Jan. 18, 2023: What McCarthy gave up, drafting DeSantis and more

NBC’s Scott Wong and Kyle Stewart did the work on putting together a comprehensive list of where all of the antagonizers who slowed McCarthy’s ascension to the speakership ended up after committee assignments were settled Tuesday. A few of the notables:

• Reps. Andy Biggs (R- Ariz.), Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) kept their seats on the Judiciary Committee;
• Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who like Biggs and Gaetz voted ‘present’ on the final ballots, won a seat on the Oversight and Accountability Committee, in addition to keeping her seat on Natural Resources;
• Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) won a spot on the coveted Appropriations Committee; and
• Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who was nominated to run against McCarthy for speaker and flipped to him on the 12th ballot, was awarded a seat on Financial Services as well as a spot on the House GOP steering committee, which doles out panel assignments.

And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is getting prodded to jump into the 2024 presidential primary field from an unexpected — and distant — camp: Michigan Republicans. “Last month, Bryan , the Republican floor leader in the Michigan state House, flew to Florida and hand-delivered DeSantis a letter encouraging him to run for president,” our colleague Alex Isenstadt reports this morning. “The letter — which was signed by 18 Republican members of the state House, one quarter of the party’s caucus — called DeSantis ‘uniquely and exceptionally qualified to provide the leadership and competence that is, unfortunately, missing’” in the White House.

“While the letter doesn’t explicitly endorse DeSantis over [Donald Trump], it illustrates simmering discontent with the former president among Republicans, following a series of elections that saw the party get bludgeoned at the ballot box,” Alex writes.

Plus, Playbook editor Mike DeBonis and deputy Zack Stanton look at how senate primaries are starting to take shape ahead of the 2024 cycle, including in the pivotal battleground state Michigan.

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Raghu Manavalan is the host and senior editor of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.
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