Congress’ December Sprint

Today’s notice: A new NOTUS podcast hosted by Reese Gorman launches today. All the stuff Congress has to deal with in a short period of time. And: A deep dive into government web design.

THE LATEST

The dogs of war are barking. Commercial airplanes were reportedly avoiding Venezuelan airspace yesterday morning, hours after Donald Trump declared that bit of sky “CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.” It’s unclear how much the post and the clear skies are directly related. A slew of international airlines were already steering clear of Venezuela days before the post.

Trump’s allies are promising what comes next will be limited. “He’s made it very clear we’re not going to put troops into Venezuela. What we’re trying to do is protect our own shores,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin told CNN yesterday.

That doesn’t seem to jibe with a bombshell report in the Miami Herald over the weekend alleging that a phone call earlier this month between Trump and the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, quickly went south. Trump reportedly made a blunt offer to his counterpart: Save your life by leaving the country immediately, or risk the consequences.

Trump confirmed the call: “I wouldn’t say it went well, or badly. It was… a phone call,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One yesterday.

Congressional pushback to any potential conflict is mounting. “I along with others, filed a resolution, no war in Venezuela or against Venezuela without congressional approval. It failed, but that was before” the recent buildup, Sen. Tim Kaine told CBS. “We do believe that we will get more support for these motions when they are refiled,” he added.

D.C. National Guard shooting. “Radicalized since he’s been here in this country,” is how Kristi Noem described the Afghan national accused of shooting two West Virginia National Guard troops deployed in D.C. last week. One of the troops died; the other is still in the hospital.

This is a horrible story already subsumed by politics. The Trump administration basically wants to make it all about Joe Biden. Many Trump opponents want to make it all about the president’s domestic deployments and federal law enforcement surges.

Room for agreement? Noem told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that DHS will review other Afghans brought into the U.S. after American forces hastily withdrew under Biden. Speaking on the same show, Sen. Mark Kelly suggested support for that plan. “She talked about changing the vetting process. I think that’s a good idea,” he said.

Immigration. A conversation about vetting, however, is not where the aftermath of the D.C. shooting is headed. Trump declared his administration will “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” in an evening post on Thanksgiving. He followed that up last night by promising the shutdown would last “a long time.”

“We don’t want them. We don’t want those people,” Trump insisted.

Democrats see a particularly nasty politics here. “I take that as a message that they don’t want brown people coming to the United States,” Kelly said in the same NBC interview. “I find that disturbing.”

Open Tabs Cory Booker Marries in a Private Ceremony (NYT); 4 killed after shooting at California child’s birthday party (CNN); Trump’s pick to replace DeSantis faces a Republican pile-on in Florida (Politico); Trump to pardon former Honduran President for 2024 drug trafficking sentence (AP)

From the Hill

In addition to all that stuff above, Congress has a very full agenda in the 13 scheduled legislative days between today and the holiday recess. NOTUS’ Riley Rogerson breaks it down:

ACA subsidies. The last thing we heard before turkey and stuffing, the White House was close to rolling out its plan. There’s no indication of when that might happen, but it is unlikely to sail through Congress. “It’s going to be tough,” Rep. Tom Suozzi said.

Appropriations. Nine appropriations bills have to pass by Jan. 30. Easy? Nope. Democrats need to figure out what to do in the Senate, and the top appropriations guy in the House told NOTUS that the chamber does not like to be rushed. “There’s always, on our side, some chagrin about huge bills right before Christmas,” Rep. Tom Cole said.

Morale. Riley reports that the toughest challenge for congressional leaders hoping to make the most of their baker’s dozen working days is that no one really wants to do any more work in 2025.

From the White House

“Much work remains, but today was again very productive.” That’s how Secretary of State Marco Rubio described his meeting yesterday with special envoy Steve Witkoff, private citizen/the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Ukrainian officials. A White House official confirmed to Jasmine that the meeting comes just days before Witkoff and Kushner’s sit-down with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The meeting also comes on the heels of two bombshells. First, a double hit against Witkoff, who first had a transcript of his call with a Russian official — which was not flattering — leak. Then a deeply sourced Wall Street Journal article detailing the financial motivations potentially steering Witkoff and Russia through the peace process. Second, Zelenskyy lost his top peace negotiator last week when his chief of staff resigned amid a corruption scandal plaguing top Ukrainian officials.

THE BIG ONE

Design is my passion. Government websites look a little different in Trump 2.0. A presidential executive order in August has led to a requirement that every agency in the federal government link up with Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia — chief design officer of the new National Design Studio — to give their sites a MAGA sheen. NOTUS’ Margaret Manto and Emily Kennard looked into how that’s going.

The DOGE effect. This is all a huge departure from the careful way government websites have been built in the past. For more than a decade, a staff of workers at GSA helped ensure government sites had the proper ADA, privacy and other legal requirements. That office was closed in March after being deemed nonessential.

The scary stuff. One of the projects National Design Studio has worked on is TrumpRx, which offers discounted prescription drugs. Site administrators could theoretically see which medications people are taking.

“If I do it through a pharmacy and an actual health care provider, they’ve been going through the requirements for HIPAA compliance for decades,” Christopher Butler, a web designer who attended college with Gebbia, told Margaret and Emily. “I don’t necessarily trust that the guy from Airbnb has any background in that.”

Gebbia did not respond to a request for comment.

From your favorite podcast app!

Our first episode of the On NOTUS podcast is live today! House Majority Leader Steve Scalise joins NOTUS’ Reese Gorman for a candid talk about how to get things done in the House, why he decided to run for office and the assassination attempt that almost took his life. He also shared the advice he readily hands out to new members of Congress:

“Don’t try to question the integrity of somebody just because they vote against you today, because you may need them tomorrow,” he tells Reese.

Every week, Reese sits down with a lawmaker and dives deep on their background, their journey to Washington and what motivates them. Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

NEW ON NOTUS

Mitch McConnell’s legacy: The Republican primary to replace the longtime senator has transformed into a public debate over his legacy. Despite Trump’s takeover of the GOP, there is a loose coalition of Republicans in the state who defend McConnell, NOTUS’ Alex Roarty and Helen Huiskes report.

“It bothers me,” Trey Grayson, a former Kentucky secretary of state, said of the “meanness” expressed toward McConnell. “I personally don’t like it.”

Latinos are the new swing voters: “A couple Tuesdays ago was just the latest reminder you cannot, should not take Latino voters for granted,” California Sen. Alex Padilla told NOTUS’ Daniella Diaz of Democrats’ relative success with the crucial voting bloc. Republicans are now trying to adjust their strategy with Latino voters accordingly, Daniella reports.

More: Troy Nehls’ Identical Twin Brother Wants to Replace Him in Congress, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

Tim Walz Responds to Trump’s ‘Hurtful’ Thanksgiving Slur, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

NOT US

• America’s Slide Toward Simulated Democracy, by Charlie Warzel for The Atlantic
• Silicon Valley’s Man in the White House Is Benefiting Himself and His Friends, by Cecilia Kang, Tripp Mickle, Ryan Mac, David Yaffe-Bellany and Theodore Schleifer for The New York Times
• Suspect in National Guard attack struggled with ‘dark isolation’ as community raised concerns, by Farnoush Amiri for the Associated Press

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