Today’s notice: 101 days of lessons, for Republicans and Democrats. Politicizing science? Cutting money for some schools. And maybe giving a lot of it to others.
Operating Chaotically
Letting Donald Trump be Trump has been the key to GOP relevance for so long now that it can be easy to forget how hard a thing to do that can actually be for the politicians, operators, conservative activists and partisan allies who have to each and every day.
To wit, here’s just one nugget from a new dive into the state of Trump 2.0 from NOTUS’ Jasmine Wright.
Trump recently hosted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at Mar-a-Lago, two sources told Jasmine, potentially inserting the president into a contentious GOP primary for Sen. John Cornyn’s seat. Paxton beating Cornyn to be the party’s 2026 nominee is one of the scenarios Democrats are hoping for as they try to find silver linings in their cloudy Senate map, as NOTUS has reported. Senate GOP leadership, including the leader of the campaign arm, is sticking with Cornyn.
All this is happening while Republicans do a delicate dance of trying to stay unified enough to pass Trump’s wish list through the reconciliation bill. The Mar-a-Lago dinner also played a part in getting legislation done, one attendee told Jasmine: “It’s his best weapon for keeping control over the people in Congress.”
Does this scream “professionalized” politics to you? That was the buzzword of Trump’s second rise to power, though former top Mike Pence aide Marc Short told Jasmine it “was always mythology.”
But it’s impossible to not notice how much more effective this Trump term already is versus the last one. Maybe professionalism doesn’t mean a lack of chaos, but simply knowing how to live with it better. Or becoming numb to it.
“That’s one of the lessons they’ve learned, that you just keep moving forward,” Newt Gingrich tells Jasmine. “The news media can’t cover it very long. The country doesn’t care.”
Or if the country does care, as an increasingly bad series of recent public polls for the president suggests, the professionals of Trump 2.0 are ready to embrace the kind of panicked chaos that has stopped other groups of professionals working for other presidents dead in their tracks.
Critics “don’t understand our ability to deal with chaos and deal with pain,” a White House official told Jasmine. “It’s how we operate.”
Read the story. And read NOTUS’ Mark Alfred’s report on Trump’s Day 100 rally.
Democrats Want to Be in Your Face. With What? They’re Still Working on That.
There’s still no clear consensus on what Democrats’ course of action over the next 18 months is going to be to try to get back into power — but they generally agree they need to be loud.
On one side of the chamber, there’s a potentially tense battle coming for the soul of Dem resistance, as Democrats on the House Oversight Committee prepare to seek a new leader.
Young, diverse progressives on the committee (which is known for being the House’s partisan food-fight arena) want to see one of their outspoken own rise to the top, like vice ranking member Rep. Jasmine Crockett or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In the meantime, NOTUS’ Daniella Diaz and Riley Rogerson report, 70-year-old Rep. Stephen Lynch is taking over leadership duties with ranking member Gerry Connolly’s blessing as he undergoes cancer treatment. The next weeks and months could again see generational and ideological conflict over how Democrats should present themselves spill out in public.
Across the complex, Senate Democrats held the floor for hours last night as an act of resistance to Trump’s first 100 days. That’s part of their goal to go viral more often, using a page from the Sen. Cory Booker playbook, NOTUS’ Ursula Perano and I report. (Booker said he wasn’t involved in planning the latest talkfest.)
Is the new brashness working? “I don’t know,” Sen. Dick Durbin told us. “But something has. Trump’s numbers are not very good. So some part of the message is breaking through.”
—Helen Huiskes | Read Daniella and Riley’s story. | Read our story.
Front Page
- Lisa Murkowski Says Alaskans Are Worried About Trump’s Policies: “I’m hearing concerns on so many different levels that I feel my job is to acknowledge that anxiety,” Murkowski said.
- Senate Republicans Can’t Avoid Pete Hegseth’s Issues: “My concern is if he loses the president’s support, then we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got a plan in place,” one said.
- The White House Is Considering Delaying Asking Congress to Codify Spending Cuts: The administration had planned to send a rescission request this week, but now may delay while Congress focuses on the massive reconciliation package.
‘No Strategy Is a Good Strategy’: Where Trump’s Tariffs Leave Tech Supply Chains: Supply chain experts and lawmakers who represent tech hubs say uncertainty is making everything harder.
Fear of Political Pressure at Key HHS Independent Board
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has long issued guidelines and recommendations that are “considered the gold standard in preventive care,” NOTUS’ Oriana González reports. That could be changing.
The Trump administration recently argued that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has the unilateral power to fire panel members who don’t make recommendations he likes, which has former task-force members on edge.
That could have very big implications, Oriana writes.
DOGE Report: Security Research Cuts
Tens of millions of dollars have been DOGE’d from “at least seven” university-based Centers of Excellence, funded by a mandate from Congress through DHS to pay for research into domestic national security threats.
NOTUS’ Anna Kramer and Violet Jira report the center at UNC-Chapel Hill (flooding and hurricane risks) and the one at Arizona State (border control improvements) have stopped work and laid off staff since funding was cut. Meanwhile, a center at the University of Alaska (arctic threats) has had its funding restored.
Trump 1.0 “repeatedly proposed cutting the centers’ budgets” without finding any interest in Congress, Anna and Violet write. Trump 2.0 is cutting the budgets unilaterally.
SCOTUS Preview: Public Funding for Parochial Schools
A case that has split Republicans into several camps over the line separating church and state is scheduled to be argued before the Supreme Court today. At issue is whether Oklahoma can continue its plans to use state money to contract with and fund a religious charter school.
“This is going to be a real good test for the First Amendment, and we will see where it goes,” Rep. Kevin Hern told NOTUS.
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.
- Feeling Political Heat, Colleges Pump Up Their Lobbying, by Steven Rich and Vimal Patel for The New York Times
- Inside the split between Kathy Hochul and Antonio Delgado, by Austin C. Jefferson for City & State
- What is the Role of the Senate Parliamentarian? By J.D. Rackey and Michael Thorning for the Bipartisan Policy Center
Have a Tip? Email Us.
Reach us at tips@notus.org. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts on our newsletter at newsletters@notus.org.
Thank you for reading! If you like this edition of the NOTUS newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was shared with you, please subscribe (it’s free!).