Short-Term Excursion

Today’s notice: War’s end is in sight, Trump says, but maybe he’s the only one who can see it. MAHA debuts a new acronym. The complicated way White House ethics disclosures work. And: The hardest job in politics is trying to be excited about rising gas prices.

THE LATEST

Mission Accomplished? The president talked about Iran yesterday in Florida. A lot. But there’s one word he didn’t use once: war.

“I think you’ll see it’s going to be a short-term excursion,” Donald Trump told House Republicans gathered at his Doral golf club for their annual policy retreat.

Short-term, you say? Don’t get too excited. Trump told reporters at a press conference right after his address that “we’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough.” The war certainly isn’t ending in the next few days, he said.

The political story for the week, then, is how much Trump is asking of his political allies. In Doral, Trump didn’t back away from his demand that Republicans shelve their legislative agenda for the year until they get the SAVE America Act passed. That means either a protracted fight over the filibuster or just a blank calendar with few election-year wins on it.

But that’s not all: He’s also asking for support for an unpopular military conflict and for his sales pitch that rising gas prices are actually good, sometimes (more on that below).

Polls have found that Republicans need to get on offense, fast, to turn around what is looking like a tough midterm slog. In theory, events like the House retreat are places where that narrative change begins. But on Day 1, at least, the focus was not on things campaign operatives would suggest take center stage.

Open tabs: How ICE Plans to Put 8,500 Immigrants in This Warehouse (NYT); Live Nation reaches settlement with DOJ in antitrust fight (Politico); Trio of Habba successors are unlawfully leading NJ US attorney’s office, judge rules (The Hill); Leaked Private Texts Reveal Wild Fishback Campaign Drama (Bulwark)

From the MAHA Institute conference

RFK Jr.’s allies still want what they’ve always wanted: The secretary of health and human services was not present at a MAHA confab a block from the White House yesterday, but the doubt in mainstream science that helped propel him to his current role was. “All vaccines need to be removed from the market until they can be proven to be safe and effective,” Mark Gorton, president of the MAHA Institute, told the crowd.

They debuted a new acronym to help simplify the vaccine skeptic’s pitch, NOTUS’ Margaret Manto reports: “MEVI,” for “Massive Epidemic of Vaccine Injury.” Look for it in an influencer post near you soon.

From the White House

The murky world of ethics disclosures: Simply put, we don’t have a complete picture of the financial lives of several top White House officials, including Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan. And we may never have it. NOTUS’ Anna Kramer and Dave Levinthal dig into the complicated world of White House financial disclosure rules after Watergate.

From the Hill

How powerful is House grumbling? That’s the key question for a major housing bill working its way through Congress. The Senate is expected to vote on the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act this week, and is expected to pass it with a bipartisan majority. A Senate aide told NOTUS’ Raymond Fernández that they expect there to be enough momentum to push it through the conference process and onto final passage.

But not so fast, according to some upset House Republicans, who say too much has been changed from the version they passed last month. They intend to make a stink about it, Raymond reports.

THE BIG ONE

‘Did oil prices go up? Yes. Stevie Wonder could see that coming,” Republican Sen. John Kennedy quipped yesterday.

How do Republicans explain rising oil prices to constituents? If the war with Iran drags on, some aren’t sure. Sen. John Boozman told Emily that while people are “pretty smart” and could get up to speed on the geopolitical ramifications at play, they’re going to wonder when, or if, respite’s coming.

“The question that they have, and I think all of us will have as time goes by, is, how long is it gonna last?” Boozman said. “The administration’s saying it’s a temporary thing, and we just have to evaluate the damage … that’s gonna take a little bit of time.”

Will Americans put country over commute? “People understand that we saved a lot of lives by demolishing the military of Iran, and eventually the prices are going to go back down,” Sen. Rick Scott told reporters yesterday.

Analysts say the spike’s likely to stick around. Anna reports that analyst opinions are mixed about whether a release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be enough to ease market panic, and besides that, there’s little the Trump administration can do without reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

“Every three miles, you see this billboard at the gas station that tells you what the price at the pump is,” oil analyst Matt Smith said during a briefing held by the market analytics firm Kpler yesterday. “That’s the worst thing ever for Trump.”

Not all are so-called “panicans.” Conservative energy and media strategist Gabriella Hoffman told Anna that oil prices will likely drop if the conflict in Iran eases up. That’s a big, and still unanswered, if.

NEW ON NOTUS

Trump Chicago vs. the flies: On Dec. 17, a city health inspector dinged the Trump International Hotel in Chicago for “small flies” throughout a rooftop restaurant’s bar and dish area, and for a couple other less-than-sanitary discoveries, NOTUS’ Taylor Giorno reports. A visit a week later found all but a cracked ice machine lid had been corrected. As Taylor writes, several Trump hotels and golf clubs have been hit over the past year with health code violations.

More: FBI Subpoenaed Arizona Records as Part of Widening 2020 Election Probe, by Torrie Herrington

NOT US

• Trump Is Obsessed With These $145 Shoes—and Won’t Let Anyone Leave Without a Pair, by Alex Leary for The Wall Street Journal
  
• After slashing federal jobs, Trump administration ramps up hiring, by Emily Davies and Meryl Kornfield for The Washington Post
  
• Billionaires Are Swaying Elections in All Corners of America, by Mike Baker and Steven Rich for The New York Times

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