President-elect Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency was all the buzz Thursday on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers got their first taste of how the Elon Musk-led cost-cutting committee plans to shake up Washington.

The House on Thursday shut down two Democrats' attempts to force the House Ethics Committee to release its report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz, instead letting the panel decide the matter.

The embattled nomination of Pete Hegseth for defense secretary has President-elect Donald Trump and allies working to hold the line on a second pick getting nixed, or risk opening the floodgates for rejection of his unconventional nominees including Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Canada said Thursday it is outlawing 324 firearm varieties - guns the public safety minister said belong on the battlefield, not in the hands of hunters or sport shooters.

A House task force is recommending the Secret Service update policies on chain of command, communications and coordination and improve its security technology to avoid another failure like the July 13 assassination attempt on President-elect Donald Trump.

"Pearl Harbor and World War ll is the line in the sand between the Old World and the New World. America was changed radically and forever. We were 'Fortress America' walled off by two giant oceans before Pearl Harbor -- isolationism ratified by the bipartisan Neutrality Acts. But the nation was internationalist during and after the war," presidential historian Craig Shirley said in a written statement shared with Inside the Beltway.

President Biden and his top aides are tinkering with the idea of issuing preemptive pardons to individuals they fear will be targeted by President-elect Donald Trump when he takes office.