If Trump Succeeds, This Man May Be Why
Donald Trump’s first term in office was not a great legislative success. Republicans passed a massive tax cut, but the president went through four separate congressional liaisons as he tried to wrangle an often reticent Hill.
NOTUS’ Jasmine Wright reports on one (literally) huge difference between Trump 1.0 and 2.0 when it comes to Capitol Hill: 35-year-old James Braid, a towering 6’6” veteran of tough Capitol offices who is now working as Trump’s director of the Office of Legislative Affairs.
Stints working for Reps. Mark Sanford, Ted Budd and Ken Buck eventually landed Braid in JD Vance’s Senate office, where he helped the first-term lawmaker navigate Congress. “He was able to look at what we were doing on the political side and synthesize it into policy and legislation,” a strategist tells Jasmine. Vance pushed Braid for the White House gig.
Now Braid faces maybe the toughest challenge for anyone who has had his job — a trifecta that projects an image of being able to do anything but a tiny House margin where just about any Republican can throw a wrench into the works.
“Anything getting across the finish line takes a miracle, right?” a friend of Braid tells Jasmine.
Trump’s allies are counting on Braid to perform those miracles; plus, they have a much more supportive Congress to help them along. In Trump’s first term, liaisons were “working with congressional leaders to rein in” or “divert from” his agenda, the strategist said.
“I think I view my fundamental mandate from the president as translating his ideology and his views into legislation. So, there’s no desire to contain him,” Braid told Jasmine in an interview.
The DOGE Savings Aren’t Savings Yet
Elon Musk posted on X last week that DOGE’s cost-cutting spree was leading to “more of your tax dollars saved.” But that money isn’t actually going back to taxpayers. In fact, it likely hasn’t left any agencies.
Though it’s tricky to verify, DOGE boasts that it has stopped over $55 billion in spending. That does not mean the $55 billion is being returned to taxpayer pockets; nor has it been cut from the federal budget.
Congress’ power of the purse allows it to dictate appropriations to federal agencies — including moving appropriations around or rescinding them. And so, it’ll be up to Congress to decide what money — if anything — gets chopped.
A Trump administration official told NOTUS that “depending on the funds” the money is “either repurposed or returned to the Treasury Department.” But they declined to say whether the administration sent a request to Congress to rescind money from federal agencies.
Front Page
- Critics Say It’s a Useless Tax Break for the Rich. Lawmakers Want to Double Down.: Researchers say there’s no evidence the ‘opportunity zones’ program revitalized poor neighborhoods.
- Ryan Walters Is Trying to Out-MAGA His Peers. It’s Making Things Awkward in Oklahoma.: Walters, Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction, has taken pains to boost his national profile.
- California Republicans Boost Trump’s Tariff Plan, Even If It Makes Wildfire Recovery Efforts More Expensive: “There might be a little discomfort for a while,” one California lawmaker said.
- Democrats in Congress Are Questioning the Return of the Trump Resistance: “I’ve chosen not to engage and get aggressive and yell or claim the extreme things of fascism,” said Sen. John Fetterman.
First on NOTUS: Trump’s IVF Executive Order Is Out
Last summer, an Alabama court ruled that the Dobbs decision made some versions of in vitro fertilization illegal in that state, a move that left Republicans scrambling to publicly support fertility treatments on the campaign trail. Trump then promised to eliminate out-of-pocket IVF costs for families.
NOTUS’ Oriana González and Jasmine Wright scooped the details of a Tuesday executive order Trump signed calling for recommendations on how to “aggressively” reduce the cost of IVF, through legislation if necessary. The forever caveat: It’s unclear how much the Trump administration can do alone on costs without help from Congress.
Q&A: The AFL-CIO on the Heterodox Labor Nominee
Jody Calemine is the director of advocacy at the AFL-CIO, the labor federation that has seen some fractures emerge during the second Trump era. The group endorsed Kamala Harris, though some of its affiliates — notably the Teamsters — very vocally did not. It was reportedly the Teamsters president, Sean O’Brien, who pushed for Lori Chavez-DeRemer to get the Labor nomination, and some AFL-CIO affiliates have endorsed her. But Chavez-DeRemer, whose confirmation hearing is today, did not get that kind of warm reception from Calemine.
On the hearings:
We continue to be in a position of appreciating her, her record in certain ways on workers, even though the question is now, ‘Are we confirming a secretary of labor or just someone who is going to take orders from Elon Musk?’
On what the AFL-CIO has learned about Trump and labor so far:
There’s probably a group of people within the administration who would like to be better with labor, but that portion of the administration is clearly not winning right now. Instead, we’re seeing these unprecedented attacks against federal workers and their unions. These are working people.
On what he’d ask Chavez-DeRemer:
When DOGE engineers show up at the Department of Labor, what kinds of security questions will you ask them before giving them access to the data?
There are things like the names of whistle-blowers, people who have filed complaints about health and safety and wage and hour issues at employers across the country, including against Elon Musk’s companies, contained [in that data].
On the split in organized labor over MAGA:
I think, oddly enough, despite all these press stories, [labor is] more united than ever because we’re focused on the bottom-line outcomes for union members and working people in the country writ large … Nobody is going to sit by and tolerate all these attacks on federal-sector unions.
—Evan McMorris-Santoro
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.
- As Trump ‘Exports’ Deportees, Hundreds Are Trapped in Panama Hotel by Julie Turkewitz, Hamed Aleaziz, Farnaz Fassihi and Annie Correal at The New York Times; photographs by Federico Rios
- Trump’s Labor pick will need unusual help to get confirmed by Burgess Everett at Semafor
- The Week Trump Mounted an Unprecedented Takeover of the Kennedy Center by Erich Schwartzel, Josh Dawsey, Jessica Toonkel and John Jurgensen at The Wall Street Journal
Be Social
Now we’re talking.
do not let the united states house of representatives see this https://t.co/rLv5f5wW4J
— Oriana González (@OrianaBeLike) February 18, 2025
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