by Post Politics Now: Ronna McDaniel seeks to hang on as RNC chair
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Today, 168 Republican National Committee members, gathered at a luxury resort in Dana Point, Calif., will decide by secret ballot whether to retain Ronna McDaniel as party chair despite disappointing midterm elections. McDaniel, who was first elevated to her position by President Donald Trump, faces a spirited challenge from Harmeet Dhillon, a California lawyer who has represented Trump and has the backing of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). MyPillow CEO and election denier Mike Lindell is also seeking the position.
President Biden has no events on his public schedule Friday before he heads to Camp David in Western Maryland for the weekend. He confirmed in a statement that Jeff Zients, who oversaw the administration’s pandemic response, will become his new chief of staff, replacing Ron Klain.
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- 2 p.m. Eastern: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters. Watch live here.
- 5:30 p.m. Eastern: Biden departs the White House en route to Camp David.
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On our radar: In search of George Santos’s illustrious college volleyball career
You would think such a decorated former student-athlete would be … remembered. University of Michigan undergrads still take pride in Tom Brady, after all; even the youngest Tar Heel can boast about Michael Jordan.
But when The Post’s Ashley Fetters Maloy asked two young women who had come to see the Baruch College men’s volleyball team play St. Joseph’s College on Tuesday night what they thought of local college volleyball legend George Santos, they looked at her blankly. Per Ashley:
Fair enough; perhaps Santos’s stardom was before their time.
Still, though. You would think a school’s administrators would leap at the chance to advertise his involvement with the school. But no. At the Baruch College Athletic & Recreation Complex on Manhattan’s East Side, the first walls one sees as a visitor are emblazoned from floor to ceiling with 8-foot-tall heroic action shots of standout swimmers, basketball players, tennis players of yore. And yet: Nowhere in this shrine is there any trace of the purported volleyball star who became a congressman from New York’s 3rd district.
You can read Ashley’s full piece about the congressman who has admitted fabricating key parts of his background here.
Noted: Klain says his work for Biden defined his life, professionally and personally
In his official resignation letter, outgoing White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain recounted what President Biden has accomplished so far during his tenure, as is typical of such documents.
But Klain also offered a rare glimpse of how his many years of service alongside Biden, in multiple capacities, has affected him personally and been “woven into the tapestry of the Klain family.”
Klain, 61, became the White House chief of staff in January 2021 after serving in the same role for Biden at the start of his vice presidency.
Noted: Manchin says he’s in no hurry on reelection decision
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) said during a television interview Friday that he is no hurry to make a decision about seeking reelection next year and declined to say whether he would run as a Democrat.
“I’ve got plenty of time,” Manchin said on CNN, when asked about a timetable for a decision on whether to run again in a state that former president Donald Trump carried over Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 by a margin of more than 2-to-1.
Asked if he would run with a “D” next to his name, Manchin said, “I haven’t made any decisions on anything because I’m not in a hurry to do that.”
The latest: Biden confirms he has tapped Zients as chief of staff
President Biden, in a statement issued Friday, confirmed reports that he has tapped Jeff Zients, a management consultant who oversaw the administration’s coronavirus response, to replace Ron Klain as White House chief of staff.
Biden said the White House would host an “official transition event” next week to thank Klain for his work and welcome Zients back to the White House in his new role.
“I’m confident that Jeff will continue Ron’s example of smart, steady leadership, as we continue to work hard every day for the people we were sent here to serve,” Biden said.
Analysis: Medicaid will become available to some California inmates
California’s Medicaid program is testing out something new.
The state will soon begin paying for certain care for those in prison, jail and juvenile detention centers three months before they are released. The idea is to enroll those eligible in Medicaid early in an effort to provide an easier transition as they exit the criminal justice system.
Writing in The Health 202, The Post’s Rachel Roubein relays that federal health officials signed off on the plan Thursday, which is the first time the safety net program will provide coverage before inmates are released from prison. Per Rachel:
Noted: Musk says he met McCarthy and Jeffries to ensure Twitter is ‘fair’
Elon Musk, the outspoken chief executive of social media giant Twitter, said he met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) at the U.S. Capitol to talk about his platform.
The Post’s Adela Suliman has details:
“Just met with Speaker McCarthy & Rep Jeffries to discuss ensuring that this platform is fair to both parties,” Musk tweeted Thursday evening.
He gave no further details and was only briefly glimpsed by reporters on the Hill.
Twitter has faced intense scrutiny from both ends of the political spectrum over which voices are banned or promoted on the platform.
Asked about the meeting, McCarthy, who turned 58 on Thursday, declined to comment but quipped that Musk “came to wish me happy birthday,” adding “we’ve been friends for years.”
You can read the full story here.
Take a look: See the evolution of lies in George Santos’s campaign biography
George Santos began introducing himself to the world in 2020 when he ran for Congress. By the time he was elected in November 2022, his campaign website had described him as a highly educated Wall Street financier whose family had fled the Holocaust, whose mother had escaped 9/11, and who also had found time to rescue cats and dogs.
By December, journalists began discovering that most of his biography was false.
The Post’s Azi Paybarah, Luis Melgar and Tyler Remmel take a look at how Santos defined and redefined himself in his biography on his campaign website.
The latest: With Trump reinstatement, Meta finds new ways to punish world leaders
With its announcement that it would be reinstating former president Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, Meta warned that it could take a stronger stance against world leaders who post content that exacerbates civil unrest or breaks its rules.
The Post’s Naomi Nix reports that the social media giant is expanding the range of interventions that it can deploy to fight dangerous rhetoric from Trump and other public figures — with new measures to decrease the visibility of provocative posts. Per Naomi:
Analysis: Eric Cantor on why today’s debt limit fight is different from 2011
As House majority leader in 2011, Eric Cantor (R-Va.) led negotiations over raising the debt limit with then-Vice President Joe Biden during the Obama administration.
Cantor spoke to The Post’s Theodoric Meyer and Leigh Ann Caldwell for The Early 202 about that and other issues. Here are some of the highlights:
- On what about the 2011 experience might be helpful for Republicans as they contemplate another showdown: “You have to look at what was different back then. In 2011, we had a much bigger majority. Remember, we had picked up 63 seats, and so we had a 20-some-vote margin versus what [Speaker] Kevin [McCarthy] is dealing with today. [And because] the preceding Congress had not finished the appropriations process, we were plunged into appropriations, which had to be done in a bipartisan way since there was a Democratic-controlled Senate and President Obama in the White House. So that necessitated compromise right away.”
- On the effect of having a narrower majority now: “We saw what happened with the election of Kevin as speaker. There were many concessions needed in order to convince the very small group of individuals who were holding out [to vote for him]. I do think that has a lot to do with how the House will proceed, because there were commitments made, and expectations along with those commitments that [certain] things would happen. When you’ve got a 20-some-vote margin, you’re not necessarily going to be held hostage the way that we saw on display a few weeks ago.”
You can read The Early 202 in full here.
The latest: Santos campaign briefly reported $254,000 in payments to ‘anonymous’
In the spring of 2022, George Santos’s congressional campaign submitted a handful of filings to the Federal Election Commission that did something unheard of in campaign finance: The campaign reported spending a total of $254,000 — in more than 1,200 small payments — to recipients identified only as “anonymous.”
The Post’s Emma Brown and Isaac Stanley-Becker report that a month later, in amended reports, those listed expenditures were gone. Campaigns generally are not required to itemize payments under $200, so the removal of the “anonymous” payments reverted, in a way, to customary practice. Per our colleagues:
The latest: Jeffries says ‘a handful of reasonable Republicans’ can help end debt limit standoff
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in an interview broadcast Friday that the standoff over raising the debt ceiling could end once “a handful of reasonable Republicans” can be convinced to drop GOP demands for major concessions on spending cuts.
“We will be able to, at the end of the day, convince a handful of reasonable Republicans in the House to do what the business community throughout America have suggested needs to be done, what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce believes needs to be done, what Wall Street says needs to be done, which is to make sure we pay America’s bills that have already been incurred,” Jeffries said during an interview with NPR.
On our radar: RNC chair seeks to quell revolt, divisions ahead of tense Friday election
A contentious battle over the future of the GOP will be decided Friday when Republican National Committee members vote on whether to keep Ronna McDaniel as chair for two more years or replace her after a disappointing election that many have blamed on former president Donald Trump, who first elevated her to the position.
The Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf, Dylan Wells and Josh Dawsey report that McDaniel is facing a challenge from Harmeet Dhillon, a California lawyer who has represented Trump and unsuccessful Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, seizing on grass-roots furor demanding new leadership after a string of electoral failures. Per our colleagues: