President-elect Trump has unabashedly surrounded himself with men who've said, done or been accused of things that would disqualify them under any other U.S. leader in our lifetimes, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• It begs the question: Why? Why go to the mat to pick and defend people Trump knows will raise questions about his judgment, heart or morality? In almost every case, there are similarly loyal and tested alternatives. Yet he often goes with the bad boys.

Why it matters: People who know Trump best tell us the answer lies in his view of humanity and power. Trump, they say, values loyalty, toughness, street smarts and self-protection foremost — and believes most people do bad things to get, hold and use power.

• Business and sexual transgressions don't trouble him like they do other presidents.

🔎 Between the lines: Trump, more often than not, likes people who are like Trump:

• He's a billionaire, real-estate titan and former TV star who's been elected president twice and survived assassination attempts. He has thrived and taken down political dynasties —while paying off a porn star, undermining an election he lost and being found liable for sexual abuse.

The big picture: Trump's instincts on power are on full display with his pick of Fox News' Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary and his impulsive (now withdrawn) choice of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for attorney general. Both were highly controversial picks for jobs that countless people with more experience would kill to get.

• The confirmation fight for RFK Jr. for HHS will be epic. But the Trump team sees the hearing as a massive opportunity to air Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" agenda. Senators "will ask about vaccines and fluoride, and he'll talk about how messed up the health care system is," one Trump insider told us.
• Dr. Oz to head the powerful Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) was another "Not The Onion" transition moment.
• During the campaign, Corey Lewandowski, fired as campaign manager by Trump in 2016, briefly returned to Trump's office and plane with his "Let Trump Be Trump" mantra. In 2022, Lewandowski took a plea deal to resolve a charge of misdemeanor battery after he was accused of making unwanted sexual advances to a GOP donor at a Las Vegas event.

Here are some of the reasons Trump is so willing to disregard guardrails in associates and nominees, based on our conversations with friends and aides:

1. Loyalty litmus test: Trump puts a high premium on intense loyalty under fire. He's willing to overlook a lot if you prove your subservience on TV and in tough moments. The most common strand of DNA in Trumpworld is intense loyalty. He doesn't always return it, in part because he "understands self-preservation. So he balances," a member of his inner circle told us.
2. The nature of man: Trump has a very 1950s view of powerful men. In this view, the successful ones are rugged, often handsome, tough and flawed. Polite men, who often dominate politics, are too soft and fake to confront the harsh realities of real life. It takes daring men to do the hard things in fighting crime or illegal immigration, or confronting China, or negotiating with stone-cold killers like Putin.
3. Rationalization: Trump's own criminal and civil legal fights have made him more tolerant of others who are accused. In this view, it can be a price of fame. It's easy for a guy like Gaetz to convince Trump allegations are B.S., longtime advisers say. "He is ultra-sensitive to the cultural notion that accusation equals guilt," a Trump insider told us.
4. Message to males: We're told Trump's gains in the election fueled his bad-boy instincts. "He knows and intuitively understands that men voted for him in huge numbers in part because they reject the notion that all male behavior is toxic," the insider said. "He wants to drive home the message that he is discarding the old norms and he is setting the new ones."
5. Whatever it takes: The end justifies the meanness, in Trump's eyes. He wants to win — whether it's business deals, or TV ratings, or elections, or governance fights. He wants people willing to do the dirty work of gutting parts of government he loathes. Overlooking warts is easy if they pass this test.
6. Numb to controversy: After constant scandals, Trump is desensitized to infernos that would petrify anyone else in business or politics. "That's been an adjustment for all of us — what's actually possible by pushing the envelope," a Trump adviser told us.

The bottom line: It takes all types to do this. Trump is content with successful people with strong public reputations, like his incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, or his SecState designee, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), or his pick for national security adviser, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.).

• But he also believes even those people need some Roy Cohns — in the mold of Trump's mentor and first fixer-lawyer, who was famous, feared and wily — to do the dirty work.

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Israel and Lebanon are on the verge of a ceasefire agreement to end the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, Israeli and U.S. officials tell Axios' Barak Ravid.

• Why it matters: The agreement would allow hundreds of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border to gradually return home.

The fighting began after Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, and escalated significantly after Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon last month.

• More than 3,500 Lebanese people have been killed and more than 15,000 injured in more than a year of fighting.

🔭 Zoom in: The draft ceasefire agreement includes a 60-day transition period. The Israeli military would withdraw from southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army would deploy in areas close to the border, and Hezbollah would move its heavy weapons north.

👀 Behind the scenes: The agreement was nearing completion last Thursday when the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. and Israeli officials say.

• The news came while Netanyahu was meeting with U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein, who has been mediating between Israel and Lebanon for a year.

Netanyahu was outraged, and grew even angrier after the French Foreign Ministry announced that France would implement the court's ruling.

• That threw a wrench into the negotiations. Lebanon had wanted France to be part of the oversight committee to monitor the agreement.

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Twenty-something knowledge workers are almost all using generative AI tools, Axios' Emily Peck writes from a new survey from Google Workspace.

• Why it matters: If early-adopting Gen Z is doing it, there's a good chance everyone else eventually will.

Google surveyed 1,005 full-time knowledge workers, ages 22-39, who are in leadership roles or aspire to one.

• 93% of Gen Z respondents ages 22 to 27 said they were using two or more AI tools a week — such as ChatGPT, DALL-E and Otter.ai.
• 79% of millennials 28 to 39 said they used two or more of these tools a week.

👓 Zoom in: Younger workers are using AI to revise emails and documents, to take notes during meetings or even to start generating ideas, says Yulie Kwon Kim, VP of product at Google Workspace.

• Keep reading.

Women will fill a record number of state legislative seats next year, filling about a third of seats nationwide.

• Why it matters: The most notable increases were in New Mexico and Colorado, where women will make up most lawmakers for the first time, AP reports.

🧮 By the numbers: 19 states will increase the number of women in their state legislatures in 2025, according to Rutgers' Center for American Women and Politics.

• Female GOP state lawmakers, at least 851, will break the record set last year.

Reality check: The uptick was small. And at least 13 states saw losses in female representation.

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President-elect Trump "starts off with mostly good will from the public: a majority of Americans overall are either happy or at least satisfied that he won and are either excited or optimistic about what he'll do as president," CBS News writes a CBS/YouGov poll.

• 57% of those polled approve of Trump starting a program to deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally. 43% disapproved.

The poll included 2,232 U.S. adults, with a margin of error of ±2.3 points.

• Explore the data.

Patients are flooding doctors' offices and pharmacies seeking IUD replacements, backup contraception and abortion pills before Republicans take control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in January, Axios' Tina Reed writes.

• Why it matters: Experts say millions of women could be affected by GOP efforts to restrict abortion and access to contraceptives.

🔬 Zoom in: Google searches for contraception spiked after the election. Planned Parenthood North Central States (PPNCS), based in St. Paul, Minn., has seen a 150% increase in long-acting reversible contraception, such as IUD appointments scheduled.

• In Kentucky, health clinic appointments for contraceptives increased by 66%. There's also been an uptick in demand for permanent surgical sterilization, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports.

Women have begun stocking up on emergency contraception, often referred to as the morning-after pill.

• Telehealth company Wisp saw orders for the drug, which doesn't need a prescription, double the week after the election.

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Former Sen. Fred Harris (D-Okla.) stayed out of the national spotlight after leaving Congress. But over the years, he still had plenty to say about the nation's future to young leaders, students — and me, Axios' Russell Contreras writes.

• Harris, the last surviving member of the Kerner Commission, a panel appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 to examine the causes of the 1960s riots, died Saturday at 94.

Over seven years, I held several sit-down interviews and private conversations with him about the Democratic Party, President Lyndon Johnson and feeling guilty about mistakes he made in fighting poverty.

• He's talked to me about his disappointment with the modern Democratic Party, the time President Johnson threatened to castrate him (watch the full clip!), and how he convinced President Richard Nixon to give land back to Native Americans.

Go deeper: Fred Harris on Trump and Nixon.

"Wicked" and "Gladiator II" — two of the year's most anticipated blockbusters — made a combined $170 million in domestic ticket sales.

• Why it matters: The simultaneous release of two big-budget films — aka "Glicked" — led to one of the busiest moviegoing weekends of the year.

"Wicked" came in first with $114 million in domestic ticket sales — a record number for a film based on a Broadway show, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

• It had the third-biggest opening weekend of the year behind "Deadpool & Wolverine" and "Inside Out 2."
• "Gladiator II," the sequel to Ridley Scott's Best Picture winner from 2000, opened with $55.5 million in ticket sales.

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