Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, Sahil Kapur reports from Capitol Hill on how Republicans are largely putting their concerns to the side when it comes to President Donald Trump’s nominees. Plus, Steve Kornacki dives into the 2024 election results in Virginia with the state’s race for governor around the corner.
Sign up to receive this newsletter in your inbox every weekday here.
— Adam Wollner
Republicans fall in line with Trump’s nominees
By Sahil Kapur
Two of President Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet-level nominees advanced to the full Senate Tuesday on party-line votes, with Republican skeptics setting aside their concerns to give their stamp of approval to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for health and human services secretary and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence.
The favorable committee votes come after a vigorous pressure campaign, with the White House warning that Senate Republicans who voted against any of the president’s nominees would face political “consequences.” Faced with the possibility of antagonizing Trump and his powerful base of voters, most GOP senators are falling in line.
Barring any unexpected developments, all of Trump’s Cabinet choices who have come before the Senate so far are now on track to be confirmed. That was no sure thing a few months ago, when scandal-plagued Matt Gaetz dropped his bid to become attorney general and defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth was embroiled in controversy.
Ultimately, Hegseth squeaked by by the narrowest of margins after securing the support from Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., while Pam Bondi is now well on her way to becoming Trump’s AG. (A lingering question mark is Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s union-friendly nominee for labor secretary, who faces some opposition from conservative senators and hasn’t received a hearing yet.)
For Kennedy, the key vote came from Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. Just minutes before the Senate Finance Committee’s vote to advance Kennedy’s nomination, Cassidy said he would support him after having “very intense conversations” with him and the White House over the weekend.
Cassidy, a doctor, had expressed serious concerns over Kennedy’s past unfounded comments linking vaccines and autism. He didn’t revisit that in his Tuesday statement.
Shortly after, a similar dynamic played out in the Senate Intelligence Committee, with a key undecided member, Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., announcing he would support Gabbard. Young said he received “commitments” from Gabbard that she won’t recommend protection for Edward Snowden and that she’ll back FISA Section 702, the warrantless spying power for foreign targets.
(Notably, both Cassidy and Young singled out Vice President JD Vance for the role he played in their talks with the nominees.)
Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., a freshman who replaced Joe Manchin, summed up the attitude many Republicans have taken toward Trump’s nominees. He told NBC News it’s only “fair” to “allow the person that this just country elected to have his team — and then if they don’t perform, that’s on him and the team.”
“So I’m hopeful that he gets his team,” Justice said. “The tough ones to get across the finish line are probably Tulsi and Bobby. And those are controversial and everything, and we want to look at them.”
Asked if he’s a “yes” on both of them, Justice said, “Well, I probably am. I probably am. But at the same time, I’ll be objective. I promise you.”
Related read: Lawmakers traditionally have heralded their oversight responsibilities and the power of the purse as points of pride in a city where there is a constant push and pull among the three branches of government. But in the second Trump administration, Republicans are so far largely deferring to the president amid a flurry of unilateral moves. Read more →
What to know from the Trump presidency today
Aside from scoring wins in the Senate confirmation process, Trump held his first meeting with a foreign leader since taking office and signed more executive orders. Here are the top lines from the White House:
What the 2024 results in Virginia tell us about the upcoming governor’s race
By Steve Kornacki
This year’s Virginia governor’s race will offer an early look at whether the dividing lines of the 2024 election have been scrambled with Donald Trump back in the White House.
Trump made some impressive gains in Virginia last November, cutting what had been a 10.1-point defeat in 2020 to Joe Biden down to 5.8 points against Kamala Harris. He did this by winning new support from nonwhite voters, particularly Asian Americans and Hispanics in northern Virginia. But in the rest of the state, Trump mostly hit a brick wall, especially in areas with highly educated white voters.
It sets up some key questions for the 2025 governor’s race: Will that new Trump support be transferable to the Republican candidate? And will those Trump-resistant voters refuse to back a Republican now that Trump is back in power — or are they potentially up for grabs for a candidate not named Trump?
These dynamics can be seen in November’s results from massive and diverse Loudoun County, outside of Washington, D.C.
The fast-growing county, like the rest of northern Virginia, has become staunchly Democratic since 2008. But it took on a somewhat lighter shade of blue last year, as Trump cut what had been a 25-point loss in 2020 down to 16 points. His gains, however, were not evenly distributed across Loudoun, and instead had clear demographic contours. This becomes evident when reviewing precinct-level results.
Since Loudoun has such a high concentration of Asian Americans (21%, the highest in the state) and Latinos (14%, above the state average), Trump was able to move the needle significantly county-wide, even as college-educated white voters, a group that has become a core Democratic constituency in the Trump era, barely budged.
Notably, those same precincts where college-educated white voters predominate backed Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin by 5 points in his successful 2021 campaign, indicating they aren’t permanently off-limits to GOP candidates. But Youngkin was running with a Democrat in the White House and with Trump’s political future in doubt at the time. This year’s GOP gubernatorial nominee will be running with Trump on the center stage of American politics.
This same pattern could be seen across last November northern Virginia, where Asian American and Latino voters are in abundance along with college-educated white voters. In Manassas Park, for instance, more than 40% of the population is Latino, the highest concentration of any county or city in the state. It moved 14 points toward Trump, from a 33-point Biden margin down to 19 for Harris.
Outside of northern Virginia, though, the demographics proved far less favorable to Trump. Suburban Chesterfield County, just outside Richmond, provides a good example.
Like Loudoun, Chesterfield is also large and diverse. But the Hispanic and Asian American populations are much smaller, while the Black population (nearly 25% of residents) is vastly higher. The shifts here look different.
While Trump made inroads in the precincts with sizable Black populations, they weren’t as pronounced as his gains with Asian Americans and Latinos elsewhere. And strikingly, areas with the deepest concentrations of high-educated white voters moved by more than 10 points toward Democrats, more than offsetting Trump’s new nonwhite support. (These same precincts also backed Youngkin by 13 points in his 2021 campaign.)
All of this suggests a somewhat ironic challenge for Republicans as they seek to hold on to the governorship this year. Historically, they’ve struggled to build nonwhite support, but it could end up being white voters who present their biggest obstacle to victory.
🗞️ Today’s other top stories
-
🐾 DOGE bites man: Elon Musk has moved with lightning speed to remake the federal government. Many Democrats and Republicans say his efforts are unlawful. Read more →
-
👀 Shutdown watch: With a March 14 deadline to fund the government looming, Trump’s recent unilateral moves have damaged an already fraught push for a bipartisan deal on Capitol Hill. Read more →
-
➡️ Controversial hire: Darren Beattie, a conservative author who has spread conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and wrote on social media that “competent white men must be in charge,” has been named to a top post at the State Department. Read more →
-
🏡 Housing hikes: Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee are calling on the Department of Defense to investigate what’s driving a surge in military housing costs. Read more →
-
✈️ VP overseas: JD Vance will embark on his first international trip in office next week to attend an artificial intelligence summit in Paris. Read more →
-
🏈 Red 47: Trump will attend the Super Bowl in New Orleans on Sunday, and will sit down for a pre-game interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. Read more →
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Faith Wardwell.
If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com
And if you’re a fan, please share with everyone and anyone. They can sign up here.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
