digital obtained fliers on Tuesday that Hern’s staff was distributing to fellow Republicans touting Hern’s endorsement for the low-level leadership role.

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Even if Wednesday’s elections come together drama-free, Johnson will have to work to win the support of hard-line Republican skeptics – some of whom have already signaled they will need to be persuaded by the speaker – in time for the House-wide vote for speaker in January.

Electing a House speaker requires a full majority vote in the House. While the final numbers are still up in the air, Republicans are widely expected to keep the majority by just single digits.

It means Johnson can afford precious little dissent to win the gavel again and avoid a scenario like the infamous 15-round vote for House speaker that ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., endured in early 2022.

The media warned for months that Donald Trump would have “no guardrails” in a second term, and would probably hand out top positions to a bunch of right-wing crazies.

Instead, he picked Marco Rubio yesterday as secretary of State, a 14-year Senate veteran and son of Cuban immigrants who has been informally advising him on foreign policy.

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The president-elect has also tapped a number of Hill veterans who are conventional conservatives, agree with him on key issues and could just as easily have been named by Mitt Romney.

Also yesterday, Trump selected Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor, as Homeland Security secretary, after she overcame the dog-shooting incident that knocked her out of the veepstakes.

Trump has been rolling out these appointments at hyper-speed, just a week after the election. He has stayed off TV and hasn’t made any inflammatory posts. He’s trying to demonstrate a seriousness about governing, by hitting the ground running.

In the past, presidents and presidents-elect have appeared on air, praising their nominee or maybe two, and yielding to a short, grateful speech by the chosen ones. But Trump appears to be skipping all that. 

All the top jobs haven’t been filled, obviously, but even some top Democrats are praising the choice of Rubio (while some in the MAGA movement are disappointed). He’s unquestionably a hawk, and will be the face of American foreign policy as he travels around the world. 

Sure, he said some terrible things about Trump, who derided him as Little Marco, when both ran in 2016. I watched Rubio on the trail that year and he’s a very charismatic speaker.

But the two have long since mended fences. Rubio tried to push immigration reform a decade ago as part of various Senate gangs, but has since distanced himself from the effort.

I keep seeing television chyrons that, almost in accusatory fashion, say Trump is hiring “loyalists.” Excuse me–do you think that Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton didn’t hire loyalists? Presidents want aides who generally agree with them and won’t turn into troublemakers. Biden hired such longtime advisers as Ron Klain, Mike Donilon and Steve Richetti.

From a conservative point of view, when Biden hired top officials who wanted to strengthen environmental rules, boost labor unions and spend hundreds of billions of dollars to dig out of the pandemic, that was a hard-line departure from Trump 1.0. Now Trump will reverse many Biden policies with the stroke of a pen.

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The other picks so far: Upstate New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a member of the House leadership and impeachment defender, has been tapped for U.N. ambassador. 

Trump also chose former Long Island congressman Lee Zeldin to run the EPA. He’s a mainstream conservative who has crusaded against excessive environmental regulations and gotten a lifetime score of 14 percent from the League of Conservation Voters. He told Fox News that the administration will “roll back regulations” that are causing businesses to “struggle” and are “forcing” them to move overseas.

After that, Trump tapped Florida GOP congressman Mike Waltz, a former Green Beret, as White House national security adviser, which doesn’t require Senate confirmation. He’s a China hawk and Ukraine skeptic. “Stopping Russia before it draws NATO and therefore the U.S. into war is the right thing to do,” Waltz wrote. “But the burden cannot continue to be solely on the shoulders of the American people, especially while Western Europe gets a pass.” 

These are serious people who know how Washington works.

By the way, Trump has shrunk what’s expected to be a very small GOP edge in the House by picking two members. But in Rubio’s case, Gov. Ron DeSantis can appoint a replacement who would serve until the midterm elections.

As I’m typing this, Trump just named Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate, as ambassador to Israel. Huckabee has led many delegations to the country and is staunchly pro-Israel. 

And after I filed this, Trump named Bill McGinley, who worked on election integrity for the RNC and was general counsel for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as his White House counsel.

And after I filed the insert, another announcement: John Ratcliffe being tapped for CIA director. The former Texas congressman, known for criticizing the FBI as biased against Trump, became his director of national intelligence in 2020. 

Last night, Trump made his first hire from Fox News. Pete Hegseth, an Army combat veteran and co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” has been named Defense secretary. Trump noted that Hegseth did tours in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan, was awarded two Bronze Stars, and just published the best-selling “The War on Warriors.”

Trump tried to get him confirmed the previous year, but Ratcliffe withdrew after GOP senators and ex-intel officials raised concerns about him, amid media disclosures that he’d embellished his prosecutorial efforts in immigration and terrorism cases. So he certainly qualifies as a highly partisan pick.

The two appointees who can fairly be described as aggressive hard-liners–critics would say extremists–are Stephen Miller and Tom Homan–both hired to deal with Trump’s top priority, the border.

Miller, who spearheaded immigration policy in the first Trump term, has been promoted to deputy chief of staff, and even that title doesn’t capture the clout he’ll have as a trusted member of the inner circle. He pushed the family separation policy that was extremely controversial.

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Homan, who ran ICE in the first term, is being called the border czar. When asked if there was a way to avoid separating families, as happened last time, he said sure–deport them all together.

He said at a conference over the summer: “Washington Post can do all the stories they want on me about ‘Tom Homan’s deportin’ people, he’s really good at it!’ They ain’t seen s*** yet! Wait till 2025!”

Miller and Homan will be responsible for carrying out mass deportations of the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants living in America, or at least starting the process so the president-elect can say he kept his promise. Critics call the goal utterly unrealistic.

Now there are others who will also enjoy huge influence. Elon Musk, who donated $119 million to help Trump, is now the most powerful private citizen ever–heading a waste commission, posting hundreds of messages on X, sitting in on Trump call to Volodymyr Zelenskyy – all while seeking billions in federal contracts.

Trump said last night that Musk will head a Department of Government Efficiency – he promised to “send shockwaves through the system” – with help from former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. 

RFK Jr. will get some title, but Trump has to decide whether to go along with his hotly disputed ideas on vaccines and removing fluoride from water systems. He’s also threatened to fire FDA officials who have waged a “war on public health,” saying the agency has suppressed such products as raw milk, ivermectin and vitamins.

And of course J.D. Vance will be an unusually active vice president and heir apparent.  

Still to come: the top jobs of Treasury secretary and the extraordinarily sensitive post of attorney general. I also want to know who’ll be press secretary!

One reason we’re in for weeks and weeks of skeptical to negative coverage is that every beat reporter on the planet must now do obligatory pieces on Donald Trump.

Whether they cover sports, religion, labor, housing, entertainment, courts, energy, television, schools or crime, they need to write about the impact of the 47th president–keeping in mind that he weighs in on everything.  

From yesterday alone: 

Washington Post: “Trump Pledged to Close the Education Department. What would that mean?”

New York Times: “Trump’s ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ Cuts Two Ways for Oil Companies.”

And: “Colleges Wonder if They Will Be ‘the Enemy’ Under Trump”

But my personal favorite: “What a Trump Presidency Means for the Liquor Industry.”

(Trump doesn’t drink, but every industry wants less regulation.)

There’s also this Drudge headline: “Wife Divorces Husband Over Vote.”

As the Mirror reports, “A man has said he can’t believe his wife was ready to ‘throw away our entire life’ after filing for divorce over his vote for Donald Trump.  

The distraught husband wrote on social media that he has been left without words that the marriage could fall apart over politics.” 

I guess a family separation policy comes in many forms.

Elon Musk, who was selected by President-elect Donald Trump to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, shared some insight on X on Tuesday into how the department will operate.

Musk said that the department will take suggestions and concerns from everyday Americans regarding how the government spends money.

“Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!” Musk said in part in the X post.

Musk also said all the department’s actions “will be posted online for maximum transparency.”

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“We will also have a leaderboard for [the] most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining,” he wrote.

When announcing the new department on Tuesday, Trump said its purpose will be to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.”

“DOGE” will advise and guide the administration by utilizing knowledge from outside of government and will partner with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget to “drive large scale structural reform.”

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Musk and Ramaswamy, both of whom are successful entrepreneurs, have been adamant about their desires to cut unnecessary spending in order to reduce the government’s debt of at least $35 trillion.

“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk said.

Ramswamy also said he and Musk “will not go gently” shortly after Trump announced their new roles.

Musk and Ramaswamy are the latest additions to Trump’s administration after a busy few days loaded with appointments.

The latest include South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for Homeland Security secretary, Fox News’ Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel, and John Ratcliffe for CIA director.