Today’s notice: The political-pressure shutdown. No new economic reports on the horizon. Mike Johnson’s social media advice. And: Democrats’ new moves against a classic Trump tactic.
THE LATEST
Turning the screws: Federal funding for Biden-era energy projects in blue states has been canceled as the shutdown continues, but similar projects in red states remain funded, NOTUS’ policy team reports.
A thing that makes this shutdown really different is how brazenly political these moves are. White House officials have repeatedly said versions of open the government up and this all goes away.
Example: $460 million in funding for a Minnesota project to build power lines to connect the country’s separated parts of the grid was canceled by OMB. $700 million for Montana to build interregional transmission lines was left untouched.
The Energy Department’s view? Nothing to see here. Secretary Chris Wright insisted in an interview on CNN last night that the canceled projects had nothing to do with the shutdown. When asked about why the affected projects were all in states that voted for Kamala Harris last November, Wright claimed that more cancellations were coming down the pipe — including in red states. “This is a partial list of an ongoing process. More project announcements will come,” he said.
The White House’s approach is headed to court. Jasmine and the Hill team report on the lawsuit filed by federal-employee unions challenging OMB’s promised RIFs. At the heart of the case is whether the shutdown provides a legal justification for the firing of federal employees.
“He’s just taking this unprecedented action to hurt people,” Sen. Patty Murray said of Donald Trump.
The administration says bring it on. “Any RIF that does take place will be one that we know we can win in a court of law,” a senior administration official said. “We’re no stranger to lawsuits.”
More uncharted territory in a shutdown full of it: The official acknowledged the unions’ arguments that RIFs had never been done before in a shutdown.
“I guess we are setting precedent by nature of doing them,” the official said.
Open tabs: What we know about Manchester synagogue attack (BBC); Another Top Air Force General Calls It Quits (NOTUS); Trump says US is in ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartels (AP); Trump Explores Bailout of at Least $10 Billion for Farmers (WSJ)
From the shutdown
No news is news: The monthly jobs report will be delayed for the first time in a decade, NOTUS’ Violet Jira reports. All government economic data will be for the time being, and the White House is blaming the shutdown. All but one of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2,055 employees have been furloughed under the Department of Labor’s shutdown contingency plan.
During the 2019 government shutdown, BLS employees stayed on the job and the jobs report was released on schedule.
From the Hill
Never (read the) tweet: That’s Mike Johnson’s advice to Hakeem Jeffries after Trump posted a series of sombrero memes that the Democrat called racist. “To my friend, Hakeem,” Johnson said, “Man, just ignore it.”
“Gavin Newsom was trolling me last night. He painted me like a minion. He painted me yellow, with big glasses and overalls, and I thought it was hilarious,” Johnson added. “For all my friends, R’s and D’s, don’t respond to it. Get to work.”
No one’s meme team has been furloughed. Jeffries posted a video Wednesday on X of an unflattering JD Vance meme. Johnson is still trolling IRL with a video in the Capitol streaming past shutdown comments from Democrats.
THE BIG ONE
Will Democrats’ pushback against Trump work? Trump and his Republican allies have rallied around a singular message: Democrats want to give “health care to illegal immigrants.”
This is an old Trump playbook. The claim is not true on its face, but is maybe more a gross exaggeration when one looks closely and squints.
This is a political challenge Democrats have struggled with before. Do they engage with Trump’s distorted rhetoric, which means they have the conversation Trump wants to have, or do they ignore it and stick with their talking points?
They have chosen to engage, a source familiar with House Democratic shutdown strategy told NOTUS. “The playbook that has changed is, ‘I’m not going to dignify that,’” the person said. What about letting Trump get the conversation he wants? “I’m over that fear,” they added.
What that looks like: “In that Oval Office meeting, the meeting lasted for over an hour. And the amount of time that we spent, literally, in talking about the issue of health insurance for undocumented immigrants was less than 10 seconds,” Jeffries told the progressive media network MeidasTouch yesterday. “They didn’t even bother to bring it up because the cameras weren’t rolling.”
It’s part of the increasingly aggressive callouts this week. Chuck Schumer referred to the White House’s “effing lie” yesterday on MSNBC. Rep. Mark Pocan devoted an entire Instagram video to taking on Republican claims.
Is it enough? The NRCC is turning the “illegal immigrants” talking point into an ad, suggesting party officials think it has legs. Every Republican leader in Congress has used the talking point, as has the White House.
That health care is at the heart of this debate is a win, some Democrats say. “They’re gonna make shit up, but we’re still having a national conversation about how the GOP wants to raise health care costs,” strategist Jesse Ferguson told us. “That’s the box they can’t get out of.”
Others see a strategy Democrats still can’t crack. “The thing about Trump is he finds one simple message and repeats it until it feels like truth,” former Biden administration official Yemisi Egbewole texted Jasmine. “What’s our one message? What’s our truth that we’re drilling into the public? Because if I see another Democrat go on TV and start talking about ‘rescission’ and ‘subsidies’ (as if the average American even knows what that means) I’ll scream. We’re 10 months into the second Trump term and Democrats still don’t understand you can only fight simplicity with simplicity.”
NEW ON NOTUS
‘Deeply alarming’: That’s how First Amendment groups are describing Trump’s directive on “domestic terrorism and organized political violence.” Advocates are warning that the mandate could lead to government surveillance of people who simply disagree with MAGA’s agenda.
“They seem to be quite explicitly listing viewpoints that they don’t like as predicates for an all-of-government crackdown,” Will Creeley, the legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told NOTUS’ Emily Kennard.
Inside the ‘Gulf of America’ pressure campaign: Just after 6 p.m. on Feb. 9, the day the gulf’s new name was announced, a U.S. Geological Survey official emailed a former RNC staffer who had been made de facto director of policy at the Interior Department. Google Maps “has been updated,” she wrote. Apple Maps would update “soon.” National Geographic had offered “no response.”
Dave Levinthal reports for NOTUS on his latest FOIA exposing the internal chaos created when Trump renamed the gulf and his team aggressively pushed to make sure everyone, everywhere, followed suit.
More: Dem Presidential Hopefuls Are Unified in Shutdown Messaging Fight, by Samuel Larreal and Torrie Herrington
Anti-Abortion Leaders Blast FDA’s Quiet Approval of a New Abortion Pill, by Oriana González
NOT US
- Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling, by Cindy Hernandez for the Chicago Sun-Times
- Firings and resignations roil U.S. attorney’s office prosecuting Comey, by Salvador Rizzo for The Washington Post
- OpenAI’s New Video App Is Jaw-Dropping (for Better and Worse), by Mike Isaac and Eli Tan for The New York Times
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