Lots of Ears on Powell’s Speech Today: Starting Line

Hearing From Powell

We’ll be listening this morning for fresh insights into the Federal Reserve’s analysis of current conditions when its chair, Jerome Powell, addresses a banking conference this morning.

Powell’s voice also will be an important one at next week’s meeting, which includes an opportunity to make President Donald Trump happy by lowering interest rates. The Fed’s been moving cautiously on that front, trying to avoid causing inflation to spike.

Trump’s complaints about that caution led former Fed chairs Ben S. Bernanke and Janet Yellen to respond with a guest essay in The New York Times. They warned against undermining the independence of the central bank and cited instances when the interference of elected officials led to high inflation.

Meanwhile, a member of Congress put in a request for a Justice Department investigation of Powell. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) alleges that the Fed chief lied about the costly renovation of the central bank’s DC headquarters building.

It’s just an ask; there’s no requirement for Justice to act.

Also Read: Treasuries Slip With Fed Chair Powell Set to Speak Amid Pressure

Epstein Disruption

This is one of those times when what’s not happening is the news. The House won’t be taking up the bills that leaders planned to put on the floor today after the usually routine matter of setting debate parameters blew up.

Maeve Sheehey explains that the detour was provoked by Democrats. They showed up at the Rules Committee prepared to offer amendments seeking the release of files about sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. There would have been no way to avoid taking a vote, putting the panel’s Republicans at risk of ticking off Trump if they supported the amendments.

Democrats were trying to pour salt on the majority party’s internal wounds, as Republicans are split over whether to let the Epstein matter lie or whether to make good on campaign promises of full disclosure. Read More

An example of the pro-disclosure sentiment: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s social media post yesterday saying “there’s no going back,” adding that the GOP base won’t be satisfied by little bits of red meat. “They want the whole steak dinner and will accept nothing else,” the Georgia Republican posted.

Related Retribution: The White House said it would remove The Wall Street Journal from the small group of reporters traveling with the president on his upcoming trip to Scotland after the newspaper published a story alleging Trump once sent a suggestive birthday letter to Epstein. Read More

Eye on Tariffs

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. heads to the White House today, the latest global leader to face a US president willing to punish allies by making their exports more expensive to American customers.

Marcos has described the threatened 20% tariff rate as “very severe.”

In the preliminaries to today’s meeting with Trump, Marcos went to the Pentagon and the State Department and won positive words from heads of both.

In remarks alongside Marcos, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the Asia-Pacific “our priority theater” and said the US was “proud to support our mutual economic vitality, including your efforts to modernize your armed forces and collective defense.” In Foggy Bottom, Marcos and Secretary of State Marco Rubio celebrated a relationship as “friends, partners, and allies,” according to State spokesperson Tammy Bruce.

A question ahead is whether that smiley vibe will still be humming after the Oval Office meeting. Read More

OJ Threat

A New Jersey-based orange juice distributor is suing over Trump’s move to impose a 50% tariff on Brazil starting next month. Brazil supplies more than half of all orange juice sold in the US.

Johanna Foods estimates that the levy would raise retail costs for consumers between 20-25%. Its lawsuit argues that the reasons Trump cited for the higher tariffs don’t present “unusual and extraordinary” threats, and therefore his emergency authority shouldn’t apply. Read More

Rank-and-File to Decide

Now that Rep. Andrew Garbarino has the nod of the House GOP Steering Committee, it’ll be up to the full Republican Conference to agree or refuse to let him have the gavel of the Homeland Security Committee. They’re scheduled to decide today.

Of the four lawmakers seeking the chairmanship, Garbarino is the most moderate, Ellen M. Gilmer reports. The New Yorker is best known for his cybersecurity policy experience as chairman of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Subcommittee. During the intramural campaign, he played up his border security bona fides, noting he served as an impeachment manager when Republicans targeted then-Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his immigration policies. Read More

Transplant Law’s Rough Edge

A House panel today will look at both specific allegations of patients put at risk and more broadly examine how the nation’s new organ transplant system is functioning, Erin Durkin reports.

Until last year, the United Network for Organ Sharing held the sole contract to operate the network. Now there are multiple contracts to companies including Deloitte Consulting, Maximus Federal Services, Guidehouse Digital, and General Dynamics Information Technology.

A Congressional Research Service report documented concerns over a lack of consequences for underperforming organizations, none of which have ever been decertified by HHS. Read More

Bloomberg Government customers, check out this morning’s Congress Tracker for a wide lens on what’s ahead on Capitol Hill.

Checks and Balances

On Hold: Planned Parenthood is temporarily spared from Medicaid cuts in the Trump administration’s multi-trillion-dollar tax and spending law under a federal judge’s order Monday pausing enforcement of the provision while litigation plays out. Read More

Soup Kitchen Bureaucracy: A new lawsuit by Democratic-Party led states contends the Trump administration is unlawfully requiring them to screen the legal status of people looking to use services like domestic violence shelters and soup kitchens. The root of the case is a Justice Department notice revoking an order that’s been in place since 2001 exempting “certain types of ‘programs, services or assistance’” from federal eligibility requirements. “Many programs cannot realistically conduct verification at the door, such as 24/7 crisis hotlines, emergency services for individuals suffering an overdose, and homeless shelters,” the states said. Read More

Unconstitutionally Vague: A federal judge has blocked Mississippi’s law that bans certain classroom teachings without defining what the terms mean — including “divisive concepts,” “race or sex stereotyping,” “race or sex scapegoating,” “gender identity,” and “critical race theory.” Read More

Harvard in Court: The constitutionality of the government’s decision to freeze more than $2 billion in federal research funding for Harvard University is being questioned in a federal court case. “It seems to be your idea that you can terminate a contract even if the basis for termination is a constitutional violation,” US District Judge Allison Burroughs said during a hearing. She called some of the Trump administration’s arguments “mind boggling.” Read More

Before You Go

Newbie Sees What’s Missing: Though Rep. Yassamin Ansari has only six months under her congressional belt, the Arizona freshman says she can see a business-as-usual deficiency, Ken Tran reports.

“Republicans are communicating all the time,” she told a BGOV roundtable. “So they’re getting their message in long before we are.” Democrats need to get more assertive with their messaging, she argued, and start early on 2026 campaign advertising.

Guarding the Robe-Wearers: A House panel voted to increase next year’s funding for protecting Supreme Court justices, though by less than was requested. he spending bill offers $18 million from the justices’ security, Suzanne Monyak reports. The judiciary had asked for $26.8 million for protection of the justices, which it said would allow the Supreme Court Police to take over that mission from the US Marshals Service. Read More

Details Matter: There’s one big flaw in Trump ’s threat to hold up a deal for the NFL’s Washington Commanders to build a new stadium unless the team changes its name. The National Park Service transferred the 177-acre site to DC in February, according to documents filed with the Register of Deeds. Read More

MLK Files: An early review by the Washington Post of the 230,000 pages of documents related to the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. released yesterday didn’t disclose any new information about the FBI’s surveillance of the civil rights leader or whether the bureau had any involvement with the convicted assassin James Earl Ray, as some researchers — and the King family — have claimed.

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