Bad News for the Filibuster

Today’s notice: Republican Senate primaries are now a battle over who hates the filibuster most. Who is and who isn’t toeing the White House line on Epstein. “Cant-idates,” a word we just learned and can’t stop saying. And: Rushing from surgery for a House vote.

THE LATEST

Fili-bustin’ out? “I stand with President Trump - TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!” Rep. Buddy Carter, currently running for the Republican Senate nomination in Georgia, wrote on X early this month.

This is shaping up to be the new litmus test for most of MAGA in Senate primaries, NOTUS’ Reese Gorman reports. A growing number of candidates say they’re open to ending the filibuster or greatly modifying it, including very serious ones like Michael Whatley, Donald Trump’s handpicked RNC chair and nomination favorite in North Carolina.

Another “not your father’s Republican Party” moment? Trump really wants this. “He hates the filibuster,” a senior official from the president’s first administration told Jasmine recently — and candidates are rallying to his cause.

It’s by no means a clean sweep, though. Former Rep. Mike Rogers, running in Michigan, is “opposed to eliminating the filibuster.” And the two former senators vying for the nomination in New Hampshire, Scott Brown and John E. Sununu, both want to keep the filibuster around if they get their old jobs back.

It’s worth a reminder at this point that the new government funding bill only lasts through Jan. 30. Which means there will be a lot of talk about shutdowns and filibusters again pretty darn soon.

This was a conversation for the other party in recent years. And Democrats are indeed at it again — but HuffPost recently reported that the lines have not shifted like they appear to have in Republican primaries. Establishment Senate candidates either don’t want to talk about it or publicly support the filibuster, and insurgents are pledging to end it. Yawn.

Open tabs: Lawmakers Question Trump’s Military Buildup Near Latin America (NOTUS); Top Fannie Mae officials ousted after sounding alarm on sensitive data sharing (AP); Trump admin targets Charlotte for next immigration crackdown: Sheriff (Politico); How a 17-Year-Old Girl Became Enmeshed in the Matt Gaetz Scandal (NYT)

From the White House

The White House is not happy with Rep. Nancy Mace. A source close to the White House told NOTUS’ Reese Gorman they “couldn’t imagine a dumber strategy to get Trump’s endorsement than doing what she did this week,” referring to Mace signing the discharge petition to force the DOJ to release the Epstein files. Not a great sign for her already chaotic run for governor.

But it’s also a sign of how serious the White House is about keeping Republicans in line on Epstein as next week’s House vote approaches.

Who is staying in Trump’s good graces? We reached out to or reviewed recent posts from the right-wing influencers who received the infamous “Epstein binders” from Pam Bondi in February — the group that helped create the deep rift in MAGA over the convicted sex offender. None of the influencers posted about the coming vote one way or the other, except some glancing references to Rep. Lauren Boebert’s comments that Trump “has not put pressure on me.”

One thing they want Trump to stop? Calling it a “hoax.” Influencer Chad Prather held up his binder on a Thursday livestream, joking he could auction it off for a tidy sum. He said this week’s Epstein email dump from House Democrats was a political move to change the conversation after the shutdown.

But Prather questioned Trump’s ongoing messaging on the Epstein files. “I’m not sure Trump knows what the word hoax means, he keeps throwing it around in weird contexts,” he said.

“Every release has vindicated him and harmed his enemies,” influencer Mike Cernovich posted, “yet [Trump] still persists in calling it a hoax.”

From the campaign trail

“Cant-idates.” That’s North Carolina politician Kate Barr’s name for a new type of protest candidate — one calling attention to the effects of partisan redistricting by running in districts they say they can’t win.

Barr, a Democrat, is now saying she can win by running as a Republican in a primary against Rep. Tim Moore in his solidly red district in the suburbs of Charlotte. “We have to win where we can, while we can, as soon as we can,” she told NOTUS’ Christa Dutton.

Is a blue wave coming in 2026? A Dec. 2 special election in Tennessee may serve as a bellwether, NOTUS’ Torrence Banks and Alex Roarty report. The race — triggered in June by former Republican Rep. Mark Green’s sudden decision to leave office — pits Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn against Republican Matt Van Epps in the sprawling 7th District, which includes a slice of Nashville and a large swath of rural Tennessee.

Just about everyone believes Van Epps will win — but by how much? Things are trending in Democrats’ direction: Cook Political Report changed its rating on the district yesterday from “solid” to “likely Republican.”

NEW ON NOTUS

SNAP strain: “I’m concerned in general that this administration, over the last two-and-a-half months, has shown during the shutdown that they’re willing to do things that are not only confusing and make it difficult to administer the program, but unlawful, including withholding funding,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury told NOTUS’ Raymond Fernández of states having to now navigate the start of new welfare restrictions on SNAP, which Trump and Republicans put in place.

Breaking wind: “These permits don’t even seem to be worth the paper that they’re written on, so to speak,” Kris Ohleth, the director of the Special Initiative on Offshore Wind, told NOTUS’ Shifra Dayak of the Trump administration’s moves to reconsider wind energy permits. “So there’s no longer the confidence of the development community to continue projects when the permits that they’ve paid so much money for and spent years seeking are being overturned.”

Mad dash to D.C. “Hell, health care is expensive for me, too!” That was how Rep. LaMonica McIver explained her decision to keep a surgery on the books Wednesday morning in her home state of New Jersey, just hours before rushing to Capitol Hill to vote on the shutdown-ending deal. She told NOTUS’ Tyler Spence that she had “a couple of fibroids” removed and didn’t tell her doctors about skipping town back to Washington, knowing they would disapprove.

More: Eric Swalwell Becomes Latest Trump Foe to Face Mortgage Fraud Probe, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

DOJ Joins Legal Bid to Stop California’s New Congressional Map, by Manuela Silva and Samuel Larreal

Socialist Community Organizer Katie Wilson Narrowly Wins Seattle’s Mayoral Election, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

Judge Casts Doubt Over Pam Bondi’s Justification for Appointing Lindsey Halligan, by Jose Pagliery

NOTUS PERSPECTIVES

If you could change one thing about how American health care is structured, what would it be?

A NOTUS forum featuring Lanhee J. Chen, Ceci Connolly, Liz Fowler, Sherry Glied, Michael Osterholm and Robert Pearl.

NOT US

• Behind the scenes of the D.C. mayor’s battle to keep Trump at bay, by Jonathan O’Connell for The Washington Post
  
• The Journey to Evacuate Sick Children From Gaza to Romania, by Belle Cushing for The Wall Street Journal
  
• Texas’s Water Wars, by Rachel Monroe for The New Yorker
  
• Grandma, 83, ‘had no idea’ she was running for town’s top office — scores enough votes to determine race, by Brandon Cruz for the New York Post

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