Hello and welcome to The Best and The Brightest.

The term 3D chess is frequently overused in political reportage and commentary, but I think that for once, it applies to Speaker Mike Johnson’s budget proposal: fund Israel by making cuts to the I.R.S. (triggering the Dems), and increasing border security funding by bundling it with Ukraine aid (both appeasing and triggering separate factions of the MAGA wing). Or maybe it’s like he is splitting two babies in half, switching the babies’ halves around, and giving them back to their respective mothers.

Tonight, a closer look at the Johnson strategy. But first…

• Go East, young man: The Daily Wire, the multi-platform conservative media company led by Ben Shaprio and Jeremy Boreing, has expanded its ambitions in recent years beyond news and outrage bait into podcasting, video, merchandise, and even film. Last year, sensing a market opportunity amid the backlash to Disney and Hollywood “going woke,” the Wire began investing significant sums into creating alternative, non-“woke” scripted children’s programming with direct-to-video Disney-lite production values.

  Perhaps predictably, the Daily Wire is pumping out their own analogues to pop culture mainstays—a fantasy series that aspires to rival Game of Thrones (good luck), and their own version of Snow White that will attempt to compete with Disney’s upcoming, more diverse remake. More surprisingly, they’re filming them in Budapest, home of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his hardliner right-wing government, which has passed numerous pieces of legislation against L.G.B.T.Q. “propaganda” in schools. (The Daily Wire did not return a response when asked why they chose to shoot in Budapest.)

  There have already been a number of media crossover events placing Budapest as an extension of the MAGA cinematic universe: CPAC has held conferences in Hungary, as has NatCon. Tucker Carlson has interviewed Orban himself several times, including for his streaming show on X. Notably, the location is not a traditional European film hub—unlike nearby Croatia and Bulgaria, which offer better tax credits to film productions—but it clearly has a non-financial appeal for Shapiro and other would-be conservative media moguls looking to make a point.

And now Abby Livingston’s fresh reporting from the Hill…

• Party’s over for Santos: After 302 days in Congress, the Honorable George Santos might be walking the plank tonight, as his colleagues are on track to oust him from the chamber. (It’s surreal to think that only a year ago, he was almost completely unknown.) And true to New York’s cutthroat politics, it will be his Republican delegation colleagues—Nick LaLota, Anthony D’Esposito, Marcus Molinaro, Brandon Williams and Mike Lawler—who led the defenestration.

  The seemingly inevitable push to evict Santos has been delayed by Republican concerns about further shrinking their tight margin over the Democrats. But today, the New Yorkers argued that Santos’s behavior transcends those anxieties. Unstated: Many of these members are vulnerable next year, and it’s not ideal to share the high-wattage New York City media market with a serial fabulist who also shows up in polling as the most famous congressman in America.

• Kay’s Departure: Kay Granger, the most powerful Republican woman in the House, announced her retirement on Wednesday. Although part-time observers may not have heard of Granger prior to her vote against Jim Jordan during his failed speakership bid, she is one of the few politicians I’ve heard addressed within the political class universally by her first name only. In the midst of the news, the most pressing question is what happens at the Appropriations committee. The betting money is that Tom Cole, the current Rules chairman, is the frontrunner for the Approps gavel (or, ranking member, if the Republicans lose the House next year).

  Granger’s exit will put a major hole in the Texas Republican delegation, the unruly once-powerhouse bloc. And the race to replace her will be one to watch. It’s based in Fort Worth, which jealously protects its Congressional seats due to its proximity to Dallas. There’s a powerful, oil-based establishment there, most notably led by the billionaire Bass family. But the 12th District also expands into Tea Party-friendly suburbs and rural stretches. The first recruit on every Republican mind right now is probably Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, who has mega-star national potential. It’s my sense, however, that is not in the cards right now, and Parker likes her current job.

• Retirement season has begun: Granger’s long-expected exit followed two Democratic retirements over the last week: Earl Blumenhauer and John Sarbanes. But there was one shocker in the form of Ken Buck’s announcement that he would be stepping down. Only in his fifth term, Buck was also one of the holdouts to Jordan. (That said, he previously floated an interest in working at… CNN.)

  There are likely more to come. Republicans are in a much better mood this week, but it’s not yet quite terra firma. Some institutionalists are waiting to see how Mike Johnson manages the government funding crisis, which comes to a head on November 17. State filing deadlines are fast approaching, and the Thanksgiving and winter holidays are the prime season for members to decide to hang it up.

So a number of my sources in the MAGA movement were caught off guard, therefore, by Johnson’s recent gambit to use additional aid for Israel as a bargaining chip to address a somewhat back-burnered conservative bugaboo: the tens of billions of dollars that Democrats added to the I.R.S. budget in 2021 as part of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The I.R.S., especially given Biden’s push to hire 87,000 new tax agents, has always been a pain point for hardliners. (Apparently, internal House polling shows that the issue plays “super high” with G.O.P. and independent voters, even if it’s D.O.A. in the Senate.) But the fixation on the I.R.S. during this international crisis surely seems at odds with Johnson’s current presentation as a moderate-friendly sentient adult. “He gets points for being intellectually and fiscally honest,” one Republican lobbyist told me. “But don’t do it with Israel. He may be playing with fire.”

So far, two anti-establishment members have publicly come out against the Johnson package—Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie. But there’s the possibility that Johnson will also lose more mainstream Republican members, particularly from swing districts, who don’t want any strings attached to Israel aid. Republicans are readying a counterargument designed to shame Democrats. (“Let’s see if the entire Dem caucus will follow the lead of the not-insignificant part of its most loyal base, which hates Jews and Israel,” said the staffer. )

But can he get away with it, and for long? It depends. While he doesn’t inspire Jim Jordan-ian diehard loyalty from the rightward flank, Johnson simply hasn’t offended anybody yet—a positive development in a caucus that’s been torn apart by months of clashing egos. “Johnson represents a situational blending at the moment of somebody who is simultaneously political, intelligent, composed, can think on his feet, is a normal talker and messenger and actually has not really offended anybody around,” the staffer said.

It certainly puts him in a better position than Kevin McCarthy, who, for all of his deal-cutting, offended many, many Hill denizens over the years as he ascended to power, who then made his life hell for nine months as he tried to both appease and screw them at the same time. But Johnson’s task is far more daunting than just making his caucus get along: he’s got to fundraise for a diminished caucus and pull in McCarthy-level money; he’s got to negotiate with a diametrically-opposed Mitch McConnell in the Senate; and even if he can get this stopgap measure out the door, he’ll have to keep passing budgets again, and again, and again. And it’s not quite clear whether the plate-balancing act is going to be sustainable in the long run.