Today’s notice: Was all of this inevitable? Cuts, cuts and more cuts. “Friend conversations” in the Senate. Plus: Democrats and their activist base come to a truce — but will it last?
THE LATEST
Is this the negotiation or a done deal? The White House rolled out phase one of its so-called “maximum pain” shutdown plan yesterday. Painful? Yes. Shutdown-specific? Not so much. The moves — canceling funding and firing federal workers — are things the administration has either already tried to do or promised to do for a long time.
None of this is actually caused by the shutdown. So is the White House holding Democratic priorities for ransom? Or is it just dispatching Trump’s agenda more explicitly as punishment?
Trending
On the former: Sen. Chuck Grassley said if Chuck Schumer “gets the votes to get the government up and running, then (OMB Director Russ Vought) wouldn’t have any excuse to do what he’s doing.”
On the latter: “Democrats chose to shut it down. When they do that, they give the discretion to the president of the United States,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin told NOTUS’ Hill team. “They decided to give the power to the president of the United States.”
Either way, Democrats’ pain, they insist, is self-inflicted, despite agreeing on who is actually inflicting it.
“Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do, and it’s because the Democrats have put us into this position,” Karoline Leavitt told Jasmine at the briefing.
How are Democrats taking it? “John Thune says, ‘Well, I’m not going to negotiate when the government’s shut down,’ but he wouldn’t negotiate when the government was open,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said. “You know, we’re not gonna get run over here.”
Open Tabs Pentagon plans widespread random polygraphs to stop leaks (WaPo); U.S. to lose $15B in GDP each week of a shutdown: White House memo (Politico); U.S. pledges to defend Qatar against ‘any attack’ (FT); Jane Fonda Relaunches Committee for the First Amendment (Variety)
From the shutdown
The White House’s pain plan: Freezing $18 billion for New York City-area transportation projects until the administration does a DEI policy review and canceling another $8 billion for energy projects in 16 blue states that all voted for Kamala Harris last November.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark office was hit with layoffs. Then the White House fired nearly every member of the National Council on the Humanities.
More RIFs are coming. “Two days. Imminent. Very soon.” Leavitt said.
Meanwhile, immigration courts are wide open. Unlike previous shutdowns, they are continuing to handle cases of immigrants outside of detention centers, NOTUS’ Jackie Llanos reports. Ninety percent of DOJ employees who oversee the immigration courts are excepted from a furlough.
National Parks will stay open, too. The Department of the Interior will use the recreation fees it collects to maintain restrooms, collect trash, and perform other basic services, according to a planning document obtained by NOTUS’ Anna Kramer.
But this redirection of funds could be illegal. The department did the same thing in the first Trump administration, and the Government Accountability Office ruled it was a violation of the Antideficiency Act.
From the Hill
There’s no sign of a deal. Though the mood seems to have lightened on the Hill, NOTUS’ Helen Huiskes and Tyler Spence report.
Tuesday was for chitchat. “I think today we wanted to have a friend conversation,” Sen. Ruben Gallego told reporters. “They were able to talk to us, we were able to talk back. Nothing’s been decided, but we’re just throwing out ideas right now.”
The filibuster seems safe, for now. “That’s not in the cards,” Sen. John Barrasso told NOTUS’ Riley Rogerson and Ursula Perano of an openness by some Republicans (among them: Sens. Josh Hawley and Rick Scott) to change Senate rules to break filibuster power over the CR.
Republicans expect enough Senate Democrats to vote with them eventually to reopen the government, Riley and Ursula write. There were reports that a bipartisan group of senators is quietly working to bring that about.
That said... a Supreme Court ruling last week effectively green-lit Trump’s ability to use “pocket rescissions,” which NOTUS’ Oriana González reports has eroded a lot of trust.
“What’s the point of passing a bill if they just do whatever the hell they want to do anyway?” one Senate Democrat told Oriana.
From the White House
Not at nuclear, yet, either. A senior White House official told Jasmine that they’ve heard no discussion on nuking the filibuster, either. The situation has not gotten to that point yet.
But asked how the White House bridges the trust gap between Republicans and Democrats, who have said for days that they don’t trust the White House to follow through on promises to negotiate ACA subsidies, they said: “They don’t have another choice. They have zero cards.”
Another tactic: Republicans rolled out several TV sets to play archival video of Democrats decrying past shutdowns on a loop at multiple locations in the Capitol and in the White House press briefing room. Another AI-generated video depicting Hakeem Jeffries in a cartoon sombrero played in the White House as well.
It’s unclear if the videos had any purpose beyond annoying Democrats. Neither Mike Johnson’s office nor the White House answered NOTUS’ questions about it.
From the campaign trail
Not so fast, says Danica. Tap the brakes on speculation that former NASCAR driver Danica Patrick will run for Congress in AZ-01, NOTUS’ Alex Roarty reports. The rumor that Patrick might consider a bid has run circles in Arizona political conversations for weeks. But one Republican source with knowledge of the situation said they didn’'t think it was likely — citing a lack of interest on the potential candidate’s part.
Have a tip? Email us at tips@notus.org.
THE BIG ONE
Dems are Based. But for how long? “This is a little uncomfortable for us. We’re not used to cheerleading Hakeem Jeffries,” is how one senior strategist at a progressive pressure group described the rollercoaster of emotion the Democratic activist base is riding right now.
Activists wanted a fight, and now they’ve got one. It could stitch together a relationship between elected leaders and party activists badly torn by Trump 2.0. “This fight could do a hell of a lot to change it by showing, ‘Actually, we’re not just writing a strongly worded letter. We’re using every tool at our disposal to ensure that we’re fighting for the American people,’” David Hogg told NOTUS’ Alex Roarty.
But eventually someone blinks, and no one gets everything they want. Where is the line between winning and caving?
“Is there an acceptable number of people for us to kick off health care? No, especially when it’s Republicans who have put our country and government in this place,” Hogg said.
NEW ON NOTUS
Don’t call it a comeback? Former Sen. Jeff Flake’s campaign committee told the FEC it will be hanging on to more than $800,000 in a campaign account because Flake “has not yet decided whether to become a candidate for federal office in a future election cycle,” Dave Levinthal reports for NOTUS.
A stock Oracle: Rep. Cleo Fields purchased between $80,000 and $200,000 worth of Oracle shares across three different trades on Sept. 17, 18 and 23 — just days before Trump signed an executive order affirming that Oracle would play a leading role in the TikTok spinoff, Dave reports.
More: SCOTUS: Lisa Cook Can Temporarily Stay on Fed Board, by Violet Jira
NOT US
- She Loved Eric Adams. She Kept It a Secret. Now She’s Talking. By Dana Rubinstein and William K. Rashbaum for The New York Times
- How Truth Social’s bogus medical claims fool Trump fans, by Anna Merlan for Mother Jones
- How an Israeli attack inadvertently launched Trump’'s Gaza peace plan, by Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo for Axios
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