Washington, DC

1. GOP at war over ACA
2. Dems to block Halligan
3. House frustration mounts
4. Trump’s Indiana loss
5. Venezuela pressure campaign
6. Ukraine may cede land

PDB: Trump signs order to restrict state AI laws

Trump swears in EXIM Bank chair, DFC CEO … Floods inundate Washington state … Putin claims solidarity with Maduro

GOP needs Trump to settle ACA war

President Donald Trump is going to need to get his referee whistle out to unite Republicans around anything to deal with skyrocketing health care premiums, Semafor’s Burgess Everett and Eleanor Mueller report. Republicans think that Trump wants them to do something about the premiums — but they aren’t sure what. The White House wants “to find a pathway forward,” one Republican who has spoken to Trump says. The GOP is at war over what to do: Some want to deal with Democrats, others want to ditch them and do a party-line bill. Some want a short-term deal extending the expiring tax credits, others want a far different reshaping of current law. In a statement, the White House bashed Democrats’ push to extend the insurance subsidies. And Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said “the president will have to lean in” — probably in January.

Dems likely to block Halligan in VA

Why is Trump posting about the Senate “blue slip” again? Virginia’s two Democratic senators are likely to block his nomination of Lindsey Halligan as US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, according to people familiar with the matter. That means using internal veto power by refusing to return a blue slip that indicates support for a home-state judicial nominee. Currently, “she does not have a blue slip for either one,” said the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, Dick Durbin. Neither Virginia Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine or Mark Warner explicitly confirmed they’ll block Halligan as they seek a nominee they could support; Warner said he’d meet with her but that it would be “very hard” to support her. And Senate Republicans aren’t eliminating blue slips, despite Trump’s request, because they want input when a Democrat is president, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said.

Frustrated House turns to discharge petitions

Health care isn’t the only issue that exasperated rank-and-file House members are taking into their own hands. Lawmakers overruled Trump for the first time this Congress by passing a bill Thursday overturning an executive order stripping federal workers of collective bargaining rights after Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, got enough signatures on his discharge petition to force a vote. A discharge petition from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., that would force a vote on legislation banning lawmakers from trading stocks, has 58 signatures so far, 15 of which are Republican. “I think it’s a sign that members are sensing that there’s been less than the desired level of leadership when it comes to important policy issues facing the country,” Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., said. Not everyone agrees. “Members see leverage and they take it,” Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., said. “I don’t see any productivity in that.”

— Eleanor Mueller

Over three decades on screen, Andy Richter has adapted to every twist in the media world. The comedy veteran and longtime Conan O’Brien sidekick joins Mixed Signals this week for an existentially funny conversation about surviving three decades in entertainment. Max and Ben ask Andy about how he became late night’s most adaptable performer, whether he ever worried about becoming “the next Ed McMahon,” and why acting work has become so elusive in Hollywood. Andy also talks about the decline of late night as a cultural force, and how Dancing With the Stars accidentally turned him into a TikTok phenomenon.

Listen to the latest episode of Mixed Signals now.

Indiana Republicans rebuke Trump

Trump and House Republicans are facing a major setback in their effort to keep hold of the House majority, after Indiana Republicans rejected an intense push by the president and his party to follow through with an unusual mid-decade redistricting push. The vote came exactly a week after Republicans welcomed the Supreme Court’s move to greenlight Texas’ new congressional map. The Indiana Republicans who rebuked Trump had faced public and private appeals from the White House and primary threats from the president, along with pipe bomb threats and instances of swatting. “We have a huge problem,” Trump ally Steve Bannon told Politico. The broader fight over redistricting is still playing out, with Utah GOP lawmakers fighting a court-ordered map, Florida Republicans preparing their own push, and other Democratic-controlled legislatures eyeing their own new maps as a counterweight.

Trump tightens vise on Venezuela

The Trump administration is reaching for new tools to pressure Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, expanding its pressure campaign beyond military force in the Caribbean. The administration plans to seize more ships carrying Venezuelan oil following the seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker earlier this week, Reuters reported. The Trump administration on Thursday also sanctioned three nephews of Maduro’s wife, one businessman affiliated with the regime leader, and six shipping companies moving Venezuelan oil. It all marks an obvious escalation following the monthslong military buildup by the US in the region, though White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump isn’t interested in a “prolonged war” with Venezuela. She also said the US intends to take the oil from the tanker taken into custody this week, but would abide by the necessary legal process.

— Shelby Talcott and Morgan Chalfant

Ukraine could cede land for peace deal

Ukraine has reportedly agreed to make territorial concessions to end the war with Russia, potentially reviving a flagging US-backed peace proposal as Trump’s Christmas deadline draws closer. According to Le Monde, Kyiv and its European backers have accepted a US push for a demilitarized zone in its Donbas region, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has questioned who would govern the territory. Ukrainian and European officials will meet Saturday to discuss the latest iteration of the peace plan; it’s unclear whether the US will attend. “The president is extremely frustrated with both sides of this war, and he is sick of meetings just for the sake of meeting,” Leavitt said. The White House is pressuring Zelenskyy to accept a deal, while Moscow says there are no longer any “misunderstandings” with Washington. However, Zelenskyy remains wary: “Everything could fall apart for many reasons.”

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Debatable: Bipartisan progress

It’s an age-old axiom in Washington: Don’t expect bipartisan dealmaking in an election year, Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant writes. As the 2026 midterms draw closer, the sparse work being done across the aisle is likely to shrink further. Still, some optimists see a path forward on issues like health care. “I think that there is a bipartisan majority to be had on so many of these issues,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., argued at Semafor’s Architects of the New Economy event, offering up raising the minimum wage as an example. But White House deputy chief of staff James Blair said at the same event that congressional Democrats aren’t interested in working with Republicans. They’re sending a clear message on health care that “we’re not going to negotiate, we want this to fail, and we want to campaign against you on it,” he said.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: “I just don’t think they understand the ramifications nationally,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., said of his state’s lawmakers move to reject a new congressional map. “Shame on us.”

WaPo: “Hoosiers are very independent,” said Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-Ind,. “And they’re not used to Washington trying to tell us what to do.”

Axios: Even after their Indiana setback, Republicans are still likely to gain a few more seats than Democrats through mid-decade restricting.

Playbook: “Nobody wants to take responsibility for the tragedy that’s going on here,” philanthropist Bill Gates said of the deaths caused by the Trump administration’s foreign aid cuts.

White House

• President Trump claimed to have pardoned Tina Peters, an election official convicted in state court of tampering with voting machines, despite having no constitutional authority to do so.