Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine announced on Friday that he selected Lt. Gov. Jon Husted to fill the Senate seat vacated by Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, tapping a like-minded fiscal and defense hawk to replace one of the Republican Party’s leading populist voices. 

Husted is a close political ally of DeWine’s and a decades-long veteran of Ohio politics, having served as Ohio’s secretary of state and as speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, after which he was elected to the state Senate. 

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, committed at her confirmation hearing on Friday to prioritize efforts to prevent domestic terrorism and counter the surge in antisemitism nationwide.

“We must remain vigilant against terrorism and against others who wish to do harm to our Country and its great people. I will ensure that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are working together, hand-in-hand, fully equipped to detect, prevent, and respond to threats from radical ideologies or foreign adversaries,” Noem said in her opening statement. “This requires resources, coordination, and collaboration across all levels of government. Once again, I will seek your wisdom and you input in the months ahead. For the sake of the people we both represent, we must get this right.”

A group of top Senate Republican lawmakers introduced legislation on Friday to re-impose a Foreign Terrorist Organization designation on the Houthis, a signal that the issue is likely to be a top priority for GOP hawks coming into the Trump administration.

President-elect Donald Trump imposed the FTO designation on the Houthis in his final days in office in 2020, but the Biden administration withdrew it in its early days, citing concerns that it could block humanitarian access in Gaza. 

The University of Maryland School of Medicine is pledging to stand by a renowned Israeli trauma surgeon whose scheduled lecture to the school’s department of surgery was canceled this week due to unspecified security threats. 

Dr. Elon Glassberg, who until last summer served as the surgeon general of the Israel Defense Forces, was slated to give a talk about saving lives on the battlefield.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) declined to reappoint Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, removing an influential internationalist from a key national security post.

Turner, a pragmatist, national security hawk and vocal supporter of Ukraine and NATO, had been reviled by the House Freedom Caucus and others in the conservative and isolationist wing of the GOP. Turner said in an interview with CBS on Wednesday that Johnson had told him his ouster was prompted by “concerns from Mar-a-Lago,” referring to President-elect Donald Trump, an accusation that Johnson denied.

The potential nomination of a hard-right former congressional candidate with ties to extremists to lead a major counterterrorism organization in the incoming Trump administration is fueling concerns among some national security experts.

Joe Kent, a retired Green Beret and former CIA officer who twice ran unsuccessfully for a House seat in Washington State, has reportedly emerged as the top pick to head the National Counterterrorism Center.

Legal scholar Ilya Shapiro had a personal run-in with cancel culture in 2022, when a tweet he later admitted was poorly worded sparked an online uproar and allegations of racism, leading to an official investigation by Georgetown University Law Center, where he had been hired to lead the university’s Center for the Constitution. 

Months later, the university closed its investigation and cleared Shapiro’s name. But too much damage had been done, Shapiro said, and he resigned just days after formally taking the helm of the center. 

A group of 47 House Republicans led by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) urged President-elect Donald Trump to immediately nominate an ambassador-rank special envoy for the Abraham Accords, a position that has been left empty since it was created by Congress in late 2023.

Lawler and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) introduced legislation in 2023 to create a new ambassador-level position for the Abraham Accords, Negev Forum and Middle East regional normalization, which was incorporated into and passed into law through the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act in December 2023.