Today’s notice: Scoop: Football is probably coming back to D.C. The shortest 100 days in memory are also somehow the longest. Congress is done recessing. Two 2026 scoops. And an exclusive look at a (very large) new face on Capitol Hill.
DOGE’s Bark and Its Bite
The whole First 100 Days thing is a rhetorically important but technically meaningless part of a presidency. Usually. But few presidents have promised as much fundamental change in as short a time as President Donald Trump, so it’s as good a time as any to take stock of exactly how the revolution is going.
DOGE is clearly the defining project of Trump’s 100 days, a mark he’ll hit this week. Trump empowered Elon Musk, Russ Vought and others to insert chaos into the federal government in the name of creating ideological purity and, it has been promised, big savings for the American taxpayer. How’s it going? Well, the former may be happening. But NOTUS’ Mark Alfred reports that the latter promise — the money one — has yet to be kept.
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Mark ran the numbers, finding “DOGE has fallen far short of Musk’s October estimate that it would cut $2 trillion from the budget — and may well end up below Musk’s amended prediction that it would hit $150 billion this fiscal year.” In fact, the federal government “spent $171 billion more than the same period in the previous two years,” Mark writes. He’s got a detailed look at DOGE’s fiscal impact, with charts. (You will enjoy the charts.)
But let’s pull back a bit. Just as the project is both about politics and money, the criticisms of DOGE’s fiscal results come from spending hawks and ideological opponents alike. The Cato Institute tells Mark the problem is “the cuts that DOGE has done are too small.” The Center for American Progress tells him the problem is Musk “pretends” to be focused on waste but actually “goes out for things he hates.”
Think about what has actually surprised people about the opening months of Trump’s second term. D.C. vets laughed off DOGE when it was announced as just another White House’s Blue Ribbon reform project that would end without making a fiscal dent. Seems like they were right to say that the budget shrinks for no president. But there were also few who actually believed Trump would succeed in his coordinated effort to tear up the ideas like Congress decides how money is spent and agency expertise is a nonpartisan good. On those fronts, DOGE is looking like one of the more successful — and speedy — political projects we’ve seen in a long time.
Those American taxpayers? They love saving money. But as Musk vows to dial back his involvement, it’s not yet clear they love what DOGE has actually done for them.
—Evan McMorris-Santoro | Read Mark’s story.
NOTUS Scoop: Commanders To D.C.
The city of D.C. and the Washington Commanders will announce a deal today to fund a new football stadium at the RFK Memorial site in eastern Capitol Hill, NOTUS’ Reese Gorman and Mark Alfred scooped.
It’ll be up to the D.C. Council to ratify the deal.
Congress Comes Back to a Ticking Clock
The House and Senate are back, and there’s no shortage of stuff to get done before the Fourth of July recess. They’re aiming to pass a reconciliation bill in both chambers, work out a rescissions package to codify DOGE cuts, prepare for Trump’s tariffs to be unpaused and avoid hitting the debt ceiling. And then there’s all the conservative bills teed up over the next few weeks to give the Republican trifecta some policy wins.
NOTUS’ Riley Rogerson, Ursula Perano and Helen Huiskes report on the tricky balance Republicans have to strike — and fast — as they try to cut spending and taxes at the same time.
What to watch for: how hard conservatives push to get DOGE cuts into law despite pushback from moderates, and whether significant Medicaid cuts make it into the reconciliation package.
2026 Report: Saying Things vs. Meaning Things
Two tales of politician candor and the midterm political map from NOTUS’ Alex Roarty and Reese Gorman.
Nebraska: Rep. Don Bacon, the Republican who represents a seat in Congress Democrats routinely spend a fortune trying to flip, has been very outspoken of late when it comes to complaints about the Trump administration. Last week, for example, he was the only Republican to call for Pete Hegseth’s resignation. Reese and Alex revealed a potential reason for all the straight talk: He may be retiring. “I’ll make any final decisions in late summer,” Bacon told NOTUS.
Maine: National Democrats were in a funk after Central Maine posted a video entitled “Maine Gov Janet Mills says she has no plans to run for Senate.” Was it a moment of candor from a top Dem recruit to take on Sen. Susan Collins? Well, what the video actually showed was a politician doing the kind of faux-exasperated why are you asking me this? bit traditional this far out from an election. But hey, viral is viral. A source familiar with the governor’s thinking told Alex that Mills is very much keeping all her options open. “If there comes a time, she might decide to do all kinds of things. And running for Senate might be one of them.” How’s that for candor?
—Evan McMorris-Santoro | Read the story on Bacon. Read the story on Mills.
NOTUS Scoop: More Like Federal Election (Out Of) Commission
A “de facto FEC shutdown will be triggered” starting Wednesday with the resignation of commissioner Allen Dickerson, a Republican member, Dave Levinthal reports for NOTUS. The six-member Federal Election Commission needs a quorum of four members to operate, but it “was already down by two after one resigned and Trump ousted a Democratic commissioner in February.” The new departure leaves just three commissioners, too few for it to legally “enforce and regulate campaign finance laws.”
The freeze “could last weeks or even months,” Dave writes.
Exclusive: Banner Day for Trump
Capitol Hill commuters will find a very large photo of the president looking down on them for a few weeks starting today. The Heritage Foundation will unfurl a 30’ x 60’ banner on its HQ celebrating Trump’s second First 100 Days; it’s part of a larger “America’s Back” campaign underway at the conservative think tank. The banner will stay up through May 22.
Week Ahead
- The House and Senate return from recess today. House committees this week begin markups to hammer out amendments to the reconciliation bill.
- The Supreme Court will hear arguments this week on whether Oklahoma can contract with the U.S.’s first publicly funded religious charter school. Republicans from the state are split on how they want it to go.
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.
- How Gen Z Became the Most Gullible Generation, by Catherine Kim for Politico
- Judges Worry Trump Could Tell U.S. Marshals to Stop Protecting Them, by Mattathias Schwartz and Emily Bazelon for The New York Times
- How the Trump Administration Flipped on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, by Nick Miroff for The Atlantic
Be Social IRL
NOTICED: Lots of fun at a WHCD weekend brunch hosted by Allbritton Journalism Institute founder Robert Allbritton, NOTUS, and POLITICO.
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