What Bernie Moreno’s Up To

Today’s notice: The future of the NRSC. An exclusive on the growing opposition to the White House’s weather research plans. And, a 2026 dilemma: Some former members of Congress really want to come back — should we tell them?

THE LATEST

All eyes on Bernie Moreno: The senator from Ohio isn’t all that senior in terms of time in office, but NOTUS’ Reese Gorman reports on how he’s been making moves that could put him into a high-profile leadership position as the next head of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm. Sen. Tim Scott is the current chair of the NRSC, but could Moreno be the next one?

Speculation is mounting: “In just his first year in the Senate, he’s doing more than almost any other senator in helping Chairman Scott and the NRSC this cycle to keep and grow our majority,” Sen. Jim Banks told Reese.

Watch this space: Moreno is throwing his weight behind Republicans from across the ideological spectrum, rather than building a profile with one side of the party.

In recent weeks he’s fundraised and rallied for Nate Morris, the most MAGA-aligned candidate running to replace retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell, as well as Sen. Susan Collins, the, uh, decidedly not that running for reelection in Maine.

That’s the kind of politics an NRSC chair needs to be comfortable with.

What Bernie says: “In terms of what happens the next cycle, look, if I could play a constructive role, that’s something I would consider. Is that, like, an ambition of mine? No,” Moreno told Reese.

Open tabs: Trump Is Naming a New Class of Navy Battleships After Himself (NOTUS); Inside the Bari Weiss decision that led to a ‘60 Minutes’ crisis (CNN); Hundreds of Big Post-Election Donors Have Benefited From Trump’s Return to Office (NYT); Top Heritage Officials Flee to Pence’s Nonprofit as Think Tank Fractures (WSJ)

From the Hill

First on NOTUS: Bipartisan outcry over NCAR. Republican Reps. Jeff Hurd, Jay Obernolte, Brian Fitzpatrick and Jack Bergman have joined Democrats to formally protest the White House’s plans to break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

NOTUS’ Anna Kramer got the first look at the letter to appropriators these Republicans signed alongside House Democrats and Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. “Funding for NCAR is essential to maintaining America’s leadership in global weather forecasting,” it reads.

There has been bipartisan objection to this closure since it was announced, Anna has reported. Climate skeptics and mainstream researchers have both come out in opposition, creating a strange coalition in support of NCAR.

Where there are no clear red lines: Republicans really don’t want to say what they’re not comfortable with when it comes to Donald Trump’s escalating provocations toward Venezuela.

Congressional authorization becomes relevant “at a point that you’re doing something beyond responding to an imminent threat, something that’s a sustained action, which is what war powers call for,” Rep. Brian Mast, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told NOTUS’ Hamed Ahmadi.

So, does that mean land strikes? “You can’t even say a land strike,” Mast told NOTUS.

From Delaney Hall

First on NOTUS: Rep. LaMonica McIver will visit New Jersey immigrant detention facility Delaney Hall today for the first time since the Trump administration filed charges against her over a scuffle that broke out with immigration officers there earlier this year, a source familiar with the matter told NOTUS’ Oriana González.

Her visit comes after a 41-year-old detainee, Jean Wilson Brutus, died at the facility earlier this month.

From the campaign trail

I’m going going, back back, to Congress Congress: At least a dozen former members of Congress — mostly Democrats — have announced they’re running in 2026. Two former senators, both Republicans, are running against each other in New Hampshire to get back to the upper chamber. It’s a 2026 trend.

But wait, isn’t the job supposed to suck? “For all the dysfunctions in our politics, I still think there’s something very magical about democracy and about representing people who sent you to Congress, and about having a job that’s defined in our Constitution,” former Rep. Tom Malinowski, who is vying to get his old title of House Democrat from New Jersey back, told NOTUS’ Torrie Herrington.

New people are also running for Congress. The latest is George Conway — yes, that one — who has thrown his hat into the Democratic primary for retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler’s Manhattan seat. His entry into the race brings the number of candidates in that primary to approximately 3,562 (we’re kidding, but it’s a lot).

NEW ON NOTUS

Redaction reveal: A court filing by Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s lawyers revealed that senior DOJ officials, including Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, were directly involved in efforts to charge Abrego Garcia with a crime after he was deported.

The detail in the court filings was later redacted by the defense attorneys who first posted it. NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery reports on how the revelation flies in the face of DOJ rhetoric throughout this saga, namely that the charges against Abrego Garcia were an independent decision by prosecutors in Tennessee.

Democrats issue a warning: “We remind you that, even if it is the policy of this administration to condone murder, a future administration will be free to revoke an OLC memo that it finds unprincipled, unpersuasive, or both,” Reps. Jamie Raskin and Ted Lieu wrote to the DOJ yesterday, urging the department to open a criminal investigation into the Trump administration’s campaign against boats in the Caribbean it alleged were smuggling drugs.

The pair of Democrats suggested that even an opinion from Trump’s Office of Legal Counsel is not on its own sufficient to prevent criminal charges under a future Democratic administration. As an example, they pointed to the so-called “torture memos” penned under George W. Bush — and later revoked by Barack Obama.

An unhappy Republican: “This new directive will negatively affect Hampton Roads, thousands of workers, and the amount of energy that can be produced. It will also undermine military readiness,” Rep. Jen Kiggans, a Republican, said in a statement about Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s announcement yesterday that the administration was pausing leases to five wind projects, including one in Virginia.

“I am anxiously awaiting answers from the administration regarding this directive.”

NOT US

• 2 Months on the Front Lines of Mass Deportation, by Hunter Walker for Talking Points Memo
• How one block in Portland, Oregon became a movie-set war zone that lots of people think is a real war zone. By Zoe Chace and Suzanne Gaber for This American Life
• Makeovers are part of the prep for Dems eyeing 2028, by Holly Otterbein and Alex Thompson for Axios
• American food safety could be headed for a breakdown, by Sarah Todd for Stat

MEET US

Welcome to Meet Us, where we introduce you to a member of the NOTUS team. Hamed Ahmadi is a NOTUS reporter and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow covering foreign policy.

Hamed Ahmadi Tracey Salazar Photography

Past work: I was a reporter at HuffPost and a graduate fellow at American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop, where I reported on housing issues in D.C.

Why journalism: It’s fun to do, it makes me think and it feels worthwhile.

NOTUS + AJI highlight so far: Where else do you get Hill access AND get coached by some of the best in journalism?

Thing you can’t live without: Discovering new music. It never ends. There’s always some random artist from the ’90s I haven’t found yet.

Best advice you’ve ever been given: Ask dumb questions!

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