Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Tara Palmeri.

Last night, French Ambassador Laurent Bili hosted another beautiful Améthyste ball at his splendid Kalorama residence, one of the most coveted invites in Washington, especially after co-hosts Heather Podesta, Alfred Liggins III, and Steve Clemons slashed their guest list in half.

It was great to see so many members of the Puck cinematic universe under one roof, including Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci in tuxedos, engaged in a long and seemingly friendly conversation; Reps. Debbie Dingell, Ami Bera, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Seth Moulton, Sara Jacobs, Dan Crenshaw, Joaquin Castro, and Gabe Amo; CNN’s Jim Acosta and Kaitlan Collins; President Biden’s new campaign chief, Mike Donilon, and his wife, Trish; as well as Steve and Amy Ricchetti, Dan Koh, Stephen Benjamin, Jon Finer, Christina Sevilla, Kate Bennett, Susanna Quinn, Christopher Reiter, Jesse Rodriguez, Don and Shannon McGahn, and Symone Sanders, among many others.

Tonight, more reporting on the dire state of the Republican National Committee as the new F.E.C. filings confirm what I reported last week—the numbers aren’t good. This comes as Donald Trump is looking to another money pot to cover his campaign, given that his PACs have hemorrhaged more than $50 million in legal fees and counting.

• A bridge to nowhere?: Here’s a strange one: Gavin de Becker, the famed security consultant to V.I.P.s like Jeff Bezos, donated another $5.5 million in October to the super PAC behind Robert F. Kennedy Jr., boosting his total giving to $10 million or so. But get this: In the second half of the year, the super PAC refunded him $9.5 million in a few different installments. That is very, very odd. What gives? I asked de Becker on Wednesday. “I provided bridge funding donations more than once,” he told me. “When not needed during some particular period, they returned some money to me. I continue to provide bridge funding; for example, I am donating $4 million on February 15. I’m committed to continue funding assistance if they need it until R.F.K. Jr. is elected president.” So the super PAC isn’t actually raising big money from de Becker (who has been paid handsomely by Kennedy for personal security services, I should note). Instead, it’s more like the super PAC has been borrowing money from him. And it sounds like there’s $4 million more to come.

• A Yass olive branch: Real G.O.P. money nerds should immediately recognize the hiding-in-plain-sight back story of hedge fund billionaire Jeff Yass donating $10 million (via two $5 million checks, in July and December) to the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC tied to Kevin McCarthy, when he was speaker, and now tied to Mike Johnson. Wait, Jeffrey Yass? One of the largest donors to the Club for Growth, a group that has been a thorn in the side of congressional leadership forever? That Jeffrey Yass? What was a Club guy doing donating to something called the Congressional Leadership Fund? One probable explanation: Remember the détente the two groups reached as part of the initial deal that made McCarthy speaker in January 2023. Well, C.L.F. now apparently has access to a major Club donor. It’s his first time ever donating to C.L.F. Notably, Yass donated the first $5 million when McCarthy was speaker, and the second $5 million when Johnson had taken over. Fences are not mended, but mending.

• More fun stuff: Paul Singer donated $5 million to Nikki Haley’s super PAC in December was remarkably kept under wraps … Jan Koum’s $5 million check (which I reported two months ago) was confirmed … Peter Thiel did not donate to Blake Masters’ congressional campaign in his first quarter as a candidate… and Thiel’s Stanford buddy Reid Hoffman almost exclusively funded the $2 million super PAC behind the Biden write-in campaign in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, the Trump people that dunked on Haley’s team for accepting a $250,000 donation from Hoffman should look more closely at last night’s report, which shows they accepted $200,000 from the Pacific Environmental Coalition—a dark-money group registered to another Democratic donor, Hoffman friend and famed Silicon Valley investor Matt Cohler. You’re welcome, Mar-a-Lago. —Teddy Schleifer

• The congressional race Iron Bowl: Member vs. member House primaries can be a congressperson’s worst nightmare—but are always great fun for us rubberneckers. To wit: Jerry Carl and Barry Moore, who are currently locked in an agonizing Alabama Republican primary, filed reports revealing which of their colleagues are taking sides. It turns out it’s good to be an appropriator: Carl received checks from Republican establishment members and corporate PACs, which helped deliver him a $400,000 cash-on-hand advantage.

  Members supporting Carl included his committee colleagues: Chairwoman Kay Granger, Steve Womack, David Joyce, Stephanie Bice, Dan Newhouse, and former committee member Kevin Yoder; Alabamans Dale Strong and House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers; plus Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, Bruce Westerman, Maria Salazar, and Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

  Moore, on the other hand, received donations from Dan Bishop and Mary Miller. He also had some PAC support among companies and trade associations that fall under his Agriculture committee jurisdiction.

• Is Sheila Jackson Lee in trouble?: According to her F.E.C. report, the answer is yes. Among the people running for her seat, the Congressional Black Caucus/Texas delegation fixture came in third in both fourth-quarter fundraising and cash on hand. Her top rival, Amanda Edwards, is a charismatic Houston up-and-comer who dropped out of the mayor’s race in deference to Jackson Lee’s own candidacy last year. Presumably, that meant Jackson Lee was retiring from the House, so Edwards launched a campaign to succeed her. Months later, Jackson Lee lost big in the mayor’s race. As everyone in Houston predicted, she immediately un-retired and filed to run for reelection. This time, though, Edwards didn’t defer, and now she has a $830,000 to $223,000 cash-on-hand advantage.

  This is not a Squad vs. Establishment race. Edwards came up through one of Houston’s most prestigious law firms, Vinson & Elkins, and seems very serious about winning, dropping more money on a Dec. 19 poll ($37,000) than the entirety of what Jackson Lee raised for her congressional campaign last quarter. We’ll see if the Clintons, among her most loyal Democratic friends, come to her rescue.

On one side of the Strip, the Republican National Committee hosted its annual winter meeting—a confab where, as I reported last week, chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel had to awkwardly explain to committee members, just as the F.E.C. reports were released, why the party is in dire straits—with just $8 million cash on hand going into a presidential election year. At the other end of town, as my partner Tina Nguyen noted yesterday, the MAGA-aligned Restoring National Confidence convention served to throw shade at McDaniel while reminding the party that Trump is its de facto nominee and power should be thusly vested.

Behind closed doors at the winter meeting on Wednesday, McDaniel acknowledged the committee’s shortcomings to members. “Ronna was more humble and accepted criticism with a certain amount of grace, actually,” said a member at the meeting. “She said 2023 was a horrible fundraising year, and hopefully 2024 would bring everybody back home.” (An R.N.C. official clarified that McDaniel meant it was a bad year for fundraising across the committees and parties, not just for the R.N.C.) This person continued: “One reason was the speaker’s race, and people were putting their money behind the candidate of their choice rather than the committee that was noncommittal.”

The embattled McDaniel also weighed in on tactical messaging points, according to the source inside the room. She presented a fine-tuned message on abortion after months of complaints from the party. She emphasized the idea of pushing the message of “strong women,” and male candidates as “fathers that support strong women,” the rights of mothers, and exceptions for rape and the life of the mother. “She said, ‘You have to be more nuanced on the issue: Total bans don’t sell,’” this attendee said. McDaniel also played a devastating TV ad targeting Daniel Cameron, who lost his gubernatorial race in Kentucky after Democrats blanketed the airwaves with the testimony of a woman who, at 12 years old, was raped and impregnated by her step-father. She suggested to committee members that the ad was a harbinger of future attacks by Democrats.

Last week, Trump’s former campaign manager and R.N.C. member David Bossie proposed a gift that was too big for even Trump to accept: The R.N.C. would call Trump the presumptive nominee, even while Nikki Haley is still in the race. But Trump turned down the offer. The former president, I’m told, is starting to see the value of a foil to aid his fundraising apparatus. “Once he understood that it looked like he was taking a shortcut [to the nomination], he immediately killed it,” said an R.N.C. source. Noted a person close to Trump, “There’s value to Trump in racking up wins and being victorious and having this race against someone who can’t beat him, while everyone is acknowledging that he’s going to be the nominee.” This person continued: “It’s a sale to the major donors to get on board. And maybe, by not being the presumptive nominee, the press lays off a little.”

Will this make Trump’s people any less likely to layer McDaniel? I’m told that the Mar-a-Lago set can’t make any changes until Haley drops out and they merge with R.N.C. In the meantime, the party is watching Haley play out the five stages of grief on national TV. The risk-averse politician, who network producers (outside of Fox) had difficulty booking, now has a Chris Christie-like appetite for the green room. She also has a newfound passion for bashing Trump, after playing footsie with him since January 6. This past week, she appeared on CBS This Morning and The Lead With Jake Tapper; she also had an odd appearance on The Breakfast Club with Charlamagne tha God, where she continued to stick her foot in her mouth about slavery.

Television ubiquity or not, party insiders view Haley as a candidate who has already privately come to terms with her fate as a future paid speaker, board director, and serial book author. “She’s decided the Trump base is not going to be her future. She’s made that decision. She’s going to have to wait it out two cycles and then she’ll be old news,” said one party insider. “She’ll do speeches, she’ll be corporately acceptable. But [Trumpism is] not going away. There are going to be other people carrying the mantle.”