One month left: Congress's wild December

IN THIS EDITION

December is going to be crazy in D.C.

Trump’s deadly boat strikes under Hill microscope

It’s crunch time for new House maps

Don Davis to run in N.C.’s 1st District

IBM hires House GOP tax aide, Oversight counsel moves to DLA Piper

THE TOP

December is going to be crazy in D.C.

Happy Monday morning.

Welcome to December, the final month of a tumultuous 2025.

The House has just 13 days left in session — it’s only 12 for the Senate — before lawmakers head home for the holiday season.

So it’s going to be a crazy couple of weeks, during which a barely functional Congress and an increasingly volatile president have to tackle a host of high-stakes priorities.

Health care. The most critical deadline is Dec. 31, when enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies expire. Millions of individual Americans and small businesses face higher premiums or could even lose coverage if the ACA premium subsidies end.

Before Thanksgiving, President Donald Trump sent signals that he might propose a pared-back two-year extension of the tax credits in order to give Hill Republicans time to come up with a longer-term health care plan.

But after significant blowback from Republicans on the Hill — including Speaker Mike Johnson — Trump administration sources tell us it’s exceedingly unlikely that the White House will embrace an ACA subsidies extension or offer its own plan.

Granted, this administration hardly operates via linear thinking patterns. Senior Trump aides shift their strategy with little warning, thanks to a president who does the same. Yet as of now, it looks like Congress is on its own with this issue. That will infuriate vulnerable House and Senate Republicans who see an ACA extension of some sort as a political necessity for their own 2026 races.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has promised Democrats that he’ll hold a vote on extending the subsidies by next week. Yet without White House involvement, this is shaping up to be a partisan exercise in which both parties put forward their own plan and neither gets 60 votes.

Case in point: We’re told that Senate Democrats are expected to revert to their original position in this fight — a clean extension of the ACA subsidies. This will be a challenge for the handful of Democratic senators trying to strike a bipartisan deal on a pared-back extension.

There’s a sense inside the House GOP leadership that vulnerable rank-and-file Republicans are going to want a health-care-related vote at some point in the next month or so. With the White House seemingly taking a pass on releasing its own plan, the House GOP leadership team is discussing its own proposal.

It’s not entirely clear what will be in a plan like this. But Republicans have described the broad outlines as expanding health savings accounts and allowing companies to pool insurance plans. Note: Republicans have huge Hyde Amendment concerns with the tax credits.

Government funding. Thune hopes to get the ball rolling on the next FY2026 appropriations minibus following the end of the 43-day government shutdown. The South Dakota Republican wants to group Defense, Labor-HHS, Transportation-HUD and Commerce-Justice-Science into one funding package. The Interior funding bill could also be in the mix.

Doing so would require unanimous consent, and both sides have been running hotlines to check for objections to different formulations of this. In the meantime, Thune intends to use the failed vote on the Defense spending bill from October as the vehicle.

Thune can bring this back up at any time, possibly this week, although the Senate floor will be jammed up with judicial nominees and a new package of executive branch nominees.

House Republican leaders don’t expect to put any spending legislation on the floor this month, instead waiting to see what the Senate is able to do.

NDAA. The text of the National Defense Authorization Act is expected to be finalized this week, and it should be made public in the coming days.

GAIN AI is still an issue in the annual Pentagon policy bill. GAIN AI, written by Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), would limit foreign exports of high-tech chips. Nvidia, which has a close relationship with the Trump White House, is adamantly opposed to the measure.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.) reworked the proposal, giving Congress the ability to block exports. But it seems as if the White House and the House Republican leadership are still opposed to the new GAIN AI’s inclusion in the NDAA. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will be on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet with Senate Banking Committee members.

On another issue, House Republican leaders have an agreement with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and the White House on language for the NDAA that would block states from regulating AI. This has been a priority of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and the White House. We’ll see if Democrats agree.

House action this week. The SCORE Act is on the House floor this week. This is landmark collegiate athletic legislation that would put new rules on NIL deals.

House Republicans’ weekly meeting on Tuesday will be at the Capitol Hill Club. It’s a political meeting.

The NRCC also has its annual New York City fundraiser this weekend. After that, House GOP staff directors will have a retreat in Boston a week from today. We expect lots of talk about the 2026 agenda during this retreat.

The House is expected to take up a number of permitting reform bills next week.

Highly special. An unusually pricey special election in a deep red seat in Tennessee is on Tuesday. Johnson will be in Tennessee today campaigning for Matt Van Epps, the GOP candidate. This is a district Trump won by 22 points in 2024.

Tennessee GOP insiders predict Van Epps will win by roughly five points, which would be a massive underperformance from what former GOP Rep. Mark Green did a year ago.

It’s no longer an exaggeration to say that House Republicans could lose their majority during this Congress. Whether Republicans agree or not, their majority is slipping away.

— Jake Sherman, Andrew Desiderio and John Bresnahan

DEFENSE

Trump’s deadly boat strikes under Hill microscope

The House and Senate committees that oversee the Pentagon are set to undertake rare congressional scrutiny of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over his handling of U.S. strikes on drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean.

The twin investigations come as President Donald Trump stoked new tensions with Venezuela, raising the specter of U.S. military action against Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

The congressional investigations are prompting renewed debates over the legality of the Trump administration’s targeting of suspected drug traffickers — fueled in part by the Republicans who chair the Senate and House Armed Services committees.

‘Kill them all.’ The Washington Post reported over the weekend that Hegseth ordered U.S. forces to kill everyone on board during a Sept. 2 operation against alleged drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean. The paper disclosed that military leaders allegedly conducted a second attack that day to target two individuals who appeared to survive the initial boat strike. If true, this could be considered a violation of the laws of armed conflict — or even worse, a potential war crime.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the ranking Democrat, pledged in a joint statement to conduct “vigorous oversight” over the alleged follow-on strike.

Their House counterparts — Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.) — said in a separate release that they’re “taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question.”

It’s safe to assume there are several Republicans on both panels who aren’t pleased with Wicker and Rogers, and believe they’re undercutting Trump and validating Democrats’ arguments against the boat strikes.

Appearing on Fox News on Sunday, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), who serves on the Armed Services Committee, didn’t directly mention the new investigations but slammed the “Washington elite” for “fighting wars for other countries in far-off places as opposed to taking care of business here at home.”

In a post Friday on X, Hegseth dismissed the WaPo report as “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory” and defended the strikes as lawful. Trump said Sunday that Hegseth told him he “did not order the death of those two men.” Trump added that he wouldn’t have wanted a second strike because the first was “very lethal.”

Lawmakers will likely be eager to hear from retiring Adm. Alvin Holsey, who heads U.S. Southern Command and oversees operations in Central and South America. Holsey is retiring Dec. 12, just a year into his tenure at the head of SOUTHCOM. His departure comes amid tensions between Holsey and Hegseth over the boat strikes.

In all, U.S. forces have carried out more than 20 strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing at least 80.

War powers. On Saturday, Trump wrote in an extraordinary Truth Social post that he was declaring Venezuelan airspace to be “closed in its entirety.” The remarks suggested that some sort of military action could be imminent. Trump downplayed it on Sunday, telling reporters: “Don’t read anything into it.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responded to Trump’s missives by calling attention to the fact that Congress hasn’t authorized any military action against Venezuela.

“President Trump’s reckless actions towards Venezuela are pushing America closer and closer to another costly foreign war,” Schumer said.

It’s too soon to say whether there will be another effort on the Hill to rein in Trump’s warmaking powers in the region, but this will certainly be a point of conversation as lawmakers return to Washington.

In the House, Democrats pitched a resolution last month to bar any effort by the Trump administration to strike alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. The Senate blocked two similar resolutions amid a vigorous effort by Trump administration officials to convince Republicans of the legality of the strikes.

— Andrew Desiderio and Briana Reilly

REDISTRICTING WARS

It’s crunch time for new House maps

December will bring an onslaught of redistricting developments across several states. We’ve broken down the top places to watch over the next few weeks:

Florida. The Sunshine State legislature’s redistricting committee will meet this Thursday as it plots to join the national redistricting wars.

Florida has become increasingly more important as Republicans have struggled to secure new maps in other red states. The GOP-controlled Florida legislature is committed to redistricting but there are two main roadblocks.

Democrats plan to mount aggressive resistance to any new map. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries huddled with Democrats in the Florida congressional delegation the week before Thanksgiving, per sources familiar with the meeting.

Florida Republicans will also need to navigate the state’s anti-gerrymandering laws in any redraw. Yet a conservative Florida Supreme Court could work in their favor. And a recent ruling has given Republicans a possible blueprint to redistrict.

Texas. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito temporarily reinstated Republicans’ gerrymander in the Lone Star State late last month, reversing a lower court ruling that threw it out.

Up next: SCOTUS will make a final decision on what map Texas will use for the midterms. That ruling could come at any time as the Dec. 8 filing deadline nears. If the GOP-drawn 2025 map remains, Republicans will have greatly boosted their odds in five seats.

Indiana. The Indiana state Senate will reconvene next Monday, Dec. 8, to make a “final decision” on redistricting. GOP operatives hope the Indiana Senate Republicans will be persuaded to enact a map if it has already passed the state House.

But another Indiana GOP lawmaker came out against redistricting. State Sen. Mike Bohacek said Friday he won’t support the effort because President Donald Trump called Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz a slur to describe someone with intellectual disabilities. Bohacek has a daughter with Down syndrome.

Wisconsin. Democrats’ hopes of securing a new map in the Badger State revived last week when the state supreme court agreed to allow three-judge panels to hear two redistricting cases.

It’s not clear whether a ruling could come in time for the midterms. But a favorable and quick result could boost Democrats’ chances against GOP Reps. Derrick Van Orden and Bryan Steil.

– Ally Mutnick

TAR HEEL STATE

Don Davis to run in N.C.’s 1st District

Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.) will announce this morning that he’s seeking reelection to North Carolina’s 1st District.

Davis’ current seat shifted drastically to the right after North Carolina Republicans passed a partisan gerrymander. The moderate Democrat is one of the most vulnerable House incumbents running in 2026.

President Donald Trump won the current configuration of the 1st District by three points. Under the new map, Trump carried the district by 11 points.

Davis’ decision to run again in the 1st District avoids a member-on-member clash with Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) in the 3rd District. Both Davis and Murphy had considered swapping seats because key parts of their districts changed under the new maps.

Davis was first elected in 2022 and has won tough races in GOP-leaning turf. Davis, a former state senator, replaced longtime former Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) in the House.

— Max Cohen

… AND THERE’S MORE

IBM hires House GOP tax aide, Oversight counsel moves to DLA Piper

Big tax move. Elle Collins is leaving the House Ways and Means Committee to join IBM as the tech giant’s global tax policy leader.

Collins played a central part in crafting the One Big Beautiful Bill this year as a GOP tax counsel for the committee, focusing on energy and international tax provisions. That included a massive rollback of green tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act, which was one of the most politically challenging pieces of the law to put together.

Kyle Perel also recently exited the Ways and Means tax staff, where he worked on key pieces of the OBBB like tax cuts for tips and overtime and education-related policies. Perel is now a special adviser at the Treasury Department.

Big oversight move. Jake Greenberg, the chief GOP investigations counsel for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is moving over to DLA Piper to run the firm’s investigations practice.

Greenberg — who graduated from the University of Chicago Law School — has been with the Oversight Committee since March 2020. This included working on the impeachment probe against former President Joe Biden and the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump. Greenberg also served a year-long stint on the House Judiciary Committee.

Downtown Download. Meta has hired Salinas Strategies to lobby on “[i]ssues and discussions related to AI, Antitrust, Homeland Security, Intellectual Property, Intelligence, Trade.” Norberto Salinas was the senior counsel on the House Judiciary Committee.

The Campaign. Fairness for Iowa, a coalition of progressive groups aimed at defeating Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), has a new ad up in Des Moines and Ames hitting Nunn on price increases due to tariffs.

American Advancement Inc. has a new ad up in Bangor, Maine, which says the key to advancing the MAGA agenda is extending the enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies. The spot asserts that if Congress extends the subsidies now, Trump can fix Obamacare in 2026.

— Laura Weiss, John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman

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