President-elect Trump picked Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for attorney general for one, big, telling reason: Gaetz will proudly do the dirty work on controversial legal topics that others won't, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• Why it matters: Get used to this. It's your future foretold: On some topics, Trump wants to seem reasonable. On others — like anything related to his suspicion of a hostile "deep state" — he demands his own personal, controllable wrecking ball.

💣 Gaetz, 42, is a wrecking ball, head to toe. Oh, and arguably the most despised one among elected Republicans. But Trump doesn't care, advisers say.

• Republicans privately question whether Gaetz will be confirmed by the Senate. But that might not keep him from being attorney general, the most powerful law enforcer in the land.

🔎 Behind the scenes: A powerful MAGA insider who talks often to Trump told us the reason he picked Gaetz is simple: "He likes him."

• Trump wants to "stop shit like this," the insider said, texting a news clip reporting the FBI early yesterday raided the SoHo apartment of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, seizing his phone and electronics. (Details from Dan Primack.)
• Gaetz's selection set off outrage among lawmakers in both parties. But the insider predicted that "if he can make it to January, Gaetz will be confirmed."

🔭 The big picture: Countless Republicans trashed Gaetz before and after his shocking nomination. His House colleagues' parting gift: a quick leak to Punchbowl that Gaetz was about to get hit with a damning House Ethics Committee report. The subject of the report: illegal drug use and sexual misconduct.

• Gaetz resigned his Florida seat yesterday, just before the Ethics Committee was set to hold a pivotal meeting on the Gaetz investigation. Gaetz's resignation ends the wide-ranging probe, Axios' Andrew Solender reports.

Gaetz convinced Trump that he's simply a victim of the same "deep state" that went after him. That's Trump's love language.

• "For two years," the N.Y. Times reports, "the Justice Department looked into allegations that he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and possibly violated federal sex trafficking laws. The department closed its investigation last year without filing any charges against Mr. Gaetz."

🕶️ Marc Caputo, a well-wired Trump reporter for The Bulwark, captured the Trump view perfectly with this quote from an adviser familiar with the transition process:

• "Everyone else looked at AG as if they were applying for a judicial appointment. They talked about their vaunted legal theories and constitutional bullshit. Gaetz was the only one who said: 'Yeah, I'll go over there and start cuttin' f---in' heads.'"

💡 Reality check: Cuttin' heads isn't the actual job of the AG — who by precedent (not law) operates quite independently from the president. The job is to enforce laws, even on presidents and Cabinet officials.

Republicans hope Gaetz is simply a sacrificial sucker, put up to be rejected so Trump can smuggle through a controversial but more acceptable alternative. Perhaps. But Gaetz is a Trump favorite and Mar-a-Lago regular.

• Trump has assurances from Senate Republican leaders that he can use a controversial workaround, recess appointments, to smuggle in unpopular picks, at least for a few years.

Between the lines: Trump's fear, anger and disdain for the "deep state" run as deep as any governing emotion he holds. This helps explain why two other defiant picks — Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence and Fox News' Pete Hesgeth for SecDef — run pillars of government Trump has big issues with.

• This'll be one of the most important plots of the Trump presidency.

Final word: Republicans have a taste of what's to come. Trump picked a man many of them hate, without giving his governing partners a courtesy heads-up — and did it on a day that was supposed to be a celebration of their new congressional leaders.

• And right after meeting President Biden in the Oval Office.

Trump's statement picking Gaetz.

It wasn't just Gaetz. In vintage 2017 fashion, President-elect Trump yesterday announced, in quick succession, three of the most provocative nominations in modern political history, Axios' Zachary Basu and Sophia Cai write.

• Why it matters: Early signs that Trump 2.0 was assembling a curiously conventional Cabinet — Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for SecState, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) for national security adviser — has gone up in flames.

Trump has veered sharply toward loyalists and disruptors — Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general, Fox News' Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic House member from Hawaii, for director of national intelligence.

• They're the types of unorthodox figures that Axios dubbed Trump's "island of misfit toys" during his first term — only this time, there are far fewer restraints.

🎨 The big picture: The picks announced over the past 48 hours all have one thing in common: A hunger to tear down and revamp the agencies Trump has tapped them to lead — and to do so in a way that's in line with his incendiary campaign rhetoric.

1. Gaetz, who resigned suddenly from the House last night, is a darling of the MAGA movement who's despised by many of his colleagues for his brash antics.
2. Hegseth, a decorated Army veteran and Fox News host, wrote a best-selling book this year, "The War on Warriors," accusing Pentagon leaders of sabotaging military readiness and recruitment by prioritizing social justice and diversity.
3. Gabbard, a former Democrat and Iraq War veteran, has been nominated to take on what Trump sees as his greatest adversary within the U.S. government: the intelligence community.

🔮 What to watch: All three nominees, to varying degrees, would face a rocky road to Senate confirmations.

• Trump's fallback plan is to pressure the Senate to allow him to make recess appointments — essentially bypassing the nomination process — to have the nominees serve in an "acting" capacity for up to two years.

Keep reading ... Quick bios of 18 Trump picks for staff and Cabinet.

Republican leaders come January will be (from left): President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (S.D.), Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (Wyo.), Senate GOP Conference Chair Tom Cotton (Ark.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.)

🥊 The intrigue: The new MAGA media machine got crushed in its first attempt to wage war against the Republican establishment.

• Thune easily won yesterday's secret vote to become the next Senate majority leader. Heavy MAGA favorite Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) was eliminated on the first ballot, finishing behind Thune and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Axios' Stef W. Kight writes.

It's official: Republicans will hold the House, giving them full control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. AP bulletin at 10:28 p.m. ET:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans win 218 US House seats, claiming a majority and completing the party's sweep into power alongside Trump.

🧮 By the numbers: The House's razor-thin margin so far is 218 Republicans to 208 Democrats, with nine races left to be called. Republicans' margin this fall was 221-213 with one vacancy.

• The GOP so far has flipped seven seats and Dems have flipped six, for a net GOP gain of just one seat.

The bottom line: The final tally could be a GOP net gain of a single seat. Rs lead in four races; Ds lead in five.

🧨 Threat level: Speaker Johnson's ability to maintain a majority in the early days of the new Congress could be endangered by President-elect Trump's appointments.

• Trump has named three House members to his administration: Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for attorney general ... Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for UN ambassador ... and Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) for national security adviser.

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📊 Interactive map: Hover on any district for data.

President Biden asked President-elect Trump during their two-hour meeting yesterday to work together to push for a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, Axios' Barak Ravid writes.

• Why it matters: Biden wants to use the two months he has left in office to break the prolonged deadlock in the negotiations over a Gaza deal. Trump, on the other hand, would likely be happy to reach Inauguration Day with one less crisis on his plate.

🔎 Behind the scenes: Biden also met yesterday with the families of the American hostages who are held in Gaza, two sources with knowledge of the meeting told Axios.

• One source said the families stressed that the hostages are running out of time and expressed concern for their lives.

Biden told the families that he and Trump agreed that the hostage issue is urgent and that they want to try and solve it before Jan. 20, the other source said.

• The president told the families they have every right to be angry at him for not bringing their loved ones home by now, the two sources said.

🔮 What's next: The families of the U.S. hostages asked for meetings with many of the newly appointed members of Trump's team, the sources said.

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A sprawling movement built around concerns about the food supply and drug industry profiteering is poised to shake up health policy in the new Trump administration, Axios Vitals co-author Maya Goldman writes.

• Why it matters: The "Make America Healthy Again" campaign — led by RFK Jr. — blends generally mainstream views on policing food additives or expanding health savings accounts with conspiracy-tinged ideas about corruption within the FDA, fluoride in water and vaccines.

While President-elect Trump embraced its tenets only late in his campaign, Kennedy and other movement leaders are now in a position to influence federal health policy.

• Trump's picks to lead health agencies — or, as Kennedy has suggested, purge swaths of their workforce — could be announced within days.
• That's sending shivers through segments of the public health community. CDC director Mandy Cohen publicly warned yesterday about the threat of curtailing vaccination efforts.
• FDA commissioner Robert Califf likewise sounded alarms at a cancer conference.

🔭 Zoom out: The movement taps into frustration with corporate influences in the U.S. medical system and what it claims is an overriding public health focus on infectious diseases.

• Kennedy and a cadre of influencers and entrepreneurs are calling for outlawing food dyes and additives that aren't allowed abroad.
• He wants to devote half of the NIH budget to researching alternative cures. And he's pressing for more transparency and data on vaccines.

Keep reading.

Democratic governors and attorneys general are sharpening plans to become the de facto blue state resistance to a second Trump term, Axios Denver's John Frank writes.

• Why it matters: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced Governors Safeguarding Democracy, to provide a playbook for other governors seeking to push back against President-elect Trump's policies — largely through legal action.

Democratic state officials across the nation pledged to play an adversarial role, just as they did in Trump's first term:

• In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom called a special legislative session for Dec. 2 to "safeguard California values and fundamental rights" before Trump takes office.
• In Washington state, Attorney General Bob Ferguson's team has studied Trump's campaign promises and Project 2025 to prepare lawsuits to block federal actions.
• In Arizona, Attorney General Kris Mayes said she "can't imagine a single Democratic attorney general in this country that won't be involved in fighting unconstitutional behavior."

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My Little Pony is galloping into the National Toy Hall of Fame along with Transformers and the card game Phase 10, Axios Closer co-author Nathan Bomey writes.

• The 2024 inductees came from a field of 12 finalists that included balloons and the trampoline.

The honorees will take their place alongside legends like 1998 inductee Teddy Bear, 2004's G.I. Joe and 2013's Rubber Duck.

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