September 1, 2025
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THE TOP
Congress’ plate is full after recess
Happy Labor Day.
We’re thrilled to be back with you after a company-wide holiday last week. Our brand new studio at the Punchbowl News Townhouse is almost done. Fly Out Day premieres this Thursday with an all-star newsmaker guest, who we will announce soon, and a great reporter conversation with two veteran Capitol Hill hands – Manu Raju of CNN and Jackie Kucinich of the Boston Globe.
Trump vs. Democrats and everyone else. Lawmakers return to Washington on Tuesday amid a deeply unsettled national political and economic landscape. President Donald Trump is at the center of a dozen controversies roiling the country, as he always seems to be. Congress has been on recess for the last month-plus, with members and senators back home and traveling around the world during August.
The federal government shuts down on Oct. 1, barring a bipartisan funding deal – even a short-term one – as the White House unilaterally slashes billions of dollars of previously approved spending.
Democrats are infuriated. They were skeptical about negotiating a funding deal with Republicans after Trump and GOP leaders jammed through a $9 billion rescissions package in mid-July. Now, Trump is slashing billions of dollars in funding without Congress via legally questionable “pocket rescissions.”
Yet the big question remains whether Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are prepared to vote to shut down the government over these disputes. Or can they even trust Trump if he tries to cut a deal now only to backtrack later once it’s signed?
Trump is also threatening to take his “crime emergency” and harsh immigration crackdown into more big cities, with Chicago and possibly Boston in his sights. Democrats are outraged here too.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and local officials continue to tread carefully with more than 2,000 National Guard troops in the city, as well as hundreds of federal law-enforcement personnel. Crime has dropped significantly during the federal surge. So Democrats are in a bit of a political bind here, not wanting to look weak on crime even as ICE conducts checkpoints across the city.
Trump’s tariff regime took a massive blow last Friday when a federal appeals court ruled that the president exceeded his authority by imposing unilateral tariffs on dozens of countries. The White House will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, with Trump’s tariffs remaining in place until mid-October.
Tariffs have come to define the president’s economic policies over the last eight months, so this could be a huge blow to his agenda. The Congressional Budget Office said that the tariffs will decrease the deficit by $4 trillion over a decade.
Trump has also been at war with the Federal Reserve, another flashpoint for Democrats. Trump is trying to oust Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor appointed by former President Joe Biden, over allegations of mortgage fraud. A federal judge heard a legal challenge to the firing on Friday but didn’t issue a ruling, meaning Cook remains in place for now.
The Federal Open Market Committee, which determines interest rates, will meet in two weeks. Fed Chair Jay Powell — who Trump has threatened to fire, too – has already signaled an interest rate cut is coming even as inflation worries grow.
The CDC – which is under HHS and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – is in a state of absolute chaos. Trump fired Susan Monarez, the agency’s director, last week. Monarez is suing the administration, and four other top health officials resigned as a result. Schumer and other top Democrats are calling on Trump to fire RFK. That’s not going to happen, but it shows how bad things have gotten at the high-profile agency, already in turmoil following layoffs and a recent deadly shooting at its Atlanta headquarters.
Senate HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.), up for reelection next year, vouched for RFK and other Trump health picks. Yet now Cassidy is vowing to use his panel to investigate the matter. RFK is slated to testify before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday.
Trump also axed former Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.), who spent less than two months as IRS commissioner. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is serving in the role as of now. But we don’t expect Bessent to serve in the role in the long run, based on our conversations with Trump administration officials.
The Trump administration has a pile of key nominees that need to be confirmed. Stephen Miran has been nominated to take Adriana Kugler’s seat on the Federal Reserve board. Kugler announced last month she would leave the board early.
Speaking of nominations, Senate Republicans are expected to move quickly this month to change the chamber’s rules in order to fast-track the confirmation of Trump’s nominees. This is in response to Democrats’ historic slow-walking of Trump’s picks, which reached a boiling point as the Senate was about to leave for the August recess.
Trump still faces the fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, too. While the Justice Department has begun to turn over troves of Epstein-related documents to the House Oversight Committee, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) are pushing to force a full public release of the files and will hold a Capitol Hill press conference with Epstein victims on Wednesday. Remember: Massie’s discharge petition is open for signatures this week.
On the global front, there has been no public movement on ending the war between Russia and Ukraine despite Trump’s high-profile Alaska summit. The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is raging on, with no end in sight. A draft plan to rebuild Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” is stunning in its ambition – and seemingly at odds with reality – as Israeli forces push into Gaza City, Palestinian civilian casualties mount and U.S. allies grow more frustrated.
— Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Andrew Desiderio
THE LONE STAR STATE
The latest on Cornyn vs. Paxton in Texas Senate GOP clash
Senate Republicans’ quest to help Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) reelection prospects is entering a crucial stretch.
The December filing deadline is fast approaching. And there have been some notable new developments in the race.
First, there’s some indication that polls are tightening between Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Two recent public polls showed a single-digit race, and now some private polling shows the same.
The Senate Leadership Fund has a new survey that has the race getting closer, but Cornyn is still down, somewhere between the high single digits and low double digits, according to sources tracking the race.
And second, the pro-Cornyn effort is finally taking aim at Paxton on the airwaves.
Texans for a Conservative Majority, a super PAC backing Cornyn, has a new ad running in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth saying that Paxton has “a problem with trust.” The spot claims that the people who know Paxton best – including his soon-to-be ex-wife – know he “can’t be trusted.”
As we reported last month, SLF said it plans to spend tens of millions of dollars this year to help Cornyn. One Nation, a nonprofit aligned with SLF, recently dumped $2 million on TV in Texas for Cornyn.
SLF and Texans for a Conservative Majority have been working to boost the incumbent’s image with positive spots. But this is the first TV ad from either group that attacks Paxton. Top Republicans hope this tactic will close the gap between Paxton and Cornyn — and the next few weeks will be crucial.
President Donald Trump has stayed out of this race, but Chris LaCivita, one of Trump’s top political advisers, works with Texans for a Conservative Majority.
One major thing to remember: Paxton has been totally quiet. Cornyn has had millions in positive advertising over the summer. Cornyn’s allies’ own polling suggests that primary voters don’t find him to be conservative enough. We don’t know how the race will change when Paxton hits back with those kinds of attack lines.
– Ally Mutnick and Jake Sherman
📆
What we’re watching
Tuesday: The House Rules Committee will meet to set several bills up for floor consideration, including the FY2026 Energy and Water spending bill. The House Appropriations Committee will meet to mark up the Labor-HHS bill.
Wednesday: The House Judiciary Committee will have Nigel Farage, the British member of parliament and prime minister hopeful, testify in a hearing about “Europe’s threat to American speech and innovation.”
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on the use of AI in medicine. The House Appropriations Committee will mark up the Financial Services-General Government bill.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will meet to consider President Donald Trump’s nominees for ambassadorships in Costa Rica and Tunisia.
Thursday: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on nominations. The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on nominations, including Stephen Miran to be a governor on the Federal Reserve board.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will testify at a Senate Finance Committee hearing about Trump’s 2026 health care agenda.
– Jake Sherman
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2026
Everyone is tying themselves to Trump
As we head into the fall, nearly every Republican is linking themselves to President Donald Trump in order to gain a leg up in their races.
Pamela Evette, the Republican lieutenant governor of South Carolina who is running for governor, has a new spot up in Columbia, Myrtle Beach and Florence, noting that she was with Trump from “day one.”
“Not after the primaries, not after the polls looked good, from the very beginning,” Evette says in a speech featured at the top of the ad. Evette is running against two House Republicans who will lay a claim to the Trump mantle: Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.).
In fact, Evette is running not one Trump ad, not two, but three.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who can credibly claim to be close to Trump, is also running an ad statewide about the president and the One Big Beautiful Bill. This spot has Trump speaking about the reconciliation package and thanking Graham. The spot ends with Trump saying, “Thank you, Lindsey.” This ad was running during college football games this weekend.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who voted to convict Trump in his post-Jan. 6 impeachment trial, is the subject of a new ad statewide in Louisiana, saying that the two are “delivering for Louisiana.” Louisiana Legacy Policy Solutions is running the ad.
“Cassidy stood with President Trump to pass One Big Beautiful Bill,” the ad says. “Providing historic investments in border security and tax relief for working families. Boosting American energy production and manufacturing. And Cassidy worked with President Trump to combat deadly fentanyl.”
– Jake Sherman
… AND THERE’S MORE
Downtown Download. Grindr, the gay dating app, has hired Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck to lobby. They will lobby on “HIV prevention, PEPFAR, family formation, artificial intelligence, and age-assurance.”
Marty Obst, a former top adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, is now lobbying for Alibaba. He will provide “strategic counsel and advocate on issues related to e-commerce and trade.”
Anheuser-Busch has hired Hogan Lovells to lobby on “IP infringement and rule-of-law issues in Mexico.”
Kelly’s latest swing. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) is spending the Labor Day weekend in the crucial swing state of North Carolina as he continues to raise his national political profile.
The Arizona Democrat headlined a fundraiser on Saturday for former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, the party’s presumptive nominee in what will be a hotly contested Senate race.
Kelly was in Asheville, Charlotte and Raleigh for events with the North Carolina Democratic Party, including a veterans-focused town hall with Attorney General Jeff Jackson on Sunday. Kelly and his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), are walking in a Labor Day parade in Charlotte, N.C., today.
Primary problems. The GOP primary for Rep. Vicente Gonzalez’s (D-Texas) district is getting even more crowded. Fred Hinojosa, a Republican activist, launched a bid for the South Texas seat.
Hinojosa’s brother, Adam, is a state senator. Per Hinojosa’s campaign, Adam is “the first Republican to represent the Rio Grande Valley” in the state Senate since “the Reconstruction Era.”
Also in the race: Army veteran Eric Flores and former Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas).
– Jake Sherman, Andrew Desiderio and Ally Mutnick
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