The shutdown continues - as does the finger pointing
Trump gets mad at Canada - and slaps new tariffs on their products
Also in today’s edition of ‘Regular Order’ for October 27, 2025:
No Senate vote expected today on the shutdown.
More concerns for the ‘Power of the Purse.’
Another embarrassing moment for D.C.’s Delegate.
THIS WEEK. You know the drill. The Senate is in. The House is out. The shutdown continues on.
SHUTDOWN. Today is Day 27 of the government shutdown. Nothing has changed since it started on October 1. There is no end in sight. In the hallways of the Capitol, there is no organized bipartisan effort to reach a deal - even as the shutdown hurts all sorts of people who aren’t involved in the political machinations on Capitol Hill.
VIBE CHECK. Frankly, the whole thing feels like a giant game of Legislative Chicken. The Senate has no votes on the shutdown today. President Trump has stayed out of the fray - and right now, he’s on the other side of the world on a trip to Asia. Meanwhile, the House has been out for more than a month.
MESSAGING. House Speaker Mike Johnson will hold another 10 am news conference this morning at the Capitol, which has become his morning messaging platform. The Speaker will be joined again by other GOP lawmakers and another Cabinet Secretary, Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler.
BACK AND FORTH. It’s part of what’s developed into a Bipartisan Battle of News Conferences during this shutdown. No one seems to be negotiating, but both sides are more than happy to talk smack about the other party to the cameras. This was House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaking to reporters last Friday.
OUTLOOK. So what’s next? We all know what has to happen. Either there will be a deal - or one party will have to cave. This isn’t complicated. But it is very hard to imagine a scenario where something major happens on the basic issue of the expiring health insurance subsidies under the Obama health law. You don’t just churn out a big bill overnight to deal with that matter.
POLICY. And that’s where we circle back to how the GOP is at a disadvantage in this whole debate. They don’t like the system set up by Obamacare - but they don’t really have an alternate plan. They have a lot of ideas - but not one bill.
REPEAL. There are still GOP voices calling for the outright repeal of the Obama health law system - which would take us back to a setup where people paid less money, but also had insurance policies with big coverage holes. Would that be better than what we have now? Every American might have a different answer.
TARIFFS. Maybe the most bizarre thing to happen this weekend was that President Trump got mad at Canada for using the words of Ronald Reagan in a television ad about tariffs that was designed to air during the World Series. And so, Trump slapped another 10 percent tariff on goods from Canada. I’m not making this up.
BLAME CANADA. With the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series, Ontario officials decided they would use the chance to send a message to Americans with an advertisement about tariffs during the game. What those pesky Canadians did was use parts of an actual 1987 speech (!) by President Reagan.
REAGAN. “When someone says, ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs,” Reagan said back then. “And sometimes, for a short while, it works — but only for a short time.” You can read Reagan’s full words at this link.
TRUTH SOCIAL. Trump was not pleased. “Canada was caught, red handed, putting up a fraudulent advertisement,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website. “The sole purpose of this FRAUD was Canada’s hope that the United States Supreme Court will come to their “rescue” on Tariffs.”
PEANUT GALLERY. Democrats quickly ridiculed the President. “Trump slapped a 10% tariff on Canada because a commercial hurt his feelings,” said Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA). “And just a reminder: it’s us, the consumer, who pays for his little tantrum.”
CRICKETS. Once again, most Republicans in Congress said nothing about Trump’s latest action on tariffs. “Reagan warned of the dangers of tariffs,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), one of the few GOP members who has publicly complained about Trump’s tariffs.
TARIFF CASE. What I found most amazing about this latest tariff episode was that Trump took this action just before the upcoming Supreme Court arguments on the legality of many of his new tariffs. He reminded everyone that the system was not designed to have a President get mad on Thursday and levy new tariffs on Friday!
CURRENT LAW. President Trump certainly has been given the power by Congress to levy tariffs. But not in a unilateral fashion. Those laws often require the feds to conduct a trade investigation before authorizing an increase in tariffs. That definitely didn’t happen in the latest tariffs on Canadian imports.
STATEMENT. “Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now,” Trump wrote.
ARGUMENTS. The entire Trump statement was fascinating, because the Supreme Court arguments are next week on November 5. The crux of that case is that Trump has overstepped his authority to levy new tariffs. This new 10 percent tariff on Canada could be mentioned as additional evidence.
SUPREME COURT. Lower courts have ruled against Trump over his tariffs which seemingly were not authorized by the Congress - but what will the U.S. Supreme Court do?
HOUSE. Once again, the House of Representatives will have no legislative business this week. This is the sixth straight week that the House is off - meaning that lawmakers have worked 20 days in the past 17 weeks. Here is what the legislative calendar looks like for the past four months:
HISTORY. I have searched through the history of Congress in recent days, and I can’t find anything like this. Never has a majority party kept the House from doing business over an extended period of time.
BACKGROUND. Here are some quick data points about this extended break:
LAST HOUSE VOTE. September 19.
LAST HOUSE HEARING. September 18.
LAST VOTE ON YEARLY FUNDING BILL. September 4.
PRECEDENTS. One thing that I didn’t mention about this unplanned 6-week break is how Speaker Mike Johnson still hasn’t sworn in a newly-elected member of Congress, Democrat Adelita Grijalva of Arizona. That’s a very bad precedent. But there is something going on that’s even worse - what’s happening during this shutdown to the Congressional ‘Power of the Purse.’
NERD NOTE. When I saw this story on Friday, I could not believe my eyes. It just screams illegal and unconstitutional in so many ways. But what it also shows is how meek the Congress of the United States has become - because there was almost no reaction from Capitol Hill.
MILITARY PAY. In a shutdown, theoretically no money should be spent at all by the feds. But President Trump has been able to move some resources around in the Pentagon - though someone donated money to pay the soldiers and sailors.
MILITARY. The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that an anonymous donor gave $130 million to help with military salaries and benefits. “We are grateful for this donor’s assistance after Democrats opted to withhold pay from troops,” said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell.
NOT YOUR FATHER’S CONGRESS. I’m sorry, but this is crazy. That’s not how the government is funded. But it’s not just this episode at the Pentagon. There has already been talk by Vice President Vance of diverting money from tariffs to pay certain bills or certain salaries.
LET ME BE CLEAR. None of that is proper. The Executive can only spend money that’s been approved by Congress. The system was not designed for a Unilateral Presidency - where the Executive grabs even more power from the Legislative Branch.
DECLINE. The Congress of my youth would have exploded about this. But we are in a different time. Only a few Democrats have criticized the military pay situation, and most lawmakers said absolutely nothing about this ‘donation’ or the latest possible infringements on the Power of the Purse. I walk around the Capitol and wonder.
D’ESPOSITO. Some of you might remember ex-Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), who lost his 2024 reelection bid after stories surfaced of how he put the daughter of his fiancée - along with his mistress - on his office payroll in Congress. (Read that first sentence at least twice, slowly.)
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION. After Donald Trump won a second term, D’Esposito made clear he was looking for work - and he was nominated to be the Inspector General at the Department of Labor. He had his hearing last week.
CAMPAIGN. D’Esposito was asked if his campaign committee was still active - in case he was going to run again in 2026. D’Esposito said he wasn’t accepting any contributions, downplaying the idea of that.
DETAILS. But Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) found that D’Esposito had accepted contributions as recently as September 30 - as in last month. Blumenthal is now asking for more information from D’Esposito about why he gave that obviously incorrect answer to Senators.
IRONY. I still sort of chuckle at the idea of Trump making a former Congressman the head oversight investigator of the Labor Department - after he made several employment decisions which seemed to run afoul of House ethics rules. (Narrator: Maybe I’m just old fashioned, eh?)
D.C. DELEGATE. A sad story emerged on Friday about the delegate to Congress from Washington, D.C. A police report described Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) as being in the ‘early stages of dementia’ after she was scammed out of $4,000 last week by a group of people posing as HVAC workers.
FUTURE. It was just the latest embarrassing moment for Norton, who was literally absent for much of the furor this summer over President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in the Federal City. The 88-year-old Norton has served in Congress since 1991.
ELECTION. By now, Norton should have announced that she won’t run for another term in 2026. But she hasn’t. And the whole thing gives off the weird vibe that her staff is working to protect the boss along the way. She deserves a better end to her career on Capitol Hill than this.
BEHIND THE SCENES. I told you earlier this month about how protesters often pursue lawmakers as they head for the tunnels to the Capitol - but TV cameras and crews do not. Instead, TV reporters have one spot in the basement for stakeouts . This is in the Russell Senate Office Building. You can see reporters talking to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).
SHOW ME STATE. Hawley’s message about the shutdown was very much like how I feel about these situations. “I just don’t get it,” the Missouri Senator said. “I don’t get the shutdown at all.”
MUSE OF HISTORY. October 27, 1999. On this date, President Clinton announced that the feds had run a $123 billion surplus in FY 1999 - the largest surplus ever - and had paid down $140 billion in public debt over the past two years. In remarks at the White House, Clinton again warned against ‘unwise tax cuts’ being pressed by GOP lawmakers in Congress, arguing that would undermine work to balance the budget.
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM:
The House has no votes scheduled before November 3.
The Senate meets at 3 pm.
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I’m fascinated to see how the SCOTUS conservatives (who said Biden exceeded his authority by forgiving student loan debt) will justify letting Trump impose tariffs because he didn’t like a TV ad.
It’s fascinating to see the wealthy only “give” or “donate” large sums of money in the form of bribes to this administration instead of just paying more in taxes. It really does tell you everything you need to know 🙄