Grumpy September

Today’s notice: Nobody wants summer to end. Big week for judicial power. An interview with Michael Whatley. And: What redistricting means for the House’s diversity.

THE LATEST

Wake me up when September ends: We are just two days into this new month, and D.C.’s power players already seem grumpy.

“Clear up this MESS, one way or the other!!!” Donald Trump posted Monday morning as fallout from last week’s CDC implosion continued to create unfun news days for the White House. The president’s response was to yell at everyone: Maybe Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is wrong about vaccines, or maybe the drug companies are. Either way, “I want the answer, and I want it NOW,” Trump demanded.

Piping up: The president’s missive came just hours after nine former CDC directors, stretching back all the way to 1977, penned an op-ed in The New York Times claiming Kennedy is “endangering” the lives of everyday Americans. His dramatic shake-up is “unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced,” they wrote.

Rumors of Trump’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. The president’s allies are also grumpy about this weekend’s Dumb Internet Thing, which resulted in a fever pitch of speculation about Trump’s health after his public schedule was empty for a few successive days.

The narrative continued even after photos of the man breathing and walking around were published by the wires both Saturday and Sunday. Trump himself tried to rein in the story by replying to a MAGA influencer’s account on Truth Social, “NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE” — but that didn’t work either.

One MAGA strategist close to the administration explained that this was just not worth engaging with, no matter how much fun was being had by the too-online set. “Why should BlueAnon conspiracy theories dictate the communication strategies of the White House?” the strategist told Jasmine yesterday.

Open Tabs Russia Suspected of Jamming GPS for E.U. Leader’s Plane (NYT); 1.2M immigrants gone from the US labor force under Trump (AP); Robert Mueller diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (USA Today); Pirro’s office ends probation for D.C. teen caught with AR-style rifle (WaPo)

From the Hill

Over at the Capitol, there’s more grumpiness in the forecast. The White House’s “pocket rescission” on Friday angered both Democrats and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins. That’s bad news for a government spending bill.

Why bother? Democrats say they won’t accept a government funding bill without some type of guarantee the administration can’t override it through rescissions, as NOTUS’ Ursula Perano, Daniella Diaz and Riley Rogerson report. Trump’s request to rescind $4.9 billion in foreign aid is likely to make Democrats dig in their heels even more.

“Now any budget deal with Republicans isn’t worth the paper it’s written on,” Sen. Chris Murphy posted on Friday.

From the White House

The White House says the pocket rescission request shouldn’t be a problem. “Some have said, ‘This is the administration saying they want to shut down,’” a White House official told reporters on Friday. “That is not true. I don’t believe this is something that will ruin the appropriations process.”

The White House isn’t worried about a legal showdown: “This will, I’m sure, be something that is litigated in the court, and we are well prepared,” the official said.

From the courts

Contentious judicial rulings tend to put a lot of people in a bad mood, and the next few days have a high potential for creating more big feelings.

“Must recuse!!!” Trump posted Sunday about federal judge Jia Cobb, who blocked White House efforts to expand expedited removal in immigration enforcement on Friday and also happens to be the judge assigned to oversee Fed board member Lisa Cook’s lawsuit against the president. A ruling on that case could come this week.

It was a different federal judge who blocked DHS from deporting a group of unaccompanied Guatemalan minors over the weekend.

The tariff ruling from federal appeals court judges in D.C. did not actually stop the tariffs from continuing for the moment, but still created a lot of grumpiness from the president. If the ruling against Trump’s power to unilaterally apply tariffs stands, “our Country would be completely destroyed,” Trump posted Sunday.

Projecting confidence: Trump also posted that he expects to get his tariff power affirmed “with the help of the United States Supreme Court.”

From the campaign trail

Some rare September optimists: Former RNC chair Michael Whatley is running to replace the retiring Sen. Thom Tillis in November. In an interview with NOTUS’ Reese Gorman, he made clear he has no interest in being negative about the president the way Tillis often has been — or nervous about being seen as too close to the president, as many Republican strategists planning for the general election still are.

“People forget President Trump carried North Carolina three times. It is the only one of the seven battleground states that he won all three times,” he told Reese. “And so having his support, as his endorsed candidate, with his complete, total endorsement, is really, truly important, not just in the primary but also in the general.”

First on NOTUS: Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti is the first Democrat to jump into the race for Pennsylvania’s 8th District against Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan. You might remember him as the subject of a NOTUS investigation on his private helicopter use — a story Cognetti references in her campaign’s first press release.

“Paige is running to clean up a corrupt Washington and defeat Rob Bresnahan, who has become the poster-child of the swamp,” it reads.

NEW ON NOTUS

#RedistrictingSoWhite? Republican redistricting efforts around the country could push out some Black and Latino Democratic lawmakers, and some members are starting to worry about what that could mean. “When the deck is stacked against you, it’s harder to recruit capable, well-qualified candidates that understand that because the district has been gerrymandered, the chances of them winning are slim,” Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat told NOTUS’ Tinashe Chingarande.

War on wind power: “Kind of insane,” is how one former government environmental litigation attorney described the scale of the Trump administration’s effort to switch sides in cases aimed at shutting down wind farm projects the feds were recently defending in court. NOTUS’ Shifra Dayak reports on how the White House is twisting Biden-era legal cases into another pathway to block wind energy development.

More: Rideshare and Delivery Companies Are Staying Quiet as Drivers Are Detained in D.C., by Taylor Giorno

NOT US

• Why JB Pritzker is slimming down, by Shia Kapos and Emily Schultheis for Politico
  
• Ukraine War Leads to Global Shortage of TNT, by John Ismay for The New York Times
  
• Trump Family Amasses $6 Billion Fortune After Crypto Launch, by Angus Berwick for The Wall Street Journal
  
• Inside Trump’s relentless quest to leave his mark on Washington, by Eli Stokols for Politico

WEEK AHEAD

Today: Congress returns from its August recess.

Wednesday: Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie plan to hold a press conference featuring victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Republicans in Missouri also plan to open a special legislative session to consider redrawing the state’s congressional districts.

Thursday: The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing with Trump’s first pick for Federal Reserve governor, Stephen Miran. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is also set to testify in front of the Senate Finance Committee.

Friday: The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to release its first jobs report after Trump fired the agency’s commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, last month.

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