On the Same Page
Vice President JD Vance will have a chance to take — or maybe lower — the temperature of his former Senate colleagues today when he joins the Republican Conference for lunch. It’s a pretty safe bet that the topic of tariffs will come up.
The Senate’s preparing to vote on legislation that would end national emergencies against Canada (
That conversation comes as Trump prepares to meet on Thursday with China’s Xi Jinping to nail down a trade deal. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said they’ll finalize an agreement for China to defer export limits on rare earths in exchange for Trump dropping his threat of 100% tariffs. Read More
See Also:
- Latest US-China Trade Truce Leaves Fundamental Issues Unresolved
- Trump Sparks Rare GOP Pushback With Purchases of Argentine Beef
- Trump Says He Will Discuss TikTok With China’s Xi
Preparing for 2026
For political professionals, it’s already pretty late on the 2026 campaign calendar. Some have to prepare for primaries in congressional districts that don’t officially exist yet.
Among the states in flux is Virginia, where our redistricting whiz Greg Giroux is watching for a key procedural vote. That vote, coming tomorrow, is the last step needed to set up debate on a constitutional amendment that would be necessary to allow the consideration of a pro-Democratic gerrymandering plan to counter new Republican maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and perhaps soon, Indiana.
Another one is hard to predict. Even though Illinois has the earliest deadline for filing paperwork to get on the primary election ballot — Nov. 3 — the Democratic leader of the US House of Representatives pressed politicians yesterday to upend that state’s congressional map. As Chicago’s NBC station explained, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) encountered some resistance.
“I appreciate Leader Jeffries’ commitment to stand up against this tyranny. I agree with the Leader, all options must remain on the table to protect our democracy,” Illinois Speaker Chris Welch (D) said in a statement.
Also heavy into election preparations: the crypto industry, which already has a bankroll of more than a quarter-million dollars. Read More
While all that’s happening, politicians still need to watch the issues and real-life impact that will drive voter behavior next year. In an exclusive interview with BGOV reporters and editors, retiring Sen. Thom Tillis said he sees changing sentiment that could hurt his party.
“It is a very, very negative set of political headwinds for Republicans next year,” said Tillis (R-N.C.). “I think we’ve got some very serious pockets of potential lost House seats.”
Lillianna Byington reports that Tillis is especially worried that the impacts from health care policy changes — Medicaid losses from the tax bill and the expiring tax credits at the center of the shutdown debate — could culminate at the “worst possible time before the elections.” Read more from that interview in this morning’s Congress Tracker.
Politics of Shipbuilding
Look for some regional competition today when the Senate Commerce Committee examines a big-money issue: shipbuilding.
This year’s big tax and spending package included a $43 billion investment in the domestic maritime industry, giving coastal lawmakers a reason to show parochial muscle, Zach Williams reports. Should that investment build on the industry that exists in Norfolk or Houston? Expert witnesses will nee to be ready to field pointed questions from other coasts.
“If you think about Texas, the reality is down there [it’s] basically like playing the Russian Roulette in terms of what’s going to happen with hurricanes, natural disasters,” committee member Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said in an interview. “We’re almost immune from that near the Great Lakes.”
Trump’s also thinking about domestic shipbuilding during his trip to Asia. The US lags in commercial shipping. “We lost that industry, but we’ll get that industry back,” Trump said yesterday in Japan, a country that makes about 13% of the world’s commercial ships. Read More
See Also: Trump, Takaichi Vow to Deepen Security Ties on US Carrier
Immigration Prosecution
US Border Patrol chief patrol agent Gregory Bovino, the face of the intensive “Operation Midway Blitz” immigration crackdown in Chicago, is scheduled to come to federal court today.
Megan Crepeau reports that a judge ordered him to appear after receiving allegations that he violated an order prohibiting agents from using tear gas or pepper spray without issuing proper warnings.
Demonstrators in Chicago have routinely been met with “riot control” weapons such as tear gas and pepper spray. Attorneys filed a notice with the court that they have a video apparently showing Bovino tossing a canister of tear gas toward a group of people with no audible warning. Read More
See Also: Arrested After Playing ‘Star Wars’ Music, Protesting DC Resident Sues
Navigating Influence for Global Company
Latest Lobbying Insight: Ryan Modlin, Norsk Hydro’s head of government affairs for North America, offers his perspective on how a global industrial company should establish and manage a legislative affairs office in Washington. Among the key factors he cites: a thorough understanding of policy, relationship-building, and an effort to align business priorities with changes in US governance. Read More
Before You Go
Liberty Cases: Look for the EEOC to expand its focus on religious discrimination in workplaces now that it has a quorum to back the Republican in charge, Rebecca Klar reports. “Now, with the wider latitude that the quorum brings, I look forward to advancing broader litigation priorities, as well as continuing our religious liberty work,” Acting Chair Andrea Lucas said in a statement. Read More
Crypto Countdown: Political pressures will make it too difficult to move legislation sought by both parties to regulate and tax cryptocurrencies if Congress doesn’t act in the next few months, Sen. Tillis told a BGOV roundtable. “I’m not optimistic about us moving much further on anything around digital assets, stablecoins, or crypto in this Congress,” he said. “If we don’t get it done by the first part of January, February, then I don’t think it happens in this Congress. I think we move into the political season.” Read More
How Many Terms: Lawyers arguing in front of a Sixth Circuit panel — including one Justice Department attorney — made apparent references to Trump serving a third term, Eric Heisig reports. Read More
Around the Table: Trump is touting Japanese investment in the US at Tokyo dinner where guests include CEOs of Salesforce, Toshiba and Rakuten, the president of Honda, and the founders of OpenAI and Anduril Industries. Under a trade framework reached earlier this year, Trump lowered and capped tariffs on Japanese goods in exchange for a pledge for Japan to fund $550 billion in US projects. Read More
Braced for Impact: Jamaican officials urged residents to brace for Hurricane Melissa as it tracked toward the island at Category 5 strength, packing intense rains and winds and threatening to cause widespread destruction. The storm’s winds are likely to cause “total structural failure,” the US National Hurricane Center said. Read More
Cuts Coming: Amazon plans to eliminate roughly 14,000 corporate jobs just months after CEO Andy Jassy warned that AI will shrink the company’s workforce. Read More
In the Running: Investors and Fed watchers are closely following the process of choosing a successor to chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends in May. Here’s a rundown of the five contenders. Read More
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