Journalists’ Notebook: People are policy

It is that in politics, the people are the policy.

So President-elect Trump’s “policies” went down on Capitol Hill this week.

Thus begins the four-year tradition of various Cabinet appointees going around the Senate. They’re here to meet with senators, answer questions, press meat, get a sense of what senators want to know about them at confirmation hearings — and where the pitfalls are.

We got a piece of this before Thanksgiving. That’s when the former attorney general and former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., along with several Republican senators. After that Gaetz bowed out, so it was on to Trump’s second choice for attorney general – Pam Bondi.

Bondi arrived at the Capitol on Monday to meet with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, but his first meeting was postponed because Grassley’s flight was delayed. They ended up talking in the afternoon.

“I look forward to working with you and spearheading your nomination for the United States Senate,” Grassley said when he finally arrived at his office in the Hart Senate Office Building.

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“If I ever receive the confidence and nomination of every senator, I will do my best every day to serve the American people tirelessly. And I will make you, the President and our country proud,” Bondi added.

“Is this going to be easier than Mr. Gaetz?” asked yours truly.

“No questions. No questions,” Grassley ordered.

Bondi immediately headed to the Russell Senate Office Building to participate in a discussion with the current Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C.

“He’s a great choice. He’s been a friend for a long time. I think he’s the right person at the right time,” Graham said.

Bondi may have an easier path to Senate confirmation than the other nominee roaming the Senate corridors, Defense Secretary pick Pete Hegseth.

He met with Sens. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska.

“We will meet together,” said Hegseth.

Hegseth faces a number of questions about whether he is fit to lead an organization as large as the US military. There were a number of accusations against Hegseth.

“Have you ever been drunk on your way to work?” asked CBS’s Nikole Killion.

“I won’t honor that with an answer,” Hegseth replied.

He then went on to a series with the Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah. Hegseth appears to have gained the support of some of the more conservative members of the Senate.

“We don’t need a chief executive, an admiral or a high man,” Tuberville said. “We need a drill sergeant in the army. We need someone to direct the troops. Get up, DEI organization and get out of there.”

Hegseth was back at it Tuesday morning, meeting with Sens. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., Shelley Moore Capito, RW.V., Ted Budd, RN.C., Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and Eric Schmitt, R-Mo.

Wednesday meant meetings with Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, RS.D., and the next chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.

Hegseth also expressed doubts about women serving in the military.

My colleague Aishah Hasnie pressed Hegseth on this point as he transitioned between Senate offices.

“We have amazing women serving in our military. Amazing women,” Hegseth said.

“Do you think they should be at war?” asked Hasnie.

“I think they’re in a fight,” Hegseth replied.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, is joined by his wife Jennifer Rauchet, as they walk in the basement of the Capitol, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schifelbein)

Amidst all the focus on Bondi and Hegseth, United Nations Ambassador-Designate and Attorney Elise Stefanik, RN.Y., snuck into a meeting with Grassley. And Treasury Secretary-designate Scott Bessent is also expected to meet with Thune and newly appointed Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo.

Meanwhile, Education Secretary-designate Linda McMahon showed up to have a session with Seni. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., on Tuesday.

Do you think things are hot right now? Wait until FBI pick Kash Patel and Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. start making their office calls.

And we haven’t even gotten to the confirmation hearings expected for Hegseth, Kennedy and Patel in early January. Cable TV channels will likely carry those conversations to the wall. And depending on the day, it can be a challenging programming decision as to which audition should go live — especially if two or three are coming on at the same time.

The powerful duo is coming to Capitol Hill later this week — they don’t need confirmation. And in fact, their visit may garner more attention than any of the next Cabinet nominees.

President-elect Trump has tapped former Republican presidents Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to run the Department of Government Operations, or DOGE. They will meet with House and Senate Republicans about their plans to take back the government. They started with meetings with Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who leads the Senate DOGE Caucus.

“We have a lot of waste in the federal government,” Ernst said. “We have over $1 trillion in savings already identified by DOGE.”

Left: Elon Musk speaks at an American PAC town hall on Oct. 26, 2024, in Lancaster, Pa.; Right: Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (Left: Samuel Corum/Getty Images; Right: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Even Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., became the first Democrat to join the House DOGE Caucus.

“I believe that doing good government programs and reducing ineffective government spending should not be a partisan issue,” said Moskowitz. “The caucus should look at the performance of DHS and include recommendations to make the Secret Service and FEMA independent federal agencies with direct reporting to the White House.”

When it comes to guarantees, Democrats insist that Republicans do things by the book. They want background checks on nominees, and they’re urging the GOP not to let Trump bypass the Senate if there are problems and temporarily fill people in with recess appointments.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., took issue with the impromptu meetings Republican senators are holding with nominees. Some of those times have led to GOP members announcing they will vote to confirm.

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“You can’t do a speed-dating process in the Cabinet of the President of the United States without ending up in disgrace and with things that have only been discovered through an intensive investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” said Durbin, “I can tell you. you privately, many Republican senators have spoken to me and said ‘For the sake of fairness, we can’t to complete an FBI check.’ That’s part of the system.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote to Thune, urging him to preserve Senate traditions to confirm nominees.

“The power of enrichment and consent is the foundation of the Senate’s constitutional authority. It is a fundamental power in maintaining America’s system of checks and balances. The Founding Fathers knew firsthand the great danger of allowing unchecked administrations to appoint individuals to executive positions without oversight,” Schumer said. “We hope this will not be a problem. But even so, it will be the responsibility of the incoming Republican majority to protect the Senate from any attempts to undermine its authority.”

So this will be quite a few weeks.

Many meetings. Lots of listening. More votes. All around the next management staff.

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Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., likes to say that the Senate is “in the workforce business.”

It is in the “policy” business, and those “policies” are now walking the halls of Capitol Hill.