Rep. Nancy Mace said that as one of three dozen House Republicans to oppose the Trump-endorsed spending package, she is not worried about the president-elect’s threat of primarying anyone who voted against it, explaining that she “voted in a way to protect his agenda,” and that she is “very skeptical” about the Biden administration saying that the mysterious New Jersey drone sightings are not a national security threat. She also said, “They might as well just put some Mickey Mouse ears on George Stephanopoulos,” whose comments in an interview with the congresswoman led to a $15 million defamation settlement from ABC News awarded to Trump’s presidential library, and that she hopes for more lawsuits against mainstream media outlets, which have “lowered the bar for journalism just because his name is Donald Trump.”

Jason Chaffetz said that if the media “[are] going to outright lie, if [they’re] going to manipulate,” then Trump has no choice but to pursue more lawsuits against the press following his successful $15 million defamation settlement against ABC News. He also said that “America loved” Trump’s presser from earlier this week where he spontaneously answered questions on various issues with “no notes [and] no preconceived list of people he would select on.”

Laura Fink said that Trump’s lawsuits against media outlets have “a chilling effect on the accountability that the press provides.” She also said of comparing Biden’s lack of press availability in his Africa trip to Trump’s marathon Mar-a-Lago presser, “taking potshots at [Biden] is sort of cheap at this point,” in the final weeks of his presidency.

Griff Jenkins said that Elon Musk, who started “the wrecking ball” that torched the original government funding bill, “doesn’t appreciate perhaps fully the difficulty of getting anything done in Washington,” but that Trump’s decision to bring him in “is perhaps not such a bad thing” because he can conceive of “different ways to do things,” which is what Americans said they wanted in the last election. He also said that the House Ethics Committee voting to release its investigative report on Matt Gaetz looks like “the House is settling a score with a guy that has resigned from Congress,” and that “one thing is clear … Matt Gaetz intends to fight.”

Peter Doocy said that Biden’s availability to the press has grown “less and less and less,” and regarding a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal citing White House aides covering up for Biden’s mental decline, that members of the White House team “were essentially citing HIPAA” and did not offer “clear answers” about the president’s health. He also said that Donald Trump is “able to run the country right now kind of on a vacation,” before he is inaugurated next month, when “a press pool is going to be on him every day.”