Setback Tuesday

Today’s notice: It was not a great night for the Trump 2.0 agenda. DHS funding has not gotten easier. Trump appointees used personal emails for government work. Les Wexner’s political donations raise eyebrows in Ohio. And: An interview with fired FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.

Correction: The Tuesday edition misattributed a quote to Rep. Mike Flood. It was Rep. Maxine Waters who said, “I’ll work with the devil himself to get something on housing passed.”

THE LATEST

Norms fight back: Two efforts by Donald Trump to radically remake the presidency and ignore traditional political lines were rejected last night through boring, institutional procedures.

His push to silence opposition to his tariff plans failed in the House after a long night of voting. Mike Johnson proposed a provision on a rule that would prohibit lawmakers from bringing privileged resolutions of disapproval regarding the Trump administration’s tariffs until the summer. The administration and House leaders whipped hard on this, trying to protect a core tenet of Trump 2.0 from an embarrassing congressional rebuke. Three Republicans — Reps. Kevin Kiley, Don Bacon and Thomas Massie — voted against it with Democrats, and the rule failed.

The door is now open to some normal Congress-ing — members holding votes to voice their disapproval with Trump’s tariffs, which remain unpopular on Capitol Hill after nearly a year of trade volatility.

A federal grand jury also refused to indict six Democratic lawmakers yesterday over their involvement in a video advising U.S. service members not to comply with unlawful orders. “Tonight we can score one for the Constitution, our freedom of speech, and the rule of law,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin wrote in a defiant statement last night. Sen. Mark Kelly, another Democrat who appeared in the video, called it an “outrageous abuse of power by Donald Trump and his lackies.”

A growing trend: Ordinary citizens serving on D.C. grand juries rarely rejected indictments before last year, but have been doing so more frequently since Trump ally Jeanine Pirro took over the local U.S. attorney’s office.

Open tabs: Bridge Owner Lobbied Administration Before Trump Blasted Competing Span to Canada (NYT); Andreessen Horowitz’s Rising Influence Over Trump-Era AI Policy (Bloomberg); FDA refuses to review Moderna’s application for mRNA flu vaccine, company says (CNN); FBI cited debunked claims to obtain warrant for Fulton County vote records, documents show (WaPo)

From the Hill

DHS funding update: John Thune has moved to tee up a vote on a bill that would fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the year, though talk on the Hill is that this could be a procedural move to ultimately put forward a shorter funding measure.

Either way, optimism that a deal will be struck for any duration is hard to find, even as the Friday funding deadline for DHS nears.

“The odds are very low,” Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, told NOTUS’ Hill team of Democrats’ appetite for a continuing resolution. “I don’t know anybody in the Democratic caucus that will vote for one unless there are serious reforms to ICE.”

From the Department of Energy

But their emails? “[P]lease keep in mind that my DOE emails (and your replies) will be easily discoverable by outside parties,” Travis Fisher, a political appointee at the DOE involved in a report that challenged the scientific consensus on climate change, wrote in a personal email last year. NOTUS’ Anna Kramer reports that he’s one of several appointees involved in the report who used private email to discuss it, according to court filings.

Federal public-records laws require agencies to preserve all emails and written communications about agency business, Anna writes.

From the campaign trail

With a friend like this … “The president gets to do whatever he wants,” Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican, told NOTUS of Trump actively undermining incumbent Republicans’ reelection bids.

Some Republicans have been surprised as Trump complicates the Senate map for high-profile incumbents like Sens. John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy, Ursula Perano and Reese Gorman report.

Others, less surprised: “He’s getting to a point where he’s probably frustrated he’s not getting the support that he thinks he deserves,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville said.

Keeping the money: A source familiar with the situation told NOTUS’ Tyler Spence that Sen. Bernie Moreno, a Republican, will be keeping the $3,500 he received in donations from Jeffrey Epstein associate Les Wexner last year. Wexner is an Ohio native and prolific donor in the state — beneficiaries have included Republican Sen. Jon Husted, GOP Rep. Mike Carey and Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty. None of them responded to a request for comment.

NOTUS INTERVIEW

Fired FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter says the one thing people get wrong about her case before the Supreme Court: saying it’s about Trump.

“People try to frame my case sometimes as the power of a bureaucrat versus the power of the president, and I really don’t think that’s what it is. It’s the power of Congress versus the power of the president,” Slaughter told NOTUS’ Jade Lozada recently. “Congress has a lot of power over not just executive branch agencies, but also independent agencies that it is currently not exercising.”

The Trump administration is arguing that precedent around independent agencies no longer applies. Slaughter says this is a case about checks and balances.

A White House win would change decades of precedent and raise constitutional questions. “If one branch is acting without checks from the other two, that is a breakdown of the constitutional order that we are supposed to have,” she said.

Unintended consequences? “I can’t imagine they will like the results of the argument they are making when there is a Democratic president in the future who acts with similar lack of guardrails,” Slaughter told Jade.

NEW ON NOTUS

What will Republicans’ SAVE America Act actually do? Mostly, it will make it harder for many eligible voters to cast ballots, NOTUS’ Adora Brown and Helen Huiskes report. Among the groups most likely to be affected are married women who changed their names, college students, elderly voters, people who were adopted, the spouses of military service members and naturalized citizens, whose birth certificate or passport may not match their driver’s license.

More: Khanna Names Six ‘Wealthy, Powerful Men’ He Claims Were Redacted in Epstein Files, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

NOT US

• Life in Cuba Is Grinding to a Halt Under U.S. Oil Blockade, by Vera Bergengruen and Deborah Acosta for The Wall Street Journal
  
• Without a Border ‘Invasion,’ Texas G.O.P. Turns to an Old Enemy, Islam, by J. David Goodman for The New York Times
  
• As colleagues wind down their careers, Rosa DeLauro is staying put, by Daniela Altimari for Roll Call

BE SOCIAL

Where’s a copy editor when you need one?

NOTUS LIVE EVENT

TODAY! — NOTUS Event Livestream

Join us virtually for a NOTUS event, Path to Power: A NOTUS Forum on America’s Primaries. Featuring Rep. Jake Auchincloss, ROKK Solutions’ Ron Bonjean, the Cook Political Report’s Carrie Dann, the Brookings Institution’s Elaine Kamarck, NOTUS reporters Alex Roarty and Riley Rogerson and NOTUS White House correspondent Jasmine Wright.

You can watch the livestream here.

Stream begins at 5:20 p.m. ET Programming from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. ET

If you would like to join us at the live event this evening in Washington, D.C., limited space is still available. More information is on our events page.

Thank you for reading! If you liked this edition of the NOTUS newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was shared with you, please subscribe — it’s free! Have a tip? Email us at tips@notus.org. And as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts at newsletters@notus.org.