The House GOP’s Candidate Vetter

Today’s notice: The pettiest X-Files. What was on Trump’s mind in Georgia. ICE looks for corporate partners. Congress earmarked funds for (some) universities the White House is trying to freeze out. And: A ridealong with the man every would-be candidate wants face time with.

THE LATEST

Well, that was quick. “What word have you not heard over the last two weeks? Affordability. Because I won affordability,” Donald Trump told a crowd in Georgia at a campaign stop yesterday. The president took full advantage of the toplines of a better-than-expected jobs report to essentially declare any argument about the state of his economy over. (Public polling shows the electorate still needs to be convinced.)

Privatizing 287(g). ICE has requested information from companies interested in managing the growing number of immigration enforcement partnerships between DHS and local authorities, NOTUS’ Jackie Llanos reports. The agency requested information on how a private firm might train local law enforcement officers for their new roles as deputized ICE agents.

The request does not mean a contract will be awarded, but there has been a boom in these partnerships since Trump revived the task force model suspended during Barack Obama’s presidency.

I want to believe: Trump announced last night that he is going to release files “related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).” The proclamation comes just days after Obama sparked a firestorm of headlines by declaring on a podcast: “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in Area 51.”

Open Tabs Labor Secretary’s Husband Barred From Department Premises After Sexual Assault Reports (NYT); DHS admits website showcasing ‘worst of the worst’ immigrants was rife with errors (CNN); After leaving WHO, Trump officials propose more expensive replacement to duplicate it (WaPo); CDC cancels February vaccine adviser meeting (Reuters)

From the campaign trail

The House GOP’s candidate whisperer. Freshman Rep. Brian Jack considers himself a student of politics – and so do the most powerful Republicans in Congress. NOTUS’ Reese Gorman spent a few days shadowing Jack as he crisscrossed the redrawn districts of Texas, interviewing potential candidates as deputy chair of the NRCC.

What they say about him: “He’s got one of the sharpest political minds that I’ve ever encountered, very sound judgment, and he’s a very likable guy,” NRCC chair Richard Hudson told Reese. Jack got equally glowing praise from Mike Johnson.

Why candidates want his attention: They think Trump listens to him. Four of the 10 candidates Jack met with on his Texas swing got that all-important endorsement from the president.

Quote that defines him: “Have you ever read ‘The Ambition and The Power’? It’s a great read,” Jack said. The 1989 book is a detailed account of the speakership of Jim Wright, known as one of the House’s most powerful.

Who is this guy? A former AIPAC staffer who worked on Ben Carson’s 2016 campaign before joining Trump 1.0 and becoming White House political director. He was elected to Congress from Georgia in 2024.

What his job is like: Reese got to sit in on meetings with Texans looking to have their political ambitions amplified. It’s a tough gig. One candidate, when asked what committees he would like to serve on, responded with full confidence: “Main Street, Foreign Affairs and the Republican Study Committee.” Only one of those is an actual committee. The other two are caucuses.

“Jack just nodded his head and carried on,” Reese writes.

From the Hill

Congress crosses Trump on university funding (kind of). NOTUS’ Riley Rogerson reveals a quiet resistance to the administration’s education policies buried in the massive appropriations bills for fiscal year 2026. Earmarks secured by members sent millions to schools the White House is actively trying to strip federal funding from — though in most cases those funds are a fraction of the funding the schools have received in the past.

Winners: State schools with powerful lawmakers backing them. Senate approps chair Susan Collins helped send $51 million to the University of Maine, which the White House has tried to freeze out from federal money over its policies around trans players in collegiate sports. The top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Patty Murray, helped steer more than $17 million to the University of Washington, which is also fighting with the admin over DEI.

Losers: No member of the Ivy League received any earmarks.

From the states

State-level officials are getting worried about what happens to FEMA as the DHS shutdown drags on, NOTUS’ Torrence Banks reports. Tom Sivak, a former FEMA regional official during Joe Biden’s presidency, told Torrence that the only employees typically allowed to work with pay through a shutdown are employees deployed to projects funded by the Disaster Relief Fund.

“The day-to-day employees that engage with states and tribal nations in communities for technical assistance or just our day-to-day administrative work that relates to preparedness and readiness and response, those employees are not working right now,” Sivak said.

NEW ON NOTUS

Putting in face time: Construction crews hung a massive banner featuring Trump’s likeness on the facade of the DOJ’s headquarters yesterday. The department declined to respond to critics who contend that the banner appears to send the message that the agency is no longer independent and impartial.

“It’s a true mark of a wannabe dictator,” Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the progressive group Public Citizen, said. “These banners, and similar ones displayed on government buildings across the district, should be removed immediately.”

Love finds a way: Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts is crossing the aisle to support a Democrat running for the University of Nebraska’s Board of Regents: his wife, Susanne Shore.

It’s not easy raising a divided family in Trump’s America, but Shore says they make it work. “There’s lots of discussion, but it’s always respectful, and we always listen as much as we speak,” she told the Nebraska Examiner yesterday.

More: Vietnam Veterans Sue Trump Over D.C. Arch Project They Say Would Block Cemetery Views, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

NOTUS PERSPECTIVES

Think democracy promotion is dead? That conventional wisdom is ahistorical, defeatist and unimaginative, says Larry Diamond in a NOTUS Perspectives essay. Pro-democracy foreign policy can, in fact, survive Trump — and emerge stronger than ever.

How should President Trump open his State of the Union? A NOTUS forum featuring Ian Bassin, Bill Burton, Sarah Isgur, Gish Jen, Rep. Young Kim, David Litt, Brittany Martinez, Jeff Nussbaum and Tanzina Vega.

NOT US

• People Are Leaving Congress Because the Job Sucks, by Ed Kilgore for New York
  
• What’s behind your eye-popping power bill? We broke it down, region by region, by Naveena Sadasivam & Clayton Aldern for Grist
  
• Inside the Gay Tech Mafia, by Zoë Bernard for WIRED
  

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