Axios

General Motors CEO Mary Barra said Wednesday the automaker is aligned with President-elect Trump's goal of boosting American manufacturing, despite tensions with him when he was first in the White House.

Why it matters: Trump is expected to pursue a wide range of policies that would directly affect the auto industry.

Dozens of reported drone sightings over New Jersey and other northeastern states have left residents perturbed and led local officials to demand federal action.

Why it matters: The sightings started last month and their origins are still unknown, although officials have said they don't threaten public safety.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes the CIA had a role in assassinating his uncle, President John F. Kennedy — and that's part of the reason RFK Jr. is pushing his daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, for deputy CIA director.

• RFK Jr. has been telling people that Fox Kennedy — who was also his presidential campaign manager — would help get to the bottom of the JFK assassination, two Republican sources told Axios' Stef Kight and me.

Americans should strive to eat less meat and saturated fats, while upping their intake of fiber-rich legumes, fruits and vegetables, a panel of nutrition experts said in new recommendations today.

🥩 Why it matters: The fresh recommendations build on existing evidence that too much red meat, salt and sugar can be linked to health risks, Axios' Ivana Saric writes.

• More than half of American adults struggle with chronic health conditions — like type 2 diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease — for which unhealthy diets are a risk factor, the new recommendations say.

🥣 The intrigue: Some experts were upset that the report didn't take a stance on ultraprocessed foods.

• Go deeper ... Read the report.

1. 🚨 FBI director Chris Wray plans to resign at the end of President Biden's term. Otherwise, President-elect Trump would likely fire Wray after taking office. Go deeper.
2. 🇮🇱 National security adviser Jake Sullivan is expected to travel to Israel, Egypt and Qatar this week in a last-ditch effort to broker a deal in Gaza before President Biden leaves office. Go deeper.
3. ⚖️ A class-action lawsuit against Nvidia can proceed, the Supreme Court said today. The suit alleges that the chipmaker misled investors about how much of its sales were tied to cryptocurrency mining. Go deeper.

A thief made off with several expensive, finely manicured bonsai trees from two nurseries in and around New Orleans — on Thanksgiving, no less.

• One nursery said it had been "meticulously growing and caring for some of these for over three years, so these plants are not something that can be replaced," Axios New Orleans' Carlie Kollath Wells reports.
• The thief (or thieves) also stole poinsettias, pottery and other plants during a Thanksgiving-morning break-in.

FBI Director Chris Wray announced Wednesday that he plans to resign at the end of President Biden's term, the FBI confirmed to Axios.

Why it matters: Wray was appointed by President-elect Trump in 2017 for the typical 10-year term. However, in recent years he has come under intense criticism from Trump and his allies.

Senate Republicans defeated a last-minute effort by outgoing Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) to ensure a Democratic majority on the National Labor Relations Board for the first two years of Trump's presidency.

Why it matters: It was a dramatic and consequential defeat for Schumer and the labor movement.

The Capitol Police said Tuesday that they arrested a 33-year-old man accused of assaulting Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.).

The big picture: Mace claimed she sustained injuries to her wrist and arm and alleged that the incident was in response to her recent vocal advocacy for transgender bathroom bans.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes the CIA had a role in assassinating his uncle, President John F. Kennedy — part of RFK Jr.'s motivation for pushing his daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, for deputy CIA director, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: President-elect Trump feels indebted to RFK Jr., his pick for secretary of Health and Human Services, for his help in the election, and is eager to please him. But there's real drama behind the scenes about whether Fox Kennedy is the right choice for the CIA's No. 2 job.

Confidence among America's top chief executives is soaring after President-elect Trump's re-election, with high hopes the former president will usher in an era of low taxes and regulations.

Why it matters: Mainstream economists warn the economy will take a hit from some of Trump's proposals, but business leaders see a brighter outlook for their industries in the months ahead.

Just 2 in 10 Americans surveyed this month said they approve of President Biden's decision to issue a sweeping pardon for his son, according to an AP-NORC poll out Wednesday.

Why it matters: The controversial move, which Biden had previously said he would not make, drew bipartisan backlash from lawmakers in Congress and appears to have frustrated a large swath of the American public, per the poll.

Sen.-elect Jim Banks (R-Ind.) will push fellow Republican senators to be more pro-worker and pro-American-industry and less pro-Wall Street, he makes clear in a new memo to colleagues, "Working Families First."

Why it matters: Banks, 45 — an Afghanistan war veteran who's now a Republican congressman, who had a coveted speaking slot at the GOP convention — is a rising conservative star who'll have a big voice in a Republican-controlled Washington.

The defense world was buzzing over the weekend as the U.S. Air Force punted a decision on its futuristic fighter into the new year and into the hands of an administration that could doom it.

Why it matters: A shape-shifting, multibillion-dollar military endeavor feels like an easy target for an administration obsessed with government bloat.

The public trusts Anthony Fauci more than President-elect Trump and his incoming health team as a source of medical information, according to the latest Axios-Ipsos American Health Index.

• But Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s focus on safe food and nutrition clearly resonates with many Americans, who see chemicals and unsafe additives as a bigger health risk than climate change or infectious diseases.

Former President Clinton and mega-selling novelist James Patterson are co-writing their third thriller together — "The First Gentleman," out June 2 — about the president's husband going on trial for murder.

• Why it matters: The story "will be told with Patterson's signature suspense and will be informed by details that only a president can know," the publishers, Alfred A. Knopf and Little, Brown and Company, say in a forthcoming announcement.

President Biden responded to the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's brutal regime in Syria by bombing ISIS camps to try to prevent the terror group's resurgence.

• President-elect Trump wants little to do with the havoc in Syria, if his social media posts are gospel. He says the country "is a mess, but is not our friend," and that he doesn't want to get involved — a reflection of the isolationist banner he carried in the recent campaign.

Why it matters: Biden has less than six weeks left in office, so how the U.S. proceeds will largely be up to Trump. And while the president-elect's base may support steering clear of Syria's chaos, certain national security officials won't.

Approval rates for asylum seekers in the U.S. are dropping dramatically in the run-up to the second Trump administration, and it's become particularly difficult for Latin American immigrants to get asylum, an Axios review finds.

Why it matters: The decrease reflects the Biden administration's new restrictions on asylum, and likely the anticipation of President-elect Trump's impending crackdown on immigration.

A group of Donald Trump's MAGA allies is seizing on his election to push a new ETF focused on investing in companies that reject diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, which Trump has railed against.

Why it matters: The fund — pitched to potential investors last week during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago — is the latest example of a Trump-inspired backlash to corporations and retailers that some conservatives see as promoting overly progressive social agendas.

Zoom in: Trump's team says the president-elect isn't involved with the ETF, which is dubbed the Azoria Meritocracy fund.

• But the fund's CEO and co-founder James Fishback is a friend of Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy. And last week, Trump himself popped into the meeting of potential investors, who included Cathie Wood, founder of Ark Invest.

Fishback says the new fund will mirror the S&P 500 index — but will exclude three dozen companies that it sees as using DEI quotas in hiring or promotions. They include:

• Starbucks, which has said it wants to "achieve racial and ethnic diversity of at least 30% at all corporate levels and 40% of all retail and manufacturing roles by 2025." (Starbucks, in a statement to the Financial Times, said its diversity goals had expired and were not renewed.)
• Best Buy, which aims for "1 in 3 new corporate salaried positions to be filled by BIPOC," or Black, Indigenous, and people of color.
• The United Rentals equipment company, which wants 40% "gender and ethnic diverse representation" in U.S. sales and management roles.

What they're saying: "When great companies ... throw hiring standards out the window as they race to 'out-woke' one another, the inevitable result is mediocrity and underperformance," Fishback said.

• Fishback noted that if the excluded companies change their hiring practices they could be added back into the actively managed fund, which launches early next year.

Trump supporters see the fund as an opportunistic reflection of Trump winning the election and following through on his promises to resist DEI initiatives.

• "What makes the promise of those elections actually be fulfilled is the starting of new institutions," said Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation.

The big picture: A growing crowd of conservative players are putting their names or money behind similar efforts.

• Rather than join his father's administration, Trump's son Don Jr. joined the 1789 Capital venture firm, which invests in a "parallel economy" of companies and products with conservative values. He also joined the board of the MAGA-friendly shopping platform PublicSquare, causing shares of its stock to jump.
• Ramaswamy's Strive Asset Management is known as an anti-ESG firm, meaning it rejects companies' environmental, social and governance policies that Strive says conflict with investors' interests.
• Vice President-elect JD Vance and mega-investor Peter Thiel are among the most prominent backers of Strive, which has more than $1 billion in assets across several ETFs. One of its funds, in a seeming echo of Trump's "Drill baby, drill," slogan, invests heavily in oil and gas companies and operates under the ticker DRLL.

Between the lines: Trump's election and pressure from conservative activists are leading some of the biggest players in corporate America and higher education to drop or trim their DEI policies.

• Such programs have been designed to counter decades of bias and underrepresentation affecting minorities, women and LGBTQ+ people.
• They've also been shown to reduce employee attrition and increase motivation. But Trump and his allies have cast the programs as creating bias, particularly against white people.
• Walmart rolled back its DEI programs last month, announcing it would not renew a racial equity center or participate in the Human Rights Campaign's annual benchmark index that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees.
• Conservatives also are reviving an effort to push for "fair access" rules aimed at ensuring that politically controversial businesses such as gun manufacturers and fossil fuel companies can't be blocked from banking services.

A federal bankruptcy judge rejected The Onion's winning bid to buy Alex Jones' Infowars platform in a Tuesday night ruling.

The big picture: Judge Christopher Lopez, of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, cited problems with transparency during the sealed bidding of the sale at November's court-ordered auction, per Bloomberg and other outlets.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan is expected to travel to Israel, Egypt and Qatar this week in a last ditch effort to reach a hostage-release and ceasefire in Gaza deal before President-elect Trump's inauguration in six weeks, two sources with knowledge of the trip told Axios.

Why it matters: President Biden and his advisers have been working closely with Trump's team in recent weeks to push for a deal that both leaders want before Biden's term ends and Trump takes office.

South Korea's former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, who was accused of involvement in a failed martial law attempt, tried to kill himself inside a detention center, per multiple reports citing a prison official.

The big picture: Kim was moved to a "protective cell" following the attempt, Korea Correctional Service head Shin Yong-hae told lawmakers during a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday Seoul time, Yonhap News Agency reports.

Congressional leaders are working to push through restrictions on U.S. investments in China before the end of the year, likely by attaching it to the short-term government spending stopgap.

Why it matters: House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) blocked the bipartisan measures from being included in the National Defense Authorization Act text, which was released over the weekend.

The conservative group Heritage Action is launching a new ad campaign in the home states of nine Republican senators to confirm President-elect Trump's nominees.

Why it matters: It marks the first phase of a Republican-on-Republican ad battle to pressure the handful of GOP senators who've raised concerns about Trump's nominees or have a history of clashing with him.

House Democratic leadership is actively trying to get its members to vote against a once-broadly bipartisan bill that would create dozens of new federal judgeships, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Democrats fear the bill would give President-elect Trump additional opportunities to fill the courts with conservative ideologues.

President-elect Trump on Tuesday nominated Kimberly Guilfoyle to serve as U.S. ambassador to Greece.

The big picture: Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host who was engaged to the president-elect's oldest son Donald Trump Jr., is yet another person affiliated with the network to be selected for the Trump administration, and is another pick associated with his family.

Sen.-elect Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) is tapping Mark Isakowitz to be his chief of staff, selecting a Senate GOP veteran to lead his D.C. office, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Isakowitz has more experience than the average freshman senator's chief of staff, signaling McCormick's desire to be a key player in shepherding President-elect Trump's agenda through Congress.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said there "ought to be repercussions" for anyone who leaked information related to the unreleased Ethics Committee probe into former Rep. Matt Gaetz's (R-Fla.) conduct.

Why it matters: The leaks, which have allegedly been traced to the panel's ranking member, Susan Wild (D-Pa.), could set a dangerous precedent if left unpunished, Johnson told Axios Tuesday