Two weeks into Trump Administration 2.0, and I feel fine

President-elect Donald Trump isn’t done raiding Fox News for his Cabinet, which is what we expected from the failed TV game show host elected to a second term in the White House.

It’s not quite the end of the world as we know it, but apologies if it feels like it sometimes.

On this week’s politics podcast, we dive head-first into:

• Donald Trump might have to give up on his first Attorney General nominee, Matt Gaetz, who we’re now learning as the new week starts reportedly participated in drug-fueled orgies that included underage girls during his first term in Congress. From Warner, Kaine raise issues with Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard Cabinet nominations
• We got ourselves a 2025 Virginia politics cycle shocker on Monday: Jason Miyares is going to run for a second term as attorney general, ceding the Republican Party gubernatorial nomination to Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. From Shocker: Jason Miyares passes up run for governor, going for second term as AG instead
• Ken Mitchell, fresh off getting 34.6 percent of the vote in his loss to Ben Cline in the race for the Sixth District seat in Congress, is back for more. From Ken Mitchell announces candidacy for Sixth District seat in Congress in 2026 cycle
• Sixth District Congressman Ben Cline came up short on Friday in his bid to become the next chairman of the Republican Study Committee. From Ben Cline defeated in bid to take control of Republican Study Committee
• Virginiahas added 247,400 jobs since Glenn Youngkin took office in 2022, which we can thank the outgoing president, Joe Biden, and congressional Democrats for – see: Inflation Reduction Act. From Glenn Youngkin takes credit for Virginia jobs: It’s the federal government, doofus
• The low-income White MAGA folks who voted for Donald Trump will be the ones who feel the consequences. They’ll be the ones who lose their health insurance when he follows through on his promise to end Obamacare, and the ones who will feel the pinch of higher prices when he follows through on his promise to jack up tariffs. From Mailbag: MAGA reader uses the term ‘woke,’ hints Jesus wouldn’t have liked it