The Senate’s To Do List
Before the Senate can head out for summer recess, lawmakers have a few things to do.
Among those? Confirming several nominations. The Senate could vote to confirm Susan Monarez to lead the CDC next week, Lillianna Byington reports, and approved a procedural measure setting up a vote on the nomination of President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Emil Bove, to a federal appellate court. Read More
More nominations are ready for floor votes. Senate panels advanced both former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro and Brittany Panuccio, Trump’s picks to serve as the US attorney for the District of Columbia and as an EEOC member, respectively, out of committee yesterday.
Senators also hope to make progress on the fiscal 2026 spending bills. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) wants to get as many funding bills in a first minibus package as possible, Ken Tran and Jack Fitzpatrick report in our BGOV Budget newsletter.
But Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) wants to vote against the Legislative Branch spending bill—and just that one bill—so he’s refusing to release his hold on a motion to package the Legislative Branch bill with the Military Construction-VA and Agriculture-FDA funding bills. Read More
What doesn’t seem to be slowing down the Senate is the question of releasing files regarding disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Jonathan Tamari has more for Bloomberg Government subscribers in our Congress Tracker newsletter.
Powell Unlikely to Budge
Prepare for more of the same when the Federal Reserve holds its two-day meeting next week.
The Fed is widely expected to hold rates steady, even as Trump said he believes Powell will do the “right thing” on interest rates.
Trump said he discussed interest rate levels with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday’s tour of the agency’s building renovations. He didn’t share further details but said, “I’d love him to lower interest rates. Other than that, what can I tell you?”
The president further maintained there was “no tension” with the Fed chief, even as Trump turns to his “flood the zone” playbook to pressure for a cut. He also indicated that problems with the project probably weren’t reason enough to fire Powell.
“To do that is a big move, and I just don’t think it’s necessary,” Trump told reporters. Powell has justified keeping rates steady by citing concerns over the impacts of the president’s tariff hikes. Read More
Dueling Over an NC Senate Seat
A blockbuster North Carolina Senate race that will shape the legislative and political environment in the final two years of Trump’s presidency seems likely to come down to RNC Chair Michael Whatley and former Gov. Roy Cooper (D).
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’s seat is a must-win for out-of-power Democrats, if they want a chance at retaking the Senate, Greg Giroux reports. Read More
In the meantime, Washington minds are watching a House election in Tennessee that’s only months away.
A special election Dec. 2 will determine the successor to ex-Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), according to a schedule set by Gov. Bill Lee (R).
Green, the former Homeland Security Committee chair, resigned July 20 from the 7th District seat in west-central Tennessee. The district favored Trump by 22 percentage points in the 2024 election, according to Bloomberg Government data.
That suggests the winner of the Oct. 7 Republican primary will be the odds-on favorite to succeed Green, though Democrats could be unusually competitive if they continue their trend of over performing in special elections held since Trump returned to the White House.
There are three other vacancies in the House, which Republicans control 219-212.
—Greg Giroux
A No-Extensions Tariff Deadline
An Aug. 1 tariff deadline is looming, and Trump isn’t planning to offer extensions. Some countries are getting creative.
Canada is offering its pension funds as a way to boost their investments in the US. A Canadian official stopped short of saying the government would force pension funds to increase their US assets or invest in American projects in exchange for lower US tariffs.
While its proposals signal the US’s northern neighbor is still negotiating, Canadian leaders tempered expectations around whether they could reach a trade deal with the US by the deadline next week. They signaled they’re looking for a fair agreement.
Trump has threatened to hike US tariffs on Canadian imports to 35% on Aug. 1, up from 25%. Read More
Some of Trump’s final deals are also coming under scrutiny.
Take the US-Japan agreement reached this week, which has been floated as a potential template for other major trading partners.
Trump called it the largest trade deal in history after Tokyo pledged to set up a $550 billion fund for investment into the US. But the details remain unclear, raising questions about the viability of an agreement. Read More
See Also:
- Trump Hails Australia’s Move to Ease US Beef Curbs in Trade Thaw
- US, Korea Reaffirm Pledge to Reach Trade Deal Before Deadline
- VW Eyes Trump Tariff Reprieve in Return for US Spending Push
The Plight of Universities
Trump’s been attacking higher education institutions and making immigration harder for months. But the impacts on the economy and US technology are, for some, becoming clear.
The administration last month lifted a weeks-long freeze on student and exchange visitor visa interviews that it put in place while implementing new social media vetting policy requirements for applicants.
In the freeze’s wake is a visa logjam that could delay enrollment of Indian students looking to continue their education in the US, more than a dozen lawmakers say. If it’s not fixed, there will be fewer students and fewer dollars in the US, they wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Indian students form the largest group of international students in the US and contribute $9 billion to the economy, the lawmakers wrote. Many of those scholars take part in basic research and cutting-edge science at universities in the members’ districts. Read More
The president’s freezing of billions in research dollars for US universities, meanwhile, will endanger the US’s ability to compete in advanced technology spaces, Penny Pritzker, former US commerce secretary and chair of Harvard’s powerful governing body, said.
“The race with our adversaries, and it isn’t just China, requires that we win certain technological competitions,” she said. Read More
Before You Go
Trump Agenda Stuck in Legal Wrangling: Tensions are building within the judiciary as a growing number of Supreme Court decisions are being issued with little explanation on an emergency basis — often referred to as the “shadow docket.”
The Justice Department has been arguing that the emergency track wins should translate into victories in other lawsuits against Trump’s agenda. Federal judges are pushing back, saying the high court isn’t giving them enough to work with. Read More
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is also weighing in. She called on her colleagues to exercise caution when issuing emergency orders in legal challenges without explaining their reasoning during a judicial conference on Thursday, a day after she sharply criticized the use of the shadow docket in a dissent. Read More
Naturalized Americans Beware: The extraordinary step of stripping naturalized Americans of their citizenship used to be reserved for individuals who turned out to be war criminals, genocide perpetrators, threats to national security, violent felons or, during the Cold War, communists. Now something as mundane as under-reporting income on a tax return could mean you are no longer a US citizen, Umar Farooq and Ellen M. Gilmer report. Read More
Details on Trump’s Federal Workforce Cuts: The Trump administration turned over information on its reduce-in-force plans to a federal court, offering a look into its plans to reduce the size of the government, Ian Kullgren reports. The document denotes 40 layoff plans at 17 agencies from the Treasury Department to the National Endowment for the Humanities. The plans have renewed relevance in the wake of a US Supreme Court decision allowing layoffs to proceed amid a legal challenge. Read More
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Greg Giroux in Washington also contributed to this story.
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