Shutdown Politics, Again

Today’s notice: What to watch for as DHS funding lapses. Why Trump doesn’t like the governor of Oklahoma. TFW everyone was in the same meeting but heard something different. Drama over the flu shot. “Forever chemicals” lobbying. And: Are private prison companies getting nervous about new immigration detention mandates?

THE LATEST

After the DHS funding shutdown: Let’s get acquainted with the political dynamics of our shiny new funding crisis, shall we?

Democrats see leverage, and plan to use it. “I think we are united,” Rep. Steny Hoyer said of his fellow Democrats. NOTUS’ Daniella Diaz reports that the funding fight has helped push to another day the thorny “abolish” vs. “reform” ICE debate inside the caucus and created something everyone can rally around: using the power of the purse to rein in Donald Trump in the form of new legislative guardrails around immigration enforcement.

They believe time is on their side in this shutdown. Sen. Brian Schatz said he expects Republicans who leave town without joining Democrats’ effort to reform ICE will hear about it back home. “Everybody thinks that this agency is out of control and needs to be reinvented,” he said, adding, “I think it’s going to take them maybe another week to figure out how pissed off their own voters are about the idea of a masked police force terrorizing communities.”

The White House says: We’re ready to negotiate this time. It’s not like that incredibly long government shutdown from last year, where the Trump administration’s position was our way or the highway for weeks and weeks. “I would certainly say there’s been meaningful progress,” a senior White House official said yesterday, NOTUS’ Avani Kalra reports.

Expectations for a smooth resolution are not high, however. Once again, the mood on the Hill is bleak, NOTUS’ Riley Rogerson and Helen Huiskes report. “Hugely disappointed in the other party,” Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis said, summing up the vibes from both sides of the aisle.

Open tabs: White House seeks to tighten control over HHS priorities with personnel shakeup (CNN); Prosecutor Seeks to Drop Charges Against Immigrant Shot by ICE Agent (NYT); Trump’s pick for top diplomatic role faces scrutiny over ‘white supremacist’ views (Guardian); Top Goldman Sachs lawyer Kathy Ruemmler to resign over Epstein links (FT)

From the White House

The Stittuation: The B plot to a busy week was Trump’s dramatic tussle with the National Governors Association, which involved the president lobbing public insults at the NGA’s chair, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican.

NOTUS’ Reese Gorman revealed that Trump’s animosity toward Stitt did not begin with the NGA kerfuffle over invites to meetings and partisanship; Trump has held a grudge ever since Stitt endorsed Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential primary campaign against Trump in 2024. “Tell the governor to go fuck himself,” he told an Oklahoma City-based political donor during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago in 2024, Reese reports.

From the Hill

Same meeting, different takes: Progressive Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal spoke with Mike Johnson this week as she considered which actions to take after Pam Bondi’s hearing notes appeared to reveal the DOJ had kept a record of which Epstein files lawmakers viewed. In separate conversations with reporters, a tension point around possible next steps emerged.

The agreement: The surveillance was bad, both lawmakers said.

The disagreement: Jayapal called it “intentional.” Johnson said, “I’m sure it was an oversight.”

From the FDA

Is the FDA going to shake up the flu shot? That’s what the pharmaceutical industry would like to know. A chaotic stream of changes around vaccines from the Food and Drug Administration has companies hesitating on new research and delaying trials. And now they are worried forthcoming guidance on the seasonal flu vaccine trial requirements will make it difficult, or even impossible, to get a new shot out in time.

“We have this pattern of careers being overruled by politicals, and it’s making everybody very concerned about the future of product approvals, or products just staying on the market generally,” a lobbyist in the pharmaceutical space told NOTUS’ Margaret Manto.

The chilling effect: “We have been told by companies where we were supposed to start a clinical trial that it is being delayed,” Anna Durbin, a professor at Johns Hopkins who sometimes conducts clinical trials on vaccines for manufacturers, told Margaret. “They are very nervous about submitting any new applications to FDA for this very reason, because they just don’t know.”

From the courts

The Trump administration should expect lawsuits, Democratic state attorneys general and environmental groups said after Trump announced the repeal of the “endangerment finding” for greenhouse gas emissions.

“I’ll see them in court,” Massachusetts AG Andrea Joy Campbell said after the announcement. Colorado AG Phil Weiser said the same in a statement.

The lawsuits will “likely all be consolidated in the D.C. circuit,” Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Frank Garrison told NOTUS’ Anna Kramer.

NOTUS DEEP DIVE

Saving ‘forever chemicals’: More than 500 pages of internal documents obtained via FOIA by NOTUS’ Taylor Giorno detail how industry groups have tried to take advantage of environmental skepticism in Trump 2.0 to take on Biden-era regulations of PFAS in drinking water.

What industry asked for: A rejection of the scientific consensus around these chemicals. In a flurry of emails and presentations, major producers asked the EPA to embrace the view that the danger to human health from the chemicals in drinking water and other shared spaces is overblown. Millions of dollars were spent on lobbying, as Taylor details.

What industry got: Last year, the EPA announced it would “reconsider” regulations on four chemicals and compounds given the “forever” label by scientists, and give water utilities an extra two years to meet reduction targets. But the agency declined to reject mainstream science and maintained the Biden-era regulations on PFOA and PFOS, the most famous of these types of chemicals.

NEW ON NOTUS

Proceeding with caution: One of America’s largest private prison contractors said it is “cautiously participating” in the Trump administration’s quest to retrofit warehouses into immigrant detention facilities, NOTUS’ Jackie Llanos reports. Geo Group’s executive chair, George Zoley, told investors on an earnings call yesterday that he is worried the renovations and upkeep required to operate such facilities will be complicated and costly.

“As far as the physical plant renovations of a warehouse to get it operational, it’s complicated, and then the operational implications of how you manage such a facility, particularly a large-scale facility, is going to be concerning,” Zoley said.

More: Top Oversight Dem Launches Probe Into Lutnick’s Meeting With Bridge Owner, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

Conservative Heavyweights Pan Trump’s ‘Socialist’ Drug Pricing Plan, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

Trump-Endorsed Karrin Taylor Robson Drops Out of Arizona Governor’s Race, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

NOTUS PERSPECTIVES

What is the Republicans’ single biggest weakness heading into the midterms, and how can it be overcome?

A NOTUS forum featuring Rep. Nancy Mace, Shermichael Singleton, Nick Maddux, Daniel Kishi, Jennifer Mercieca and Douglas Heye.

NOT US

• How Elon Musk’s Sci-Fi Hyperloop Failed, by Matt Ribel for Washingtonian
  
• Carrie Prejean Boller Is Not Going Quietly, by Yair Rosenberg for The Atlantic
  
• Middle-class Americans are selling their plasma to make ends meet, by Shannon Pettypiece for NBC News
  
• Compass Coffee had Starbucks-size ambitions. Here’s how it unraveled. By Tim Carman for The Washington Post
  

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