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 and Garrett Haake explore the small margin for error facing a handful of Trump’s more controversial nominees this week. Plus, Matt Dixon reports from Tallahassee on a Florida GOP civil war that’s brewing over Trump’s immigration crackdown.
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— Adam Wollner
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A make-or-break week for Trump’s nominees
By Sahil Kapur and Garrett Haake
After Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth squeaked through the Senate by the thinnest possible margin, it will be another critical week for President Donald Trump’s nominees as he looks to quickly fill out his administration.
And the White House is seeking to send a clear message to GOP senators that any of them who oppose even a single nominee will face political consequences.
Three of Trump’s most embattled picks have Senate confirmation hearings scheduled this week: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary, Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, and Kash Patel for FBI director. All of them face a rocky path, and the hearings could be decisive.
Gabbard is widely seen as the most endangered, due to concerns over her past dealings with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, with whom she had a secret meeting in 2017, and questions about her past opposition to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows warrantless surveillance of non-U.S. individuals.
“She’s where the balance of firepower is shifting, and she’s the one who has to do the most work for herself,” a senior White House official said. “She needs to emphasize that she knows how critical intelligence is, and this is a life or death matter.”
Patel has come under fire from skeptics as unqualified and driven to use prosecutorial power to address personal grievances and target Trump’s critics. But the White House official sounded more optimistic about his chances. “Hegseth and Kash both worked really hard. They’re tough and smart and they worked around the clock. That’s what you have to do to be successful.”
Kennedy, for his part, faces opposition due to his past support for abortion rights from a group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, which is spending money on ads to derail his nomination. The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board also called on GOP senators to reject Kennedy, warning that he could use his powers to undermine vaccines and “assist his trial-lawyer pals” who have “sued vaccine and drug makers.”
The three Republicans who opposed Hegseth were Maine’s Susan Collins, a blue-state GOP senator facing re-election in 2026; Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, a moderate who has overcome challenges from the right for many years; and Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, who recently stepped down as the longest-serving leader in Senate history and is widely expected to retire after his term ends in January 2027.
Trump has less leverage over those three senators than the other 50 Republicans, and they are expected to be potential wild cards for the president’s other nominees moving forward. If the three of them banded together at some point again, it would take just one other GOP defection to sink a nominee, assuming Democrats were united in opposition. There are no obvious candidates, as of now, for a fourth defection.
Rush to align with Trump’s immigration moves sparks a GOP feud in Florida
The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations are ramping up across several major cities: Gabe Gutierrez and Nicole Acevedo report that immigration authorities made close to 1,200 arrests Sunday, and nearly half of those detained don’t have criminal records.
Around the country, Republican leaders are rushing to align themselves with Trump on the issue — one they see as a political winner after it was central to the party’s message in the last election. That includes Gov. Ron DeSantis, a one-time Trump rival, who called a special session of the Florida legislature to prepare the state to help implement the flurry of immigration-related executive orders signed by the president.
But as Matt Dixon reports from Tallahassee, a desire to get in sync with the Trump administration on immigration has exposed some intra-party tensions in the Sunshine State. Republican leaders in the state House and Senate abruptly ended the special session Monday morning and quickly called their own.
The move effectively killed the legislation already filed by DeSantis’ allies, and allowed Republican leadership to draw up their own immigration proposals, including language that puts the governor in a tricky political position. The plan from legislative leaders would take sweeping immigration oversight authority away from DeSantis and move it to Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, a statewide elected official who is eyeing a run for governor in 2026 and has had an icy relationship with DeSantis.
The move backs DeSantis into a corner. If the Republican leaders’ bill passes, as expected, DeSantis will either have to sign a bill that effectively knee-caps his ability to coordinate immigration enforcement in the state, or veto a proposal that includes hard-line immigration reforms, many of which he supports.
The episode also underscores that DeSantis does not hold the political sway in the state that he did in the lead-up to his 2024 presidential campaign.
⚖️ In the courts: A group of Quaker congregations is suing the Department of Homeland Security for changing a policy that prevented ICE agents from carrying out operations in so-called “sensitive locations” such as houses of worship, playgrounds, schools and hospitals, without approval from supervisors.
📺 ICYMI: During an appearance on “Meet the Press,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., urged his GOP colleagues in Congress to prioritize sending more money to the Trump administration for its mass deportation plan.
🗞️ Today’s top stories
- ⬅️ On the way out: The Department of Justice said it had fired several career lawyers involved in prosecuting Trump. Read more →
- 👀 The retribution agenda: From firings to revoking security details to removing portraits, the message is sinking in for those who may have crossed Trump: Payback is coming, and coming fast. Read more →
- 📝 The pardon agenda: Trump granted only one pardon during his first year in office when he last served as president. Now, Trump has averaged one pardon for every few minutes he’s been back in power, rewarding those who have been supportive of him — and he might not be done. Read more →
- ➡️ Next up: Trump is expected to sign four new executive orders : one related to Covid vaccine requirements within the military; one that would create a defense system for the U.S. like Israel’s Iron Dome; one that aims to restrict transgender people’s military service ; and one to crack down on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the military.
- 💧Water wars: Trump has also signed an executive order seeking to circumvent federal and state laws dealing with California’s water system in an effort to provide the southern part of the state with necessary water resources to fight wildfires. Read more →
- 🔄 Trade war averted: Over the weekend, the White House said that Colombia had agreed to all of Trump’s terms after the president threatened to impose sweeping retaliatory measures against the country, including tariffs and visa sanctions, after it denied entry to two U.S. military deportation flights. Read more →
- 🏃Gearing up: Vice President JD Vance’s top political advisers have signed on to help Vivek Ramaswamy as he prepares to run for governor of Ohio. Read more →
- Get the latest updates on our politics live blog →
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Ben Kamisar.
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