‘No Idea What We’re Going to Do’

Today’s notice: Senate still stuck. Voters oust Ogles. Republicans practice El-Sayed’s full name. Next stop in the progressive vs. establishment battle: Hawaii. And: midterm déjà vu.

THE LATEST

We’re going to overtime: The Senate was supposed to leave town today for a long recess. But that’s not happening — there’s still a lot to be done and little time left to do it. And so a group incredibly eager to get some distance from Washington as soon as possible is forced to stick around and possibly work the weekend and into next week.

Will that be enough time? We’re still waiting to find out. The agenda remains pretty stacked with unknown outcomes — will Todd Blanche get the votes he needs to be confirmed as attorney general? He’s still short, per the official count. There’s also a fight about hemp regulations that needs to be resolved before a stopgap spending bill can be passed.

And, the Russia sanctions bill, which saw quick movement after the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, is still awaiting action.

Or, as summed up by Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana): “I still have no idea what we’re going to do, and if we do something, when we’re going to do it.”

So it’s a lot of nail-biter Senate dealmaking action. But the real drama starts when these lawmakers get back home to voters who want answers on the agenda items they didn’t get to — the Iran war, the SAVE America Act and on and on.

Open tabs: McConnell Says He’s Been Released From Rehabilitation Facility to Recover at Home (NOTUS); Women’s Share of Top Military Promotions Plunged This Year (NYT); White House Begins Head Start Program Overhaul (NOTUS); The new fight over who gets to be ‘working class’ (Politico); Author of DNC’s 2024 “autopsy” says he concluded Gaza war hurt Harris (Axios)

From the campaign trail

Andy Ogles sent home: Republican primary voters in Tennessee’s redrawn 5th Congressional District voted out the controversial member of Congress last night. Former state Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher won the Republican nomination in what was drawn to be a safe seat for the GOP.

A few takeaways: First, it’s another defeat for a Trump-backed candidate. The president hosted a tele-rally for Ogles just last week. Hatcher had the endorsement of Gov. Bill Lee. Second: This can be seen as a victory for the clean energy industry, which targeted Ogles with negative ads. Third: Ogles was routinely in the news for the wrong reasons, most notoriously drawing criticism from his fellow Republicans for a post that said, “Homosexuality has no place in America.” (He blamed a staffer.) But he was also rebuked by some Senate Republicans for Islamophobic rhetoric, which is a bit ironic given this next item coming up.

El-Sayed on his newly popular full name: “This is the best place in the world to be Abdul,” the freshly minted Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan — home to one of America’s largest Arab populations — told reporters this week. Republicans seem to think his name is a liability, NOTUS’ Angie Orellana Hernandez reports. Immediately after he was declared the primary winner, the NRSC sent out a press release referring to him as Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, rather than the name he’s used for his entire political career. It was a formulation the committee had not used previously.

Eyes on Hawaii: Another progressive vs. establishment battle is set for Saturday between state Democratic Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole and longtime Rep. Ed Case. Case, who has served seven nonconsecutive terms in Congress, is touting his seniority and ability as an appropriator to bring federal dollars home, NOTUS’ Christa Dutton tells us. Keohokalole’s pitch is that it’s time for change, especially after Case voted with Republicans on an early version of the SAVE Act and didn’t sign a letter with his fellow Hawaii Democrats condemning ICE raids.

Momentum is on Keohokalole’s side after progressive wins against incumbents in New York City and Denver, but Hawaii is an old-school Democratic state that isn’t quick to welcome change, said Colin Moore, a political scientist at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. “Because progressive challenges to the Democratic establishment traditionally haven’t done all that well here, I think it would show that this anti-incumbency sense among the Democratic electorate is much broader than just very progressive Western or Northeastern areas,” Moore said.

From the White House

Another bite at birthright: With two new executive orders yesterday, the president made it clear he plans to continue trying to limit the constitutional rules around birthright citizenship, despite the Supreme Court decision earlier this year batting down his first attempt. NOTUS’ Manuela Silva details the new orders, one of which claims powers to deny citizenship to some children born in the U.S. under certain circumstances, while the other directs federal officials to deny visas to travelers coming to the U.S. for “birth tourism.”

From the courts

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay several nonprofits by today at noon Pacific Time for the legal services they provided to unaccompanied migrant children, NOTUS’ Jackie Llanos reports. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, tasked with the care of the children, had withheld millions in reimbursements for legal representation since December because the nonprofits declined to provide information about their minor clients to protect their privacy. The office just gave a new sole-source, $150 million contract to a small Texas firm.

NEW ON NOTUS

House Republican scandals lead to midterm déjà vu: In a previous midterm where historical trends were on their side, 2006, Democrats were able to make their blue wave splash a little further up the beach thanks to a slew of scandals by Republican lawmakers that made them vulnerable in otherwise safe seats. Our Paul Kane looks back at that cycle and compares it to this one in his latest for NOTUS. That déjà vu line came from the Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter, who said, “In both years: unpopular war, members mired in sex scandals.”

More: Rep. Julie Johnson Violated Transparency Law With Dozens of Late Stock Disclosures, by Dave Levinthal

DOJ Sued Over Trump Tax-Audit Immunity Deal, by Jenna Monnin

Some Visa Applicants Could Pay Up to $250K in Bonds to Overcome Denials, by Jenna Monnin

NOT US

• Moderate Democrats Prepare for ‘War’ Against an Ascendant Left, by Shane Goldmacher for The New York Times
• Bobby Pulido is sick and tired of apologizing, by Samuel Benson for Politico
• Senate Republicans launch network of fake news sites, by Judd Legum for Popular Information

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The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Andrew Burton. Photo by Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images.