Congress
Trump’s DOT transition team includes officials from his first term
President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign has tapped two former Transportation Department officials to help the agency’s transition efforts as he prepares for his second term, Blue Light News has learned.
That includes Skip Elliott, who worked under Trump’s DOT as administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and also as acting DOT inspector general, two former Trump administration officials and a transportation industry official with knowledge of the transition told Blue Light News. They were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.
Elliott also served as vice president for public safety, health and environment at freight rail giant CSX and before that at Conrail as the director of hazardous materials systems.
“Skip is an honorable and really good man. He still goes back and talks with PHMSA leadership,” one of the former Trump officials said.
Elliott could not be reached for comment.
Also helping the transition at DOT: Brigham McCown, according to the three officials familiar with the transition effort.
McCown served on Trump’s first transition team in 2016, before briefly becoming senior adviser to then-Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. McCown also served as one of the original leaders in PHMSA during the George W. Bush administration.
McCown did not respond to a request for comment.
Sen. Mitch McConnell remains hospitalized, his office said in a statement Thursday — without offering details about a recent medical episode that has renewed concern about the health of the former Republican majority leader.
McConnell “continues his recovery in the hospital” and “continues to improve,” his office said.
“Senator McConnell appreciates the outpouring of support he’s receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital,” the statement said. “The Senator continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session.”
The statement did not explain why he was hospitalized last month.
The update comes after multiple outlets reported details of a first responder dispatch call indicating emergency medical personnel responded to McConnell’s home last month to treat an unconscious person who had experienced “cardiac arrest.”
Blue Light News has not independently verified the dispatch call.
The 84-year-old senator, who is retiring at the end of this term, has experienced multiple medical incidents in recent years. On two occasions in 2023, he froze while speaking with reporters. He has also suffered multiple falls and temporarily used a wheelchair, a move his office described at the time as a precautionary measure.
Congress
House Ethics says it doesn’t have information to share on lawmaker sexual misconduct settlements
The House adopted a resolution Tuesday requiring the House Ethics Committee to release information on taxpayer funds used to pay out sexual misconduct settlements with lawmakers — but the committee now says it has no information it can share.
In a statement Thursday, the committee reiterated it does not manage sexual harassment lawsuits or their settlements; taxpayers have not footed the bill for those payments since 2018.
Since that time, according to the statement, “the Committee has not been notified of any awards or settlements relating to allegations of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or other sexual misconduct by a Member.”
Instead, the bipartisan Ethics Committee said it was up to the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights to publicly release a list of each member who has received settlements for sexual misconduct allegations, as mandated by the resolution championed by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).
The committee, in the Thursday statement, said it “fully supports the release of information about sexual misconduct settlements and calls on OCWR to abide by [the resolution] and make publicly available information about Member sexual misconduct matters resulting in payment of taxpayer funds.”
Massie, in a text message Thursday, said “OCWR can release it.”
The OCWR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The bipartisan Ethics Committee has been under pressure in recent months to show it takes allegations of sexual misconduct against colleagues seriously. Two former House members — Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) — were forced to resign earlier this year amid serious accusations against them.
The renewed reckoning has prompted new questions about whether the House is up to the task of policing its own. The resolution earlier this week was adopted nearly unanimously, with just one member, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), voting “present.”
House Ethics Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) said in an interview earlier this week that while he would support Massie’s resolution, the relevant “information was already out in the public domain.”
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) endorsed Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign for Michigan’s open Senate seat on Thursday, a decision that comes as progressives look to capitalize off a series of recent high-profile primary victories in New York, Colorado and elsewhere.
Her endorsement could provide El-Sayed with a critical boost just over a month before the state’s Aug. 4 primary. The former public health official is locked in a heated contest against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow for the right to take on Republican Mike Rogers in the general election.
It also comes as El-Sayed has risen to the top of the pack in recent public polling.
Virtually any Democratic path to flipping the Senate in this year’s midterms would see the party hold the open Michigan Senate seat, with two-term Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) retiring at the end of his term.
The race has emerged as perhaps the largest battleground over the ideological future of the party. El-Sayed, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2018, has collected endorsements from progressives, while Stevens has the tacit backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, with AIPAC also boosting her candidacy.
El-Sayed, Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview with The New York Times, is her party’s best chance.
“Despite our ideological differences and whatever disagreements there are in the party, every single one of us sees this moment as existential,” she said. “And I think many people are willing to put aside differences in order to give us the best chance at winning. And I think that Abdul gives us that right now.”
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