Become a member to get many great benefits -- exclusive analysis, trending news, a private podcast, no ads and more!
Russ Vought’s Plan Was Decades in the Making
CNN: “The memo symbolized Vought’s methodical march to accumulate power within the executive branch — and the outsized role he has played in getting to this moment. Vought’s vision for how to deconstruct Washington’s sprawling federal bureaucracy, shaped by his years toiling in Republican circles, is now being enacted.”
“Vought has transformed a role typically focused on the weeds of congressional appropriations into the Trump administration’s primary instrument to dismantle, piece by piece, federal agencies and spending plans.”
Have Cubans Fled One Authoritarian State for Another?
New Yorker: “In the past few years, as many as two million people have escaped the island’s repressive regime and collapsing economy. Those who’ve made it to the U.S. face a new reckoning.”
House Won’t Come Back Until Shutdown Ends
“The House GOP leadership told rank-and-file Republican lawmakers Saturday morning that they will only come back to Washington when Senate Democrats reopen the government,” Punchbowl News reports.
“Speaker Mike Johnson told lawmakers on a conference call that he believes the GOP is winning the messaging fight on the shutdown. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said he will give members 48-hour notice before they have to return to Washington.”
“The House Republican Conference was largely supportive of the leadership’s strategy on the call.”
A Senate GOP Conference That Will Outlast Trump
“Senate GOP Leader John Thune and his lieutenants have largely remained silent as President Donald Trump has ordered the Justice Department to target his adversaries, enriched himself and his family through brazen self-dealing and repeatedly stepped on congressional prerogatives, among other transgressions they’d never tolerate from a Democratic president,” Politico reports.
“Yet at the same time — and with purposefully little fanfare — Thune and other lawmakers have quietly gone about trying to normie’ize their conference with mainstream Republicans. Of course, what’s normal in the Trump era is all relative — the price of admission for every GOP senator and would-be senator not named Murkowski or Collins is complete and total fealty to the president.”
“What Thune is doing, though, is shaping a Senate Republican conference that will outlast Trump (if not Trumpism) and offer some ballast against a House that’s sure to move with the momentary tides toward isolationism and populism.”
Vance Emerges as Frontman in Shutdown Fight
“The White House has increasingly made Vice President JD Vance the face of the government-shutdown fight, turning to a messenger who so far has taken a lighter touch — and more discipline — than President Donald Trump,” Bloomberg reports.
“Vance’s expanded role was evident from the start, with the vice president attending negotiations Monday between Trump and congressional leaders before the shutdown and then taking the lead role, ahead of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, in briefing reporters after the meeting.”
American Jews Turn on Israel Over War in Gaza
“Many American Jews sharply disapprove of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, with 61 percent saying Israel has committed war crimes and about 4 in 10 saying the country is guilty of genocide against the Palestinians,” according to a Washington Post poll.
“The findings are striking given the long-standing ties between the U.S. Jewish community and Israel, suggesting the potential for a historic breach over the Gaza war.”
Trump to Send Witkoff, Kushner to Middle East
“President Trump is sending his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Egypt this weekend to help complete a hostage release deal, U.S. and Arab officials said Saturday, after Hamas and Israel backed his 20-point proposal to end the war but with reservations that need to be ironed out,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The high-profile delegation shows Trump’s seriousness about securing a deal, despite significant concerns about the terms among all the parties involved. Kushner, the president’s son-in-law who played a crucial role in negotiating normalization accords between several Arab countries and Israel during Trump’s first term, helped craft the current plan and will now try to close the gaps and get it implemented.”
For Your Weekend Listening
Join now to continue reading.
Members get exclusive analysis, bonus features and no advertising. Learn more.
A Total Breakdown in Trust
“Between 2013 and 2019, three government shutdowns were caused by Sen. Ted Cruz’s stand against the Affordable Care Act, Sen. Chuck Schumer’s push on children of immigrants and President Trump’s demand for border wall money,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The 2025 shutdown is about something deeper: a complete breakdown in trust.”
“Democrats don’t trust that the White House will take any spending agreement and adhere to it. The White House has for months routinely ignored congressional appropriations, keeping government funds from flowing as directed by Congress.”
Trump Seizes On Shutdown to Punish Political Foes
“President Trump has embarked on a legally dubious campaign to weaponize the federal budget during a contentious government shutdown, halting more than $27 billion in approved funding in a bid to punish Democratic-led cities and states,” the New York Times reports.
“Rather than broker a legislative truce or seek to ameliorate the fallout of a costly fiscal stalemate, the president has leveraged the crisis to exact revenge on rivals, slash federal spending and pressure Democrats into accepting his political demands.”
Trump to Cut Refugee Admissions to a Record Low
The Trump administration plans to slash refugee admissions to a record low level in the upcoming year, reserving a bulk of the limited slots for white Afrikaners from South Africa and others facing “unjust discrimination,” the New York Times reports.
Quiet Concerns Emerge in Trump’s Orbit Over Shutdown
“President Donald Trump believed the government shutdown would deliver Republicans a swift and decisive political victory. But with the stalemate now likely to spill into a second week, that calculation is looking increasingly shaky,” CNN reports.
Said a White House adviser: “I’m supposed to say this is killing the Democrats. But I don’t think it helps either side, to be honest with you.”
New York Times: The White House can’t decide: Is the shutdown bad or good?
Marjorie Taylor Greene Criticizes Senate Republicans
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia Republican who has grown increasingly disillusioned with the GOP and President Trump, said that her own party was at least partly to blame for the government shutdown, and that it had the power to unilaterally reopen the government, the New York Times reports.
Said Greene: “If Republican Senators wanted to pass the C.R. and reopen the government they could, by using the nuclear option.”
‘Fuck You, Make Me’
John Oliver: “Look, at some point you’re going to have to draw a line. So I’d argue, why not draw it right here? And when they come to you with stupid, ridiculous demands, picking fights that you know you could win in court, instead of rolling over, why not stand up and use four key words they don’t tend to teach you in business school?”
“Not, ‘OK, you’re the boss.’ Not, ‘Whatever you say goes.’ But instead, the only phrase that can genuinely make a weak bully go away. And that is, ‘Fuck you. Make me.’”
John Gruber: “‘Fuck you, make me’ is, to me, the founding principle of this nation.”
Mike Johnson Says He Won’t Consider Compromise Bill
Speaker Mike Johnson (R) told Scripps News that he is “right now” ruling out putting any future bipartisan Senate compromise to reopen the government on the House floor.
Catherine Cortez Masto Draws Democratic Ire
“Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto, celebrated for her narrow victory three years ago that secured Democrats’ control of the Senate, is now being cast as a traitor by members of her own party,” Politico reports.
“She is one of three senators who broke ranks this week, voting with Republicans on the spending bill and robbing Democrats of a united front. Independent Angus King and maverick Democrat John Fetterman joined her in backing the GOP funding measure to keep the government open. But Cortez Masto — a member of Senate leadership — seems to have backing in her home state.”
ICE Agents Handcuffed Chicago Alderperson
Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes was hancuffed by federal immigration agents while she was questioning them why they were at a local medical center, WLS reports.
