• Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says he's fine with renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
• Only, though, if Trump works with them to lower costs for Americans, he said.
• Schumer said it "may be a zany new idea" but it won't "help people save money at the grocery store."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Wednesday that Democrats were open to President-elect Donald Trump's idea of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America."

However, he noted that he'd only do so if Trump works with Democrats on "an actual plan to lower costs for Americans."

"That is what the American people want us to focus on first, not on renaming bodies of water," Schumer said in a floor speech, adding that his party's priorities "are so much more closely aligned with the concerns of the American people than Donald Trump's seem to be."

Trump floated the idea at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, where he also refused to rule out the use of military force to take control of Greenland or the Panama Canal.

The Democratic leader's comments essentially amount to a challenge to Trump to focus on the economic issues that helped him regain the presidency, rather than merely changing names.

Over the next several years, Democrats will be making the case that their economic agenda is more beneficial for the working class than Trump's.

"Renaming the Gulf of Mexico may be a zany new idea, but it isn't going to help people save money at the grocery store. It's not going to make trips to the pharmacy more affordable," Schumer said. "If Donald Trump wants to rename a gulf to sound more patriotic, I'd say we will help him on one condition and only one condition: let's come up with a real plan first — not a concept of a plan — to lower prices for Americans."

• Biden says he thinks he would've defeated Trump in 2024, "based on the polling."
• Polling consistently showed Biden losing handily to Trump before he dropped out in July.
• The president also says he's unsure if he would've been able to complete a second term.

President Joe Biden said in an interview this week that he believes he could have defeated President-elect Donald Trump if he had remained the Democratic nominee, rather than stepping aside for Vice President Kamala Harris.

"It's presumptuous to say that, but I think yes," Biden told USA Today.

The president was less sure, however, that he would've been able to serve out the entirety of a second term, noting that he would have been 86 years old at the end of it.

"When Trump was running again for reelection, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him. But I also wasn't looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old," Biden said. "Who the hell knows? So far, so good. But who knows what I'm going to be when I'm 86 years old?"

Though Harris came up short in the 2024 election, many prominent Democratic lawmakers have argued that she helped the party stave off an electoral disaster by replacing Biden, who lost the confidence of Democrats after a disastrous debate performance against Trump in June.

"President Trump beat Joe Biden after delivering the greatest debate performance in history, and he beat Kamala Harris in a landslide on Election Day," Trump-Vance Transition Spokesperson Anna Kelly told BI in a statement.

Rep. Angie Craig, a Democratic who represents a swing district in Minnesota, recently told NBC that Trump "would have taken, I believe, if Biden had stayed on the top of the ticket, 30 to 40 House seats with him."

Instead, Democrats actually gained one seat in the House.

Biden said that his belief that he could've done what Harris couldn't is "based on the polling." Polling at the time showed the president losing handily to Trump.

• Meta announced Tuesday it's doing away with third-party fact-checking in favor of community notes.
• Several lawmakers told BI the move is an indication Mark Zuckerberg is catering to Trump.
• Some business leaders praised Meta for the change while others expressed concern.

Meta is carrying out the biggest overhaul to its content moderation system in years.

The company announced on Tuesday that it's replacing third-party fact-checking program with user-generated community notes, like those on Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter.

In another page from Musk's playbook, Meta said it's moving some teams — specifically its trust and safety teams, responsible for writing the company's content policies and reviewing content — out of California into Texas and other locations in the US.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the decision was about getting "back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms."

Democrats: Zuckerberg's sucking up to Trump

Democratic lawmakers told BI at the US Capitol on Tuesday that they saw the move as a sign that Zuckerberg is trying to appease President-elect Donald Trump ahead of his return to the Oval Office.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said Zuckerberg was "kissing Trump's ass" in making the change.

"I think that Mark Zuckerberg is trying to follow in Elon's footsteps, which means that actually, they're going to use this guise of free speech to actually suppress critics of Trump and critics of themselves," Ocasio-Cortez said. "That's why they're moving to this system. It's a model for their own self-aggrandizement."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told BI that Big Tech CEOs "want a government that works for them, and they're making clear that sucking up to Donald Trump is one of the ways they think they'll get that."

Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida said the change appeared to be symptomatic of authoritarianism.

"It's not just about the legislation they pass, or what they push, but it creates this environment of fear and self-censorship, and a place where companies will begin to do the things he wants them to do without him forcing them to do it," he said, referring to Trump.

"They're surrendering essentially to implied threats by the government, which is very dangerous," Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York said.

Trump himself told reporters Tuesday that he believed Zuckerberg's changes at Meta were "probably" in response to previous threats Trump has made to the Meta chief executive, including to jail him.

Republicans: A good sign, but we'll see

Republicans offered more mixed reactions to Zuckerberg's decision, with some expressing skepticism while others saw it as a win. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told reporters at the Capitol that what the Meta CEO said "sounds good" but that the "proof will be in the pudding."

He also said he saw Zuckerberg's move as the product of both political positioning and a sincere evolution in his thinking.

"I've had multiple conversations with Mark on this topic," Cruz said, "and I will say, he had previously expressed an interest in protecting free speech."

Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, meanwhile, called the decision a "ploy to avoid being regulated." For several years, she's been pushing a bill to increase social media protections for kids.

"Can any of us assume Zuckerberg won't return to his old tricks?" wrote Sen. Mike Lee of Utah on X.

Republican Rep. Randy Weber of Texas, meanwhile, wrote on X that it was "a great day for freedom of speech."

"It seems like Meta is finally taking a page from Elon Musk's playbook & letting Americans make decisions for themselves. It's about time Meta owned up to censoring Americans," he added.

Tech and business leaders react

In the tech and business world, some of Zuck's peers congratulated him and Meta on the move.

Musk said in separate tweets that the decision was "cool" and "awesome."

X CEO Linda Yaccarino called it "a smart move by Zuck."

"Fact-checking and moderation doesn't belong in the hands of a few select gatekeepers who can easily inject their bias into decisions. It's a democratic process that belongs in the hands of many," she wrote.

David Marcus, the former Meta exec in charge of the company's Libra cryptocurrency project, said the change marked a "massive step in the right direction towards free expression for Meta."

Other tech and business figures were more skeptical of the decision.

Yoel Roth, the former head of Twitter's trust and safety department, said, "Genuinely baffled by the unempirical assertion that Community Notes 'works.' Does it? How do Meta know? The best available research is pretty mixed on this point. And as they go all-in on an unproven concept, will Meta commit to publicly releasing data so people can actually study this?"

And in response to a message from Zuckerberg saying Meta will work with Trump to "push back against foreign governments going after American companies to censor more," Mark Cuban wrote on Bluesky: "Translation: Americans are going to see Tariffs on products from countries you believe censor Meta services as a means of pressuring them into removing any restrictions that impact your profitability in those countries. Also: You'll have carte blanche to take posts that no longer have restrictions, making them a more explicit representation, and train your AI Models."

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• There's been little movement in recent years, especially in the House, on banning stock trading.
• That could change this year, with a group of hardline Republicans now pushing the issue.
• "I need to put my foot on the gas a little bit," said Rep. Chip Roy. "Let's deal with it."

For years, lawmakers in both parties have tried to pass legislation to ban members of Congress from trading stocks.

It's popular with the American public. Both outgoing President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump support it. A bipartisan group of senators came together around a single stock trading ban bill this past summer, and two years ago, the House almost took a vote on a bill hastily put forward by House Democratic leadership.

However, an actual floor vote in either chamber has long remained elusive. Now, some hardline House Republicans are hoping to change that.

"I'm tired of my colleagues sticking their heads in the sand on it. It needs to be dealt with, sooner rather than later," Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told Business Insider in a brief interview on Friday.

Roy and 10 other members of the House Freedom Caucus board sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday expressing their "sincere reservations" with his tenure. Many of those lawmakers initially withheld their votes for Johnson, only to relent out of deference to Trump.

In that letter, the GOP hardliners outlined a series of rule changes they wanted to see, along with policy items that they expected Johnson to put up for a vote. Among those items: Ending stock trading by members of Congress.

"If that's what it takes to gain some confidence by the public in the fact that members of Congress work ethically, then I think that's a small price to pay," Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, told BI.

Roy has long been the leader GOP cosponsor of one of the leading bills to ban stock trading, the TRUST in Congress Act, and he told BI that it was his idea to add that demand to the letter. He also happens to be one of Johnson's chief critics, and could — in coordination with the other Republicans — threaten the speaker with a vote on his ouster if the House doesn't take up that legislation.

As of now, it's not clear whether that will happen. Roy said that banning lawmakers from trading stocks is "not as existential to the functioning of the average American family on a daily basis" as some of the other priorities laid out in the letter, including steep cuts to federal spending and enacting tough border security and immigration measures.

The Texas Republican did express frustration with the lack of progress on the issue over the last several years while hinting that this year could be different.

"It's been sitting out there for three or four years, we kind of keep dragging feet, and it's time to deal with it," said Roy. "I need to put my foot on the gas a little bit, and so I'm putting my foot on the gas."

As of now, Roy says that "foot on the gas" involves laying out the demand and talking with Johnson and other relevant committee chairs about moving the legislation.

Johnson, for his part, has not publicly expressed a position on a stock trading ban, and a spokesperson did not provide a position when contacted by Business Insider on Monday. His predecessor, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, did express support for a stock trading ban.

"The perception of Congress, whether true or not, is that some may take advantage of insider information," Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, another Freedom Caucus letter signatory, told BI. "This is a gesture to say, 'Hey, look, we're not treated any differently.'"

Despite widespread agreement on the principle, the details of an eventual ban aren't widely agreed upon, and different bills propose different things. Some legislation would ban the ownership of stocks altogether, but Ogles said that "active day-trading" is the real problem.

"It doesn't mean you can't own stock, so that you can't have mutual funds," Ogles said.

Meanwhile, some House Freedom Caucus members still trade stocks, and one — Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida — violated a federal law requiring timely disclosure of stock trades in the fall of 2024.

A September 2024 report from the Campaign Legal Center found that 44% of House members and 54% of senators own stock.

• Justin Trudeau, 53, announced that he's stepping down as the leader of Canadian's Liberal Party.
• The party will choose a new leader. Once that happens, Trudeau will step down as prime minister.
• Trudeau has served since 2015 but faced repeated calls to step down in recent weeks.

Justin Trudeau on Monday announced that he would step down as prime minister of Canada once his party chooses a new leader.

"This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election," Trudeau said at a press conference in Ottawa.

The Canadian leader said that he would step down as Canada's Liberal Party, and that he would cease to be prime minister once his party selects a new leader "through a robust, nationwide, competitive process."

Trudeau, 53, has been Canada's prime minister since 2015. His nine-year-long tenure as premier is coming to an abrupt end following weeks of turmoil within Trudeau's own party, the Liberal Party.

He faced repeated calls from party colleagues to step down after the Liberal Party lost three by-elections last year. In December, Trudeau's deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, announced her sudden resignation from his cabinet.

Freeland, who was also the finance minister, said Trudeau had offered her another cabinet position, but she decided to step down because it was "the only honest and viable path for me." She had clashed with Trudeau over his push for increased spending and how Canada should handle the incoming Trump administration.

In November, President-elect Donald Trump said he planned to impose a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico.

Since then, Trump has continued to taunt Trudeau by referring to him as Canada's "governor" and has joked about making Canada the 51st US state.

"The Great State of Canada is stunned as the Finance Minister resigns, or was fired, from her position by Governor Justin Trudeau," Trump said of Freeland's resignation in a Truth Social post last month.

Shortly after Freeland's resignation, opposition politician and New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh said his party would bring a vote of no confidence against Trudeau when parliament sat again in January.

Singh's party entered into a confidence-and-supply agreement with Trudeau's minority government in March 2022, but withdrew from it in September.

"I called for Justin Trudeau to resign, and he should," Singh wrote in an open letter on December 20.

Canada's next general election must be held by October 2025.

• Republicans nearly unanimously reelected Mike Johnson as speaker of the House.
• It avoids what could've been an early embarrassment for Trump and the GOP.
• After winning, Johnson pledged to "drastically cut back the size and scope of government."

In a stunning turn of events on Friday, Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana was reelected as speaker of the House on the first ballot, avoiding what could have been an early embarrassment for Republicans ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration.

It didn't come without some trouble.

Three House Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, and Keith Self of Texas — initially voted for candidates other than Johnson to serve as speaker, denying him the 218-vote majority necessary to win. Several other Republicans withheld their votes until the end of the roll call, though they ultimately voted for Johnson.

Republicans held the vote open as Johnson met with Norman and Self, and after 45 minutes, both men switched their votes — allowing him to clinch the speakership on the first ballot.

"Is the preference to have it sail through? Yes," Norman told BI in a brief interview before voting began on Friday. "We'll see how it goes."

It wasn't immediately clear as of publication how Johnson had regained the two lawmakers' support. Massie, an idiosyncratic libertarian, was the sole Republican who did not switch his vote to Johnson.

Before the vote, Johnson wrote a lengthy post on X in which he pledged to create a "working group comprised of independent experts" to work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE, to implement spending cuts. He also requested committees undertake "aggressive" reviews of government spending.

Republicans avoided an early embarrassment

Johnson's problem wasn't Trump — the president-elect endorsed him earlier this week. The speaker-to-be also had the support of Musk, who caused trouble for Johnson last month by helping to tank a government funding bill.

Instead, it was a group of hardline Republicans, many of whom are part of the House Freedom Caucus. Ahead of the vote, several of them had signaled their dissatisfaction with Johnson, particularly his frequent reliance on Democrats to pass major government funding bills and his decision in April of last year to allow more than $60 billion in Ukraine aid to pass the House.

With all but a handful of Republicans pledging to support the incoming speaker, it appeared that long-festering wounds within the conference — some of which were ripped open when Kevin McCarthy was deposed as speaker last year — might be reopened.

"I have a feeling some folks wake up in the morning to see what confusion and chaos they can cause every day," Republican Rep. Greg Murphy of North Carolina told BI.

Trump and his allies argued that GOP unity was crucial for enacting the party's agenda, which includes passing major bills to address border security, immigration, and energy policy, raising the debt ceiling, extending the Trump tax cuts, funding the government, and eventually pursuing sweeping cuts to federal spending at the recommendation of DOGE.

"We're going to protect our industries from one-sided trade deals, and we're going to bring overseas investments back to American shores," Johnson said in a speech after claiming the gavel. "We'll defeat the harmful effects of inflation, and we'll make life affordable again for America's hard-working people."

Johnson also made a nod toward DOGE, saying that Congress would "drastically cut back the size and scope of government."

"In coordination with President Trump and his administration, we are going to create a leaner, faster, and more efficient federal workforce," Johnson said. "We need to do that."

'It's their responsibility to govern'

Despite avoiding a complete mess on Friday, Republicans will face plenty of challenges enacting the legislative pieces of Trump's 100-day agenda.

For one, Republicans will have a one-vote majority until at least April, when special elections will be held to fill vacancies caused by Trump's appointments and former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida's decision to leave the House.

The GOP is expected to try to ram through at least one party-line bill, using the special procedural power known as budget reconciliation, which allows them to pass bills through the Senate without the usual 60-vote requirement.

Republicans aren't entirely in agreement on how they'll use it. Senate Majority Leader John Thune wants to move two separate bills, one devoted to border security and defense spending and another later in the year that would extend Trump's tax cuts. Meanwhile, some House Republicans, particularly Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith, want the party to move only one massive bill.

To further complicate matters, reconciliation bills should only deal with fiscal matters, and it remains to be seen what immigration-related policies would be allowed.

Beyond their ambitious policy goals, Republicans will also have to raise or suspend the debt ceiling or risk default likely sometime later this summer. Many conservatives have ideological reservations about raising the debt ceiling and have historically voted against doing so. Last month, Trump unsuccessfully sought to pressure Republicans to raise the debt ceiling before he took office.

There's also the question of how Republicans will carry out more basic tasks, including funding the government. Over the last two years, Johnson has frequently relied on Democratic votes to pass major funding bills.

"They're in the majority, and it's their responsibility to govern," Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts told BI. "It's not my responsibility to bail them out every time they have a problem."

Despite all of these challenges, Norman — one of the original Johnson holdouts — told BI he wasn't worried about his party's agenda, pointing to the fact that his party would soon control both chambers of Congress and the presidency.

"We've got so many things to be thankful for, and to be happy about, and I am," Norman said.

• Bernie Sanders waded into an ongoing debate between Elon Musk and some on the right over H-1B visas.
• Musk and the tech right generally support the visas, but some in the MAGA base oppose them.
• Sanders argued that the system allows corporations to exploit workers and enrich themselves.

Sen. Bernie Sanders is wading into the heated debate between Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the MAGA base over high-skilled immigration.

In a statement released on Thursday, the Vermont independent and two-time Democratic presidential candidate said Musk is wrong about the H-1B visa, which is designed to bring high-skilled workers from abroad to work in the United States.

Musk, Ramaswamy, and others on the "tech right" have argued that the system is necessary to compensate for a shortage of high-skilled workers in America, pitting them against more nationalist Republican voices who see the system as bringing unfair competition upon American workers.

Sanders argued on Thursday that the system is used to exploit foreign workers while enriching corporations.

"The main function of the H-1B visa program and other guest worker initiatives is not to hire 'the best and the brightest,' but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad," Sanders said, pointing to the fact that corporations have laid off American workers even as they've hired foreign workers through the H-1B system. "The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make."

The Vermont senator called for a series of reforms to the system, including increasing guest worker fees for large corporations, raising the minimum wage for guest workers, and allowing them to easily switch jobs.

"The widespread corporate abuse of the H-1B program must be ended," Sanders said. "It should never be cheaper for a corporation to hire a guest worker from overseas than an American worker."

Trump has sided with Musk, saying that he supports the H-1B visa system. That's despite him signing an executive order halting the program in 2020.

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sanders has previously signaled a willingness to work with the billionaire businessman on cutting defense spending via the "Department of Government Efficiency" initiative, though he told BI that it remains to be seen how serious Musk is about the issue.

• Republicans are pushing for swift confirmation of Trump's national security nominees.
• They say it's even more necessary after this week's deadly New Orleans attack.
• Some of those nominees are among Trump's most controversial picks.

In the wake of the deadly New Orleans attack, top Republicans are calling on the Senate to swiftly confirm President-elect Donald Trump's national security nominees.

Fifteen people are confirmed dead after an individual drove a car through a crowd on Bourbon Street early on Wednesday morning. The FBI has identified a suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, and the attack is being investigated as an act of terrorism.

"This is a clear example of why the Senate must get President Trump's national security team in place as quickly as possible," wrote Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the incoming Senate Majority Leader.

While some of Trump's national-security nominees are expected to be easily confirmed by the US Senate, others have faced a variety of controversies.

They include defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, FBI director nominee Kash Patel, and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's nominee to be director of national intelligence.

"The U.S. Senate must confirm President Trump's national security team as soon as possible," wrote Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the incoming majority whip. "Lives depend on it."

Hegseth has faced accusations of sexual assault as well as scrutiny of his previous opposition to women serving in combat roles in the military. He has denied those accusations and recently said that he supports women serving in combat roles.

"I asked virtually every question under the sun," Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate Republican, told reporters after meeting with Hegseth last month.

Gabbard, meanwhile, has faced suspicions over her foreign policy positions and her 2017 visit to Syria, where she met with then-President Bashar Al-Assad.

"I've heard that she's not very well prepared," one anonymous GOP senator told The Hill last month.

Patel has faced little public skepticism from Republican senators so far, but has promoted conspiracy theories and has said he would "come after" journalists.

The Senate is expected to consider those nominees, along with the others, in the coming weeks. Hegseth's confirmation hearing is scheduled for January 14.

The Trump-Vance transition did not respond to a request for comment.

• A group of Republicans recently introduced a bill to repeal the Impoundment Control Act.
• It would hand Trump more control over government spending — he could even unilaterally cut it off.
• Several Republicans who backed the bill told BI they're fine with giving up congressional power.

Ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House, some Republicans on Capitol Hill are ready to do something unusual: Relinquish some of their own power over federal spending.

More than 20 Republicans cosponsored a bill this month that would repeal the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, or ICA, a Watergate-era law that requires the president to spend all of the money that Congress approves. In the absence of that law and subsequent court rulings, the president would have the power to spend less money than what Congress decides — or refuse to spend money on certain programs altogether.

That would bring a massive power shift from the legislative to the executive branch, upending a balance between the two that's existed for 50 years. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill say it's their best hope of enacting spending cuts and reducing the national debt, given Congress's history of inaction and what they view as their colleagues' unwillingness to reduce spending.

"I think the spending is just out of control, and I think Congress is gutless," Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told Business Insider. "I just don't think we're capable of making changes without some other interference, whether it be the executive branch or the voters."

"If the power is reducing expenditures, then I'm all for it," Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri told BI. "Something has to be done."

"You look at where we are in this country, why not give him that power?" Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina told BI, referring to the country's fiscal situation. "At this point, I'm willing to take that risk. Anything can be abused. I can drink too much water, and suffer from it."

The Trump-Vance transition did not respond to a request for comment.

'We can simply choke off the money'

Trump is no stranger to impoundment — his first impeachment was triggered by his refusal to deliver aid to Ukraine. As he's mounted his third presidential bid, Trump has argued that the ICA is unconstitutional and should be done away with, either via congressional repeal or via the courts.

"With impoundment, we can simply choke off the money," Trump said in a 2023 campaign video. "I alone can get that done."

As Trump has staffed up his administration, he's appointed staunch proponents of impoundment to key positions. That includes Russell Vought and Mark Paoletta, who have been nominated to their previously held roles of director and general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget, respectively.

The president-elect's allies have argued that impoundment is a constitutional power that all presidents hold, owing to the president's duty under Article II of the US Constitution to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

They also point out that for roughly 200 years before 1974 — when Congress passed the ICA as President Richard Nixon refused to spend money on programs he disagreed with — presidents of all stripes have used impoundment for a variety of reasons, including policy disagreements.

"When Congress passes a spending bill, we pass a ceiling," Rep. Andrew Clyde, the Georgia Republican who introduced the ICA repeal bill, told BI. "It's not a floor and ceiling put together at one number."

More recently, impoundment has been embraced by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whose "Department of Government Efficiency" initiative aims to enact trillions of dollars in cuts to federal spending. The duo have publicly agreed with Trump's argument that the ICA is unconstitutional, and the topic arose when they visited Capitol Hill to speak with Republicans earlier this month.

"I look at it as a tool of saving money, and being more efficient," Clyde said. "That's what the American people literally demanded in this election."

'Maybe this is too broad'

There are plenty of opponents of impoundment on Capitol Hill, including among Republicans. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the incoming GOP chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has told reporters that she's opposed to repealing the ICA. And it's not just Trump skeptics who are uneasy with it.

"If it's something that further weakens Congress' ability to do its job the way they should be, then I'm going to look at that real carefully," Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada told BI in November.

Key Democrats, meanwhile, have expressed opposition to Trump's impoundment plans. Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, released a fact sheet making a case against impoundment.

"The legal theories being pushed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are as idiotic as they are dangerous," Boyle said in a statement. "Unilaterally slashing funds that have been lawfully appropriated by the people's elected representatives in Congress would be a devastating power grab that undermines our economy and puts families and communities at risk."

Republican skepticism, along with Democrats' likely opposition to any effort to give Trump more spending power, could make repealing the law via Congress an uphill battle.

The president-elect said in the 2023 video that he "will do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court," queueing up what would be a high-stakes legal fight early in his second term.

What remains unclear is exactly how expansively Trump would try to use impoundment. For some of the Republicans who support the effort, it's merely about spending less than what's necessary. Others warn that Trump could use that power in a retributive way, denying federal funding to states and localities over policy disagreements.

Even those who've cosponsored the ICA repeal bill expressed some ambivalence about its potential implications.

"Maybe this is too broad. I don't know," Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona told BI. "But I can tell you this: if you have a president who says 'I don't need 10 billion, I need 2 billion,' then I would like them not to spend that 8 billion. That's really kind of what the objective is, I think."

• There's increasing concern that American politicians are growing too old in office.
• One congresswoman, 68, says she's retiring in part to "set a better example."
• "I'm just not the best gladiator for it right now," said Rep. Annie Kuster of New Hampshire.

As Americans grow increasingly concerned by the advanced age of top politicians, one retiring lawmaker is taking a different tack.

Rep. Annie Kuster, a 68-year-old Democrat who's represented a New Hampshire district for 12 years, told the Boston Globe that she's trying to make room for younger people in Congress.

"I'm trying to set a better example," Kuster said. "I think there are colleagues — and some of whom are still very successful and very productive — but others who just stay forever."

Kuster added that she's "not the best gladiator" to serve as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to reassume office and Democrats gird for at least two years of full GOP control of Congress and the White House.

She's set to be replaced by Maggie Goodlander, a 38-year-old Democrat who most recently worked in the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden.

According to the 2024 MassMutual Retirement Happiness Study, the average American retires at age 62, which is when early Social Security benefits become available. Many Americans work past that age, either due to financial pressures or a sense of fulfillment from work.

It's different in Washington, where lawmakers tend to be personally wealthy and driven by a sense of mission. They also grow more powerful the longer they stick around, due to the seniority system.

In 2022, Business Insider reported that roughly a quarter of lawmakers were over the age of 70. But while age limits are popular with the general public, they're highly unlikely to happen, owing to the difficulty of enacting constitutional amendments.

Democrats in particular have been reckoning with the perils of aging in the wake of their 2024 losses, which many attribute to the 82-year-old Biden's decision to continue running for reelection until a disastrous debate performance forced him out of the race in July.

In recent weeks, the party has elevated younger leaders to assume top positions on a series of House committees, replacing older or ailing members in their mid- to late 70s.

Still, the perils of gerontocracy continue to emerge.

This month, retiring Republican Rep. Kay Granger, 81, was revealed to be living in a senior living facility in her home state of Texas. She had not cast any votes since July.

Until she stepped down in March, she was the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees the entirety of the federal government's spending.

• Elon Musk went all-in to get Trump elected. Now, he's trying to shake up Washington.
• He's racked up some wins so far. But some of the limits of his influence are coming into view.
• Here's a running list of Musk's wins and losses since Trump was reelected.

Since pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into helping President-elect Donald Trump win the 2024 election, Elon Musk has emerged as a major Washington power player.

Musk has the ear of the incoming president, is set to co-lead a "Department of Government Efficiency" initiative with Vivek Ramaswamy, and has already demonstrated an ability to influence the course of major legislation.

He hasn't won every single time, though. Musk's brash style has clashed at times with how Washington typically works, and he's encountered some losses here and there.

Here's a running list of where Musk has won as he's sought to influence Washington — and where he's lost.

Loss: Trying to get Rick Scott elected as Senate GOP leader

The week after Trump's reelection, Musk made his first major foray into the politics of Washington, enthusiastically backing Sen. Rick Scott of Florida to become the next Senate GOP leader.

Over the course of a dayslong online pressure campaign led by several MAGA-world voices, Musk referred to one of Scott's competitors, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, as the "top choice of Democrats." Senators privately grumbled that they were being bullied by outside figures.

It didn't work.

Scott received just 13 votes, and Thune — a close ally of outgoing Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell — won the prize instead.

One key factor in Scott's loss may have been the fact that the vote was conducted via secret ballot, insulating senators from public backlash.

Win, for now: Lawmakers' rapturous embrace of DOGE

Perhaps the biggest win for Musk on Capitol has been lawmakers' outpouring of support for DOGE.

When Musk and Ramaswamy visited Capitol Hill in December, they were greeted like celebrities, with Republicans eyeing the government-efficiency initiative as an opportunity to enact all sorts of spending cuts they've long sought.

Some Democrats are even interested in getting involved, particularly when it comes to defense cuts.

What remains to be seen, however, is what DOGE ends up becoming in practice — and whether Musk and Ramaswamy are able to implement the trillions of dollars in spending cuts they've floated.

Win: Trump appoints a key ally to chair the FCC

Musk is likely to benefit significantly from Trump naming Brendan Carr to chair the Federal Communications Commission.

It's not just that Carr might be generally favorable toward Musk. He's also emerged as a public cheerleader of the billionaire businessman, including posting a photo with him earlier this year on X.

Elon Musk has transformed long-dormant industries, and he’s developed a first principles “production algorithm” to deliver results.

It’s a great blueprint for reforming the Administrative State, driving efficiency in government, and unleashing a new cycle of American innovation. pic.twitter.com/JySzEtCsyj

— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) August 26, 2024

Carr has publicly gone to bat for Musk before, including sending a letter to Brazilian regulators excoriating them for enacting a "cascading set of apparently unlawful and partisan political actions" after the country briefly banned X.

Musk may also benefit financially. The FCC oversees the country's broadband systems, and Musk's Starlink could see a windfall under the incoming Trump administration.

When the FCC denied government subsidies to Starlink and another broadband provider in 2022, Carr blasted the decision.

Loss: Trying to get a kids' online safety bill passed at the last minute

In December, Musk threw his support behind the Kids Online Safety Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that would force social media sites to alter their design to protect users under the age of 17.

Versions of the bill have been around since 2022, and online safety has become a bipartisan concern on Capitol Hill in recent years.

While the bill passed the Senate in June, it's been stalled in the House, where some Republicans have raised freedom-of-speech concerns. Musk and X helped negotiated a revised version of the bill in a bid to gain more support.

That effort was shot down by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who told reporters that the bill wouldn't be moving before the end of the year.

Speaker Mike Johnson tells ⁦@mkraju⁩ that it is unlikely KOSA (kids online safety act) gets done this year

Johnson said he thinks the bill needs "a little more tweaking," and that ultimately it will be able to move forward "early next year." pic.twitter.com/mvPV7U8din

— haleytalbotcnn (@haleytalbotcnn) December 12, 2024

Win, sort of: Tanking a government funding bill

Musk's highest-profile flexing of his muscles on Capitol Hill happened in mid-December, when he led an online pressure campaign that resulted in the tanking of a short-term government funding bill.

The billionaire businessman and other conservatives cast the legislation as an example of just the kind of wasteful spending they're hoping to eliminate via DOGE.

In doing so, he got out ahead of Trump, who didn't weigh in on the legislation until well after it became clear that it wouldn't advance. That led Democrats to mockingly refer to Musk as the real leader of the GOP, a notion that Trump's team sought to tamp down.

While Musk succeeded in killing the initial bill, lawmakers didn't end up shutting down the government, as he suggested they should.

And Congress eventually passed a spending bill that, while significantly shorter than the initial bill Musk opposed, did many of the same things.

At one point, Musk publicly wondered if it was a "Republican bill or a Democrat bill."

So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill? 🤔 https://t.co/C54cbLGoGR

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2024

• Members of Congress were set to make a few thousand extra bucks under a government funding bill.
• Then Elon Musk helped tank it.
• That's despite growing concern that it's becoming unaffordable to serve in Congress.

One of the most controversial pieces of the short-term government funding bill that Elon Musk helped tank last week was a provision that would have allowed members of Congress to receive a modest salary increase.

As Musk argued against the so-called continuing resolution in a stream of posts on X, he said lawmakers were set to receive a 40% salary increase if the bill passed.

In reality, rank-and-file members of the House and the Senate would have gotten at most a pay bump of $6,600, or 3.8% of their $174,000 annual salary, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Nonetheless, that provision wasn't included in the bill that emerged — and was signed into law — after two days of chaos on Capitol Hill.

That's despite growing sentiment from lawmakers in both parties that even if the optics are poor, increasing the congressional salary is necessary to ensure that less-wealthy people are able to serve and aren't lured away by higher salaries in the private sector.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican and staunch supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, told reporters last week that the demands and responsibilities of the job made serving in Congress "not affordable" for those who weren't already wealthy like him.

"If we're not careful, you're only going to get the individuals that are millionaires-plus that's able to serve in Congress, and that's not what it's supposed to be," Mullin said. "It's supposed to be the people's house."

A $174,000 salary is far more than the average household income, but it hasn't budged since 2009. Accounting for inflation, lawmakers' salaries have essentially decreased by more than 30% in the past 15 years.

Members of Congress also face unique demands, including the need to maintain two residences: one in Washington, DC, the other in their home district. Those who can't afford it often opt to sleep in their offices. Experts have also said it's simply a matter of good governance: If lawmakers are paid well, they're less incentivized to cash out by becoming lobbyists after their tenure.

"I tell people the worst financial decision I ever made was running for Congress," Mullin said jokingly.

The provision tucked into the original funding bill technically was not a raise but rather allowed for an automatic cost-of-living increase originally established by the 1989 Ethics Reform Act. Those annual adjustments, which are typically single-digit-percentage salary increases, are designed to avoid the optics of lawmakers voting to increase their own pay.

Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, sought to downplay the notion that members were receiving a raise. "It just complies with existing law," Morelle told BI last week. "There's nothing extraordinary about it."

Congress has nonetheless chosen to block those adjustments every year since 2009, owing to both inertia and the political unpopularity of increasing lawmakers' salaries. In March, a cohort of current and former lawmakers filed a class-action lawsuit over those denials, arguing that their wages had been "unconstitutionally suppressed."

The politics of raising wages on Capitol Hill remains toxic, however. As word spread on Wednesday about the cost-of-living adjustment in the bill, lawmakers in both parties came out against it.

"I cannot and will not vote to give myself more money when my constituents are feeling unbelievable financial pressure," Rep. Pat Ryan, a Democrat who represents a New York swing seat, said in a statement that day. "Congress should be focused on lowering costs for the American people, not giving ourselves a raise. If this provision isn't removed, I will be voting against the continuing resolution."

Ultimately, the cost-of-living adjustment was blocked once more.

Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

• Elon Musk said he plans to fund "moderate candidates" to challenge Democrats in safe seats.
• It's unclear whether he would support Democrats in primaries, or moderate Republicans.
• It comes as Musk faces blame from lawmakers in both parties for tanking a government funding bill.

Elon Musk spent at least $277 million supporting President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican candidates in competitive races in 2024.

Now, he says he plans to direct some of his largesse toward unseating Democrats in safer seats.

"Forgot to mention that I'm also going to be funding moderate candidates in heavily Democrat districts, so that the country can get rid of those who don't represent them, like this jackass," Musk wrote on X on Thursday evening.

Musk was responding to a clip of Rep. Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, speaking on the House floor about the billionaire businessman's singular role in tanking a government funding bill earlier this week. The top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, Neal represents a deep-blue district and has consistently won reelection by an overwhelming margin.

It's not clear whether Musk meant that he would fund a Democratic primary challenger or a general election candidate to run against safe-seat Democrats like Neal. A spokesman for Musk's main super PAC, America PAC, declined to comment.

Neal reportedly laughed when informed of Musk's threat on Friday, telling a reporter: "That's fine with me."

In a statement to Business Insider, the congressman said: "Everyone knows I'm always ready."

An X account for the Ways and Means Committee Democrats posted a dismissive meme in response to Musk's post.

In 2024, Musk's super PAC spent more than $19 million in House races, backing Republican incumbents and candidates in competitive races across the country.

Ten of the candidates he supported were victorious, while eight lost.

Musk has said that America PAC will continue spending money in forthcoming election cycles, including the 2026 midterm elections and even local district attorney races.

• Republicans tanked a government funding bill after Elon Musk led a campaign against it.
• Democrats have been insinuating that Musk is now the real leader of the GOP.
• In a statement to BI, a Trump spokeswoman forcefully pushed back.

President-elect Donald Trump's team is making clear that he's the one in charge of the Republican Party — not Elon Musk.

In a statement to Business Insider for a story about how Musk helped tank a government funding bill (otherwise known as a continuing resolution, or "CR") this week, Karoline Leavitt, the Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman, pushed back on statements made by Democrats that Musk is actually calling the shots, rather than the president-elect himself.

"As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view," Leavitt said. "President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop."

Musk has also rebuffed the idea he's calling the shots, writing on X: "All I can do is bring things to the attention of the people, so they may voice their support if they so choose."

That post came after scores of Democrats baited Trump with social media posts accusing Musk of being the actual president-elect, the "shadow president," or the "co-president."

While a statement from Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance late Wednesday marked the final straw for the ill-fated government funding bill, Republican opposition had reached a fever pitch on Capitol Hill long before either of them weighed in.

Several Republicans even cited arguments put forward by Musk or his DOGE co-lead, Vivek Ramaswamy, in explaining why they would oppose what they characterized as wasteful spending in the bill.

Meanwhile, some Republicans questioned why Trump hadn't weighed in sooner.

Trump and Vance also took a different stance on the bill than Musk, who endorsed the idea of simply allowing the government to shut down until January 20, when Trump is set to take office again.

Instead, Trump and Vance called on lawmakers to pass a more narrowly tailored bill while simultaneously raising the debt ceiling — a request that likely won't go over well with many of the same hardline Republicans who cheered Musk's opposition to the bill.

As of Thursday afternoon, it remains unclear how lawmakers will proceed, and whether they'll be able to pass any bill through the House and Senate before government funding runs out at midnight on Friday.

If Congress does not pass a bill by then, the federal government will shut down, likely leading to flight delays, the closure of National Parks, and delayed paychecks for some federal workers and members of the military.

• Lawmakers in both parties say Elon Musk played a major role in tanking a government funding bill.
• Now the government is on the brink of shutting down.
• It's an early sign of how he'll wield influence as the co-lead of DOGE.

After a government funding bill went down in flames on Wednesday, lawmakers in both parties were in agreement about one thing: Elon Musk played a huge role in bringing Washington to the brink.

"Yesterday was DOGE in action and it was the most refreshing thing I've seen since I've been here for 4 years," Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on X.

"The leader of the GOP is Elon Musk," Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania wrote. "He's now calling the shots."

President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance put the final nail in the coffin of the bill, but their joint statement trashing the continuing resolution — and issuing a new demand for Congress to raise the debt ceiling — came after several hours of silence on the matter.

That void was filled by Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency co-lead, Vivek Ramaswamy, who savaged the bill as an example of the wasteful spending that Trump has empowered them to target for elimination during his second term. Newly galvanized by DOGE and lacking any guidance from Trump, several Republican lawmakers publicly cited arguments put forward by the two leaders to justify their opposition to the bill.

"This omnibus is the very thing the incoming Department of Government Efficiency is trying to put an end to," Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri wrote on X. "A vote for this monstrosity is a vote against DOGE."

As Republican support for the bill dried up, passage through the GOP-controlled House became an impossibility, and the bill was scrapped.

Federal funding is set to run out at midnight on Friday. If lawmakers are unable to agree upon and pass a new bill by then, the government will shut down for the first time in six years, prompting flight delays, closures of national parks, and paycheck delays for federal workers.

In a statement to Business Insider, Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition, disputed the notion that Musk is the leader of the GOP.

"As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view," Leavitt said. "President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop."

Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

'This bill should not pass'

Over the past several weeks, Democrats and Republicans had been hammering out a compromise bill to fund the government through March 14. After significant delays, the bill's text was released on Tuesday night.

Aside from extending government funding at current levels for another three months, the bill also included language allowing the District of Columbia to take control of a stadium that the Washington Commanders have long sought to use, a modest pay increase for lawmakers, billions of dollars in disaster relief for states affected by recent hurricanes, and other provisions that Trump and Vance later characterized as "giveaways" to Democrats.

Musk first came out against the bill on Wednesday morning, writing on X: "This bill should not pass."

Over the course of several hours, what began as a simple statement of opposition turned into something much larger, including Musk endorsing shutting down the government until January 20 and saying that any Republican who voted for the bill would deserve to be voted out of office.

Along the way, Musk made and amplified false claims about the contents of the bill, including that it included a 40% pay raise for lawmakers (it was 3.8% maximum) and $3 billion for the Commanders' stadium.

By the time Trump and Vance weighed in on Wednesday afternoon, the bill already appeared dead, and the two men had a different demand: Lawmakers shouldn't simply shut down the government but pass a spending bill without "giveaways," while raising the debt ceiling.

Musk, the 'shadow president'

It remains unclear what legislation will emerge. Democrats have insisted on moving forward with the deal they struck with Republicans, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries rejected in Thursday-morning a Bluesky post the idea of raising the debt ceiling.

The government spending bill's collapse was an early demonstration of Musk's newfound clout with Republicans on Capitol Hill, previewing how the mercurial billionaire might handle the role of DOGE co-lead under Trump.

Over the past two years, a pattern has emerged in government funding and other fiscal fights. Both parties work on compromise legislation, hard-line Republicans rail against it, and both the House and the Senate easily pass it with mostly Democratic votes.

On Wednesday, that pattern was broken, with a shutdown appearing imminent.

For hard-line Republicans who've typically opposed government funding bills, it marked a moment of elation and a sign that with the advent of DOGE, the balance of power is set to shift in their direction under Trump.

Some Democrats, meanwhile, have seized the moment as an opportunity to embarrass Trump, painting him as subordinate to Musk.

In a steady drumbeat of social media posts and TV interviews, Democrats have begun referring to Musk as the "president-elect," the "shadow president," the "copresident," and even the "decider in chief" as they've attacked Republicans for opposing the bill.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, released a fact sheet about "what Elon will cost your state" that said "President-Elect Musk's" opposition to the government funding bill had also derailed disaster-relief funds.

"It is dangerous for House Republicans to have folded to the demands of the richest man on the planet, who nobody elected, after leaders in both parties came to an agreement to fund the government and provide this disaster aid," DeLauro said in a statement. "There was no need for a government shutdown."

Musk, for his part, rejected the notion that he was the real leader of the GOP.

"All I can do is bring things to the attention of the people," he wrote on X, "so they may voice their support if they so choose."

• Elon Musk endorsed shutting down the government until Trump takes office on January 20.
• He and Vivek Ramaswamy are leading a MAGA online pressure campaign against a must-pass funding bill.
• Some GOP lawmakers are listening, and Trump eventually came out against the bill.

In a post on X on Wednesday afternoon, Elon Musk endorsed the idea of shutting the government down until January 20, the date that President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sworn into office.

It was the latest missive in a pressure campaign that Musk, along with fellow DOGE co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy and a host of hardline Republicans on Capitol Hill, have been leading against a so-called "continuing resolution" that would fund the government through March 14.

Just over an hour later, Trump and Vice-President-elect JD Vance called on Republicans to renegotiate the bill in a joint statement, saying that the current one contained too many "giveaways" to Democrats.

Trump and Vance also called on Congress to raise the debt ceiling, a task that lawmakers had not contemplated as part of the funding bill and that they had planned to tackle in the first months of the new year.

"I expected Elon to go off on this a little bit," Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a staunch Trump ally, told reporters on Wednesday. Mullin said that he remains undecided on the bill, but said that Musk's and others' campaign would "greatly" affect its fate in the House, where lawmakers could take a vote as soon as Wednesday evening.

Opponents of the bill have pointed to a range of provisions that they view as wasteful, including an extension of pandemic preparedness legislation, provisions to allow the Washington Commanders to use the old RFK stadium in Washington, DC, funding for the Global Engagement Center at the Department of State, and a provision that will allow lawmakers to see a modest pay increase for the first time since 2009.

Wednesday's pressure campaign, which ramped up over the course of the day after Musk and Ramaswamy expressed initial opposition to the bill, provided an early glimpse of how the two men may approach government spending fights under Trump. Both of them are leading an initiative tasked with recommending up to $2 trillion in cuts to government spending by 2026.

Musk and Ramaswamy's voices appeared to only be amplified by the fact that Trump himself didn't weigh in on the bill until late in the day.

"What we've heard from both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy is they want us to shut down government," said Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, according to HuffPost. "Is that the posture of the President?"

Several House Republicans directly cited Musk and Ramaswamy as they expressed their opposition to the bill on Wednesday, while others invoked DOGE to pressure their colleagues to join them in voting against the bill.

"So many members of Congress want the clout of working with @DOGE and @ElonMusk," Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado wrote on X. "Only a handful are actually interested in cutting spending."

Musk also wrote that "any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!"

Just as Musk's prior pressure campaign to install Sen. Rick Scott of Florida as Senate GOP leader failed, Wednesday's campaign against the continuing resolution appeared to show the limits of Musk's grasp on Capitol Hill and legislation.

Both Musk himself and the DOGE X account claimed that the bill would increase lawmakers' salaries by 40%, a vastly inflated figure. According to the Congressional Research Service, the maximum possible increase would be 3.8%.

• Members of Congress may be getting an up to $6,600 raise this year.
• That's due to a provision in a must-pass funding bill that's set to get a vote this week.
• Rank-and-file lawmakers have been making $174,000 since 2009.

For the first time since 2009, members of Congress may be about to get a raise.

Under a provision tucked into a new bill to fund the government through March 14, lawmakers would be given a cost of living adjustment to their salaries — something that Congress has blocked every year for a decade and a half.

That could result in up to a $6,600 raise for rank-and-file members of Congress next year, according to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service.

Currently, most members of the House and Senate make $174,000 each year. Some congressional leaders make more than that, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, who makes a $223,500 annual salary.

Though that $174,000 sum is well above the average household income, it hasn't kept place with inflation, and lawmakers in both parties have argued that it's not enough to keep up with the demands and responsibilities of the job, which can include maintaining two residences.

"If we want working class people who don't rely on independent wealth, to represent people in Congress, we have to make it work," Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told Business Insider earlier this year.

"You have quite a number of members of Congress that sleep in their offices," Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah told BI earlier this year. "In this day and age, it makes sense to have people that feel that they can serve, and still be able to sleep in a home at night."

If Congress hadn't blocked annual cost of living adjustments since 2009, rank-and-file lawmakers would be making $217,900 this year, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Earlier this year, a group of current and former lawmakers filed a class-action lawsuit to recover money that they would have made if their wages hadn't, in their view, been "unconstitutionally suppressed."

Increasing lawmakers' salaries has long been politically unpopular, and the inclusion of the provision is already leading to some opposition from more politically vulnerable members.

Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat who represents a GOP-leaning district in Maine, said in a statement on Wednesday that he wouldn't vote for the government funding bill unless a pay freeze was reinstated.

"Members of Congress earn more than 90 percent of Americans," Golden said. "If any of my colleagues can't afford to live on that income, they should find another line of work."

If Congress fails to pass the bill by Friday, the federal government will shut down due to a lack of funding.

• President Joe Biden expressed support for a stock trading ban in Congress for the first time.
• "Nobody in the Congress should be able to make money in the stock market," he said.
• Lawmakers have been trying to enact a stock trading ban for years.

With just a few weeks left in his tenure, President Joe Biden expressed support for banning members of Congress from trading stocks.

"Nobody in the Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they're in the Congress," Biden said in a forthcoming interview with More Perfect Union, according to the Associated Press.

It's the first time that Biden has expressed support for the idea, which has been a subject of debate on Capitol Hill for years.

In 2022, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that Biden "believes that everyone should be held to the highest standard," but that he would defer to Congress on the issue.

"I don't know how you look your constituents in the eye and know, because the job they gave you, gave you an inside track to make more money," Biden said in the More Perfect Union interview. "I think we should be changing the law."

Despite widespread public support for a stock-trading ban, it's unlikely to come to fruition during this Congress. Even so, there's been significant progress over the years, with a bipartisan group of senators passing a compromise stock-trading ban bill out of committee in July.

• Trump says it's "terrible" that some admire Luigi Mangione, the UHC CEO shooting suspect.
• "That's a sickness, actually," Trump said.
• He speculated that some of the public reaction to the shooting was "fake news."

President-elect Donald Trump on Monday commented on the shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the valorization of the suspect, Luigi Mangione.

"I think it's really terrible that some people seem to admire him," Trump told reporters at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago.

"That was a terrible thing. It was cold-blooded. Just a cold-blooded, horrible killing," Trump said of the killing.

While a broad swath of politicians have condemned the shooting, some progressive Democrats have also used the moment to take stock of Americans' frustrations with the healthcare industry, given that the public reaction to the shooting has not been universally negative.

"Of course, we don't want to see the chaos that vigilantism presents," Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told Business Insider last week. "We also don't want to see the extreme suffering that millions of Americans confront when your life changes overnight from a horrific diagnosis, and people are led to just some of the worst, not just health events, but the worst financial events of their and their family's lives."

Trump expressed bewilderment at the public reaction on Monday, speculating that some of it had been falsified.

"How people can like this guy, is… that's a sickness, actually," Trump said. "Maybe it's fake news, I don't know. It's hard to believe that can even be thought of, but it seems that there's a certain appetite for him. I don't get it."

• Peter Thiel has been a major Trump supporter and spent big to help elect JD Vance to the Senate.
• He said he's not interested in working in Trump's new administration — at least full-time.
• He said politics is important but he'd be "depressed and crazy" if he thought about it all the time.

Peter Thiel was one of President-elect Donald Trump's first major supporters in Silicon Valley, donating more than $1 million to groups that supported Trump's 2016 campaign.

However, that doesn't mean he's interested in actually serving full-time in Trump's second administration.

"I'm not going to do anything on a full-time basis," Thiel said on "Piers Morgan Uncensored," an online talk show. "You can't go full-time into government if you've been in a tech position like I have. It's just — the sort of things you have to be realistic about, what you can and can't do."

As Trump has begun staffing his new administration, he's plucked a handful of figures from tech world. They include entrepreneur and investor David Sacks, who's set to serve as an AI and crypto czar in the new administration, and Jacob Helberg, who works at Palantir and was recently nominated to a role at the State Department.

Elon Musk is perhaps the biggest tech-world figure who's working with Trump these days. Along with Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk is set to co-lead the "Department of Government Efficiency," a new initiative to root out wasteful spending in the federal government. It isn't a full-time role for Musk, and DOGE won't have any formal authority on its own.

As Thiel offered cautious praise for DOGE, Morgan asked him whether he might consider an "Elon-style role" with Trump.

"It's just not my area of comparative advantage," Thiel said. "I think politics is very important… I enjoy going on your show, thinking about it every now and then. If I spent my whole life thinking about this, man, I'd be depressed and crazy."

Despite Thiel's apparent lack of interest in working in the government himself, he's had a significant impact on politics in recent years.

Thiel was instrumental in the political rise of Vice President-elect JD Vance, pouring millions of dollars into a super PAC that supported the Ohio senator's 2022 campaign.

Another close associate of Thiel, Blake Masters, is reportedly in the running to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) under Trump.