Axios

Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is going to be "acting" White House chief of staff, President Trump announced today on Twitter. It wasn't clear immediately who would take on the role permanently. A senior administration official told reporters Russell Voight would replace Mulvaney as OMB Director.

The big picture: Since Trump’s first choice to be his chief of staff, Mike Pence’s chief of staff Nick Ayers, declined to take the job, the White House has been scrambling to fill the role. Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus Mark Meadows and Chris Christie have both declined to fill the role as well.

Prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller's office are refuting former national security adviser Michael Flynn's defense that he should have been warned that there are consequences when lying to the FBI.

Details: In a memo released Friday the special counsel argues, "the interview was voluntary, and lacked any indicia of coercion," when Flynn spoke to the FBI in January 2017. Flynn attempted to downplay the seriousness of his offense after Mueller released his findings in December, the latest memo said.

As federal investigators continue to peer in to President Trump's inauguration committee's finances, receipts and internal emails, uncovered by ProPublica, reveal that the Trump Organization was paid by the committee for rooms, meals and event space at the organization's hotel in Washington, as Ivanka Trump played a role in negotiations.

Why it matters: Such spending could be found to violate tax law, "[i]f the Trump hotel charged more than the going rate for the venues." Marcus Owens, a former head of the division of the Internal Revenue Service that oversees nonprofits, told ProPublica, "[t]he fact that the inaugural committee did business with the Trump Organization raises huge ethical questions about the potential for undue enrichment."

Medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym MSF) was forced last Thursday to shut down its search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean on board the vessel Aquarius, blaming a "dishonest smearing and obstructive campaign."

Why it matters: MSF International President Joanne Liu tells Al Jazeera in an interview: "We just can't understand why saving lives has become illegal." She added that MSF is examining whether there's any possibility of resuming operations in the future.

Chris Christie said Friday that he told President Trump he doesn't want to be considered to replace John Kelly as White House chief of staff, per the New York Times' Maggie Haberman, who obtained a copy of his statement.

“It’s an honor to have the president consider me as he looks to choose a new White House chief-of-staff. However, I’ve told the president that now is not the right time for me or my family to undertake this serious assignment. As a result, I have asked not to be considered for this post.”

The backdrop: President Trump, who considered Christie a top contender to replace John Kelly as chief of staff, discussed the job with Christie Thursday night, a source familiar with the president’s thinking told Axios' Jonathan Swan.

A new report from the Congressional Budget Office lists ways the country can reduce the federal deficit over the next decade, and the CBO wonks tossed around a bunch of health care proposals.

By the numbers: I broke down some of the biggest health care ideas, along with how much money they’d potentially save the government from 2019–2028.

Michael Cohen, speaking in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos following his sentencing, insists that President Trump knew about the hush money he gave to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, and that Trump asked Cohen to make the payments to help his 2016 presidential campaign.

The big picture: Trump, who originally denied knowledge of the payments before changing his tune, claims he never directed Cohen to make the payments and never asked him to break the law. But Cohen told Stephanopoulos that "nothing at the Trump organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump," and that the payments were arranged because Trump was "very concerned about how [the allegations] would affect the election."

The sentencing (before public testimony) of Robert Mueller's cooperating witnesses suggests the end of the Russia investigation may be near, the Washington Post's well-wired Devlin Barrett reports.

The big picture: One explanation for Mueller's unusual approach is that "the accounts of those cooperating witnesses will appear in a written report, not in court." And Robert Ray, a former independent counsel on the Whitewater investigation, "said he expects Mueller to deliver a report on his findings in the first three months of 2019."

President Trump met with Chris Christie last evening and considers him a top contender to replace John Kelly as chief of staff, a source familiar with the president’s thinking tells Axios.

Behind the scenes: Trump has met with a couple of others, but the way he’s discussed Christie to confidants makes them think he’s serious. Christie is "tough; he’s an attorney; he’s politically-savvy, and one of Trump’s early supporters,” the source said. The former New Jersey governor's legal background may also come in handy next year.

Neither Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi nor President Trump has any real competitor for influence on their side. Each sees themselves as a master dealmaker. Both run in coastal-elite circles.

The bottom line: Their chilly relationship is now the most consequential in American public life.

President Trump met with Chris Christie on Thursday evening and considers him a top contender to replace John Kelly as chief of staff, according to a source familiar with the president’s thinking.

“He’s tough; he’s an attorney; he’s politically-savvy, and one of Trump’s early supporters."

Behind the scenes: Trump has met with a couple of others, but the way he’s discussed Christie to confidants make them think he’s serious. His legal background may come in handy next year.

A seven-year-old Guatemalan girl died "of dehydration and shock" after she illegally crossed into the United States with her father and was taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Washington Post reports.

Details: The girl and her dad were taken into custody on Dec. 6 in New Mexico, and more than eight hours later she began having seizures. Her body temperature was 105.7 degrees, the Post reports, and CBP told the Post she "reportedly had not eaten or consumed water for several days." CBP spokesman Andrew Meehan told the Post that border agents "took every possible step to save the child's life under the most trying of circumstances."