Today’s notice: Republican senators are over it. House Republicans are desperate to come back. Never Trumpers get some hotel points.
Senators Want to Go Home
John Thune is ushering the Senate into its ninth consecutive week in Washington, and senators want out.
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They’re so over Thune’s late nights and long weeks that Sen. John Kennedy — who, for the record, says he is personally a fan of the schedule — told NOTUS that senators are regularly complaining behind closed doors. “They like to go home,” Kennedy said of his colleagues.
The nonstop schedule has been part of Thune’s mission to aggressively confirm Trump’s cabinet and fulfill the GOP’s legislative “mandate.” The Senate has taken 87 votes, 18 nominees and *gasp* been in session on Fridays.
To be fair, extended stints in D.C. do present a logistical challenge for senators. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said “it’s harder” to get back to Alaska. Sen. John Hoeven said he’s “missed” connecting with North Dakotans.
Then there’s ninety-one-year-old Chuck Grassley, who is perhaps most critical of Thune’s scheduling, but not for why you’d think.
“I see the ending of some weeks on Thursday at 2 o’clock as slipping back into the Schumer schedule, and we can’t let that happen,” Grassley said. “You can see your constituents on Saturday and Sunday.”
—Riley Rogerson | Read the story.
The Grindset Revolution Will Be Fought in Bullet Points
Speaking of work culture, the latest email heard round Washington dropped Saturday: Elon Musk demanded that federal workers send the Office of Personnel Management and their managers “approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week” by midnight Monday. On X, Musk said a failure to respond would be seen as a resignation, though that threat wasn’t made in the official OPM email.
The new edict has thrust one of the major tensions of Donald Trump’s administration into the forefront: Are cabinet secretaries in charge of their agencies or is everyone answering to Musk? Seemingly for legal reasons, the White House has said Musk has no formal authority, but his tweets and subsequent OPM directives give a very different vibe.
The FBI’s newly minted director, Kash Patel, told staff to disregard the OPM email, and one federal workers’ union told its members to ask for guidance from direct supervisors before engaging. Health and Human Services, now under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., told staff to respond. DOGE started infiltrating agencies before many cabinet secretaries were confirmed, but as the officials settle in their posts, will there be a power shift? Watch this space, as they say.
—Tara Golshan
Front Page
- Senate Republicans Don’t Want to Talk About the House’s Proposed Medicaid Cuts: “We haven’t cut rates yet. What are you talking about?” said one Republican senator.
- Immigration Activists Hope the Courts Will Stall Trump’s TPS Orders Again: The Trump administration is ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians early.
- In the War Against DEI in Science, Researchers See Collateral Damage: Senate Republicans flagged thousands of grants as “woke DEI” research.
Welcome Back!
The House is back this week to vote on a budget resolution that would slash $1.5 trillion in spending, put a $4.5 trillion cap on the deficit impact of tax cuts and increase the debt limit by $4 trillion.
Several GOP lawmakers got an earful back home over DOGE’s federal funding freezes and staffing cuts. As NOTUS’ Em Luetkemeyer reports, clips from Reps. Rich McCormick and Cliff Bentz’s town halls have gone viral, and they’re hardly the only evidence of backlash.
To name a few, protesters gathered at Rep. David Schweikert’s Arizona office, Rep. Scott Perry’s Pennsylvania office and Rep. Tom Kean Jr.’s New Jersey office. Constituents confronted Rep. David Valadao in California and are targeting him with ads that implore him not to cut Medicaid.
The pressure campaign is ratcheting up the stakes of this week’s budget vote, as conservative hard-liners prepare to go for the jugular on spending.
Relevance Report: Never Trumpers
That slim segment of politics formerly known as The Republican Establishment — but now distinctly separate from the current MAGA establishment — met this weekend for the Principles First summit. NOTUS’ Katherine Swartz was there, and reports that this group of Trump resisters is no clearer on what exactly to do now — not to mention what to do next — than the much larger opposition group known as the Democrats. So much so that even a question about the health of American democracy became a disagreement, Katherine reports.
“We’re not in a constitutional crisis,” former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Saturday morning.
“Every day I’ve said we’re in a constitutional crisis,” former Rep. Joe Walsh said about an hour later.
“We use this ‘constitutional crisis’ statement much too liberally,” Chris Christie said at another point.
Week Ahead
- A House Judiciary subcommittee is set to hold a hearing Tuesday examining the 14th Amendment in light of Trump’s executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship
- The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is scheduled Thursday to vote on the nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer for secretary of labor
- The Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee is scheduled Thursday to move forward on Troy Edgar for deputy secretary of DHS and Dan Bishop for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget
- Trump is expected to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday
- The House is teeing up a vote this week on its “big, beautiful” budget resolution
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.
- What Democrats talk about when they talk about Stephen A. Smith by Kara Voght and Ben Strauss for The Washington Post
- The White House said book bans aren’t happening. Now JD Vance’s memoir is a target. By Nadra Nittle for The 19th
- Trump administration ceases 9/11 health program cuts after backlash, NY lawmakers say by Brittany Kriegstein for Gothamist
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