Todd Muller fights to make himself household name, unite divided caucus

National's new leader Todd Muller has spent his second day in the job trying to unite a divided caucus and fighting to make himself a household name.

Muller's face and name has been plastered across every major news channel and in every major newspaper as the relative unknown tries to generate a little 'Muller Mania' amongst the public and in the media. 

It's the spotlight the new and previously unknown leader desperately wants and needs.

Attention has fallen on a Donald Trump MAGA hat souvenir from 2016 he brought back to New Zealand.

"I'm not particularly close to his way of politics. I love the theatre of American politics," Muller says.

Yet the 54-year-old's own rise to leadership was just as dramatic, and behind the scenes of Friday's Muller show is a bitterly divided and poorly performing caucus he's now trying to unite. 

"We are working through the issues as you would expect. The feedback and the feeling in that room is really, really positive. 

The new leader is now deciding who stays and who goes. He's picked his portfolio, Small Business. Other than that, Goldsmith keeps the Finance portfolio and Judith Collins stays on the frontbench.

As for the rest - "I'd expect an announcement in the next few days."

That announcement won't be made until he faces two awkward conversations with Simon Bridges and Paula Bennett. 

"He's very crucially got to decide very quickly what happens to Simon and Paula and do they have a place in the new line-up," former National Minister Jonathan Coleman says.

With an election just four months away, "it just won't be Simon's old team now lead by Todd. Todd will want to put his own mark on it."

For now all we know about Muller's team is that it's one of 55. 

One that's pinning its hopes on an underdog to create a bigger team of five million.