Principals

1. GOP fight over FBI pick
2. Trump Treasury, Commerce search
3. Lawmakers mull disaster aid
4. Ukraine war fatigue
5. ‘Woke’ language popularity
6. Osborn’s next play

PDB: One in five US adults get news from social media influencers

Biden at G20, meets with Brazil’s Lula … Pro-democracy activists sentenced in Hong Kong … WSJ: Biden admin’s final blitz against big tech

MAGA vs. establishment: A rivalry emerges as Trump weighs FBI pick

A rivalry is emerging as Donald Trump weighs who to tap for FBI director, and it encapsulates a broader tension simmering within the GOP as he prepares to take office. On one hand is Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist who’s talked openly about revenge on the president-elect’s enemies and has the support of MAGA figures like Donald Trump Jr., Semafor’s Shelby Talcott and Burgess Everett report. The other top option is former Rep. Mike Rogers, who just narrowly lost a Senate bid with Trump’s endorsement and represents more of an establishment pick. Many Republicans are touting Rogers — Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala. told Semafor he “would be outstanding” — but it might not matter in the end: Patel has his own backers in the Senate, and those inside Trump’s orbit are confident his decisive win has shown lawmakers they must support his picks.

Drama hits Trump economic job search

The battle over top economic jobs in the incoming Trump administration is getting ugly. On Wall Street, cherrypicked returns from Scott Bessent’s investment firm made the rounds in group chats, a sign of the mudslinging that has accompanied the search for treasury secretary. Meanwhile, Semafor also reported that Linda McMahon is privately frustrated that she has yet to get offered the position of commerce secretary, despite some seeing her as the frontrunner for the role. The delay in an offer for McMahon is seen by some of Trump’s allies as a sign that he’s saving the commerce secretary job as a potential landing spot for someone else who misses out on a more prominent position, Semafor’s Shelby Talcott, Morgan Chalfant, and Liz Hoffman write. With Howard Lutnick on the outs in the treasury secretary race, that means both Trump transition co-chairs are in limbo.

Congress eyes Biden disaster aid request

President Joe Biden has requested $98 billion in disaster relief money; now Capitol Hill needs to figure out what to do with it. “I’d like to get it done. We hope the Republicans go along,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Semafor. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-NC, called the number a “good start” and said that the aid could potentially pass before the end of the year if attached to a “largely clean” extension of federal spending. Still, there’s lot of variables for the House and the Senate to work out – namely, how to handle that funding. “It’s too early to say, but I am eager to move the disaster bill,” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee. Of course, it’s not yet clear what House Republicans will seek to pass.

— Burgess Everett

John Thune is a Republican senator from South Dakota and the next Senate GOP leader.

Rising share of Ukrainians want peace talks

More than half of Ukrainians want negotiations to end Russia’s war as soon as possible, according to Gallup. A thousand days into the war, 52% of Ukrainians surveyed say they want negotiations to start, up from 27% in 2023. Thirty-eight percent said Ukraine should keep fighting until it wins, down from 63% last year and 73% soon after Russia invaded. The figures showcase war fatigue growing among Ukraine’s population, as it has in Europe and the US. Fifty-two percent of Ukrainians also said the country should be willing to give up territory as part of an agreement to end the war. While Donald Trump has pledged to end the conflict, more Ukrainians want the EU (70%) and UK (63%) to play a major role in peace negotiations than want the US to do so under a Trump administration (49%).

Poll: Most people don’t use ‘woke’ language

Few Americans use the so-called “woke” terminology that Republicans ran against and that Democrats have walked away from, according to post-election polling conducted by YouGov. Just 20% of adults said that they regularly used the term “safe space,” the most popular of the 30 terms tested last week, according to the poll shared first with Semafor. Majorities said they had heard of, but not used, terms like “white privilege” (64%), “trigger warnings” (55%), and “gender non-binary” (54%). “While majorities of Americans are familiar with most of the terms in our survey, very few Americans say they use them regularly,” said YouGov’s Taylor Orth. Democrats have been arguing about whether politicized or alienating language hurt them in the election, though none of these terms showed up in their paid messaging, and some candidates (Arizona Sen.-elect Ruben Gallego) went out of their way to attack academic and corporate terms like “Latinx.”

— David Weigel

Dan Osborn wants more people like him

Two weeks after losing his independent bid for Senate in Nebraska, union organizer Dan Osborn is launching a group to help more unlikely candidates. The Working Class Heroes Fund, said Osborn, is “going to help other people just like me, whether they be teachers or nurses or plumbers or carpenters or bus drivers or people who sit at a computer screen in a cubicle for not enough money.” GOP Sen. Deb Fischer beat Osborn by just 6.8 points, after the first-time candidate turned down the Democratic Party’s support and ran at her from the left (as an economic populist) and the right (for abandoning Donald Trump after the “Access Hollywood” tape). Democratic PACs helped Osborn this year, and Republican PACs helped beat him, but Osborn — who returns to work as a steamfitter today — said he wasn’t focused on party labels for his endorsements. “The one true principle is going to be that you don’t take corporate money, and that you come from the working class,” he said.

— David Weigel

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Speaker Mike Johnson is alone in his desire to punt the government funding debate to the first quarter of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Playbook: Numerous Republican senators have communicated to Trump’s team that they believe Matt Gaetz has a slim chance of being confirmed as attorney general, and nearly a dozen refused to say publicly that they would support his nomination.

WaPo: Trump hasn’t taken any steps toward divesting his financial interests ahead of his next term.

Axios: MSNBC “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were criticized online after revealing they met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last week, but they also “received a torrent of supportive texts from politicians, journalists and ambassadors.”

Blindspot

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, curated with help from our partners at Ground News.

What the Left isn’t reading: Ben Carson dispelled speculation he could serve as the next US surgeon general.

What the Right isn’t reading: Two women told the House Ethics Committee that Matt Gaetz paid them for sex, according to their lawyer.

White House

• President Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni missed a “family photo” at the G20 summit in Brazil.

Congress

• Donald Trump’s advisers and allies in Congress are discussing possibly imposing work requirements and spending caps on federal safety net programs like Medicaid in order to offset the cost of extending the Trump tax cuts. — WaPo
• Nancy Mace, R-SC, introduced a resolution to bar transgender women from using women’s bathrooms in the Capital and House offices, two weeks after Rep. Sarah McBride, D-Del., became the first openly transgender person elected to Congress.

Transition

• Donald Trump is expected to tap James Braid as his White House director of legislative affairs. — Bloomberg
• The Trump team is now considering Scott Bessent for the role of White House National Economic Council director. — Bloomberg
• Trump said he would name former GOP congressman Sean Duffy as transportation secretary.

Courts

• The Justice Department plans to push Google to sell Chrome. — Bloomberg
• The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Alaska campaign contribution disclosure rules.

Polls

• One in five US adults say they regularly get news from media influencers, including 37% of those 18 to 29 years old, according to new findings from the Pew Research Center about influencers and Americans’ consumption of their content. Slightly more news influencers identify as right-leaning than those who identify as left-leaning, the study found.

Campaigns

• Martin O’Malley is running for DNC chair.
• Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill is officially running to be the next governor of New Jersey.

Foreign Policy

• The Biden administration imposed new sanctions on Israeli companies involved in building settlements in the West Bank.
• At a meeting in Brazil, G20 leaders watered down support for Ukraine. — FT
• Ukrainian officials conducted their first strike on Russia using US-supplied ATACMS, according to Ukrainian media reports.

Technology

• OpenAI founder Sam Altman is part of the transition team for San Francisco Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie.

Media

• The Associated Press is cutting its staff.

Principals Team

• Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Elana Schor, Morgan Chalfant
• Reporters: Burgess Everett, Kadia Goba, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

Supporting Ukraine’s transition to clean energy could be a crucial strategy for the incoming Trump administration to counter Russia and China, Semafor’s Tim McDonnell wrote. Ukraine’s foreign investment crunch has slowed its energy transition, and investing in its green energy sector “may be one of the cheapest and easiest ways for the Trump administration to continue supporting the country… with strategic and economic benefits for the US,” McDonnell wrote.