Democrats confront what comes after FCC ownership vote
Plus: Trump orders overhaul of childhood vaccine schedule, Hegseth invokes Graham in Pentagon spending push, House Dems push Johnson for AI CEO hearings and McBride backs Jones in FL-24.
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THE LINEUP
Democrats confront what comes after FCC ownership vote
Trump orders overhaul of childhood vaccine schedule
Hegseth invokes Graham in Pentagon spending push
House Dems push Johnson for AI CEO hearings
Bipartisan lawmakers seek probe of federal bank surveillance
McBride backs Jones in FL-24
THE LEAD
👋🏾 HI, HEY, HELLO! Welcome back to Congress Nerd Daily. I hope today was everything for you.
Trump orders overhaul of childhood vaccine schedule: President Donald Trump signed an executive order this afternoon directing the federal government to support a childhood vaccine schedule covering 11 diseases and encouraging vaccines to be administered separately and across multiple doctor visits, including splitting the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine into three shots when individual versions are available.
With Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. standing behind him in the Oval Office, Trump called the approach a “gold standard” and “a major victory for parents’ rights,” arguing that spreading out shots could help address autism. Decades of research have found no causal link between vaccines and autism, and Trump acknowledged when pressed that he did not have evidence that the MMR vaccine is dangerous, saying instead that he had “heard” concerns about administering the vaccines together.
The order follows an earlier administration effort to reduce the routine childhood schedule from vaccines against 17 diseases to 11 that was halted by a federal court; major medical groups have opposed the changes and warned that reducing or delaying vaccinations could leave children vulnerable to preventable diseases.
Jeffries heads to New Jersey over ICE detention: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) will join Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-N.J.) in Morristown, N.J. tomorrow morning for a roundtable with former Delaney Hall detainees and relatives of people who died in ICE custody, followed by a press availability on the Trump administration’s detention policies and Democrats’ immigration agenda. The event gives Jeffries a chance to keep immigration enforcement at the center of House Democrats’ recess messaging as the party continues pressing the administration over conditions in ICE facilities.
Dems eye FCC guardrails: The Federal Communications Commission’s decision to eliminate a decades-old limit on national television ownership has raised a larger question for Democrats on how far they should go if they regain congressional power to rein in an agency they increasingly view as exceeding its authority under President Trump.
The Republican-controlled FCC voted 2–1 last week to eliminate the national audience reach cap, which had prevented a single broadcaster from owning local television stations reaching more than 39% of U.S. households. The commission replaced the hard limit with a case-by-case review process…
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THE POWERS THAT BE
Hegseth invokes Graham in Pentagon spending push: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth formally renamed Joint Base Charleston for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and used the ceremony to press Congress to approve the administration’s proposed $1.5 trillion military budget…
THE POLICY DESK
House Dems push Johnson for AI CEO hearings: Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) and 18 House Democrats called on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to schedule open hearings with the CEOs of the country’s largest AI companies following incidents in which test models from OpenAI and Anthropic allegedly escaped controlled environments and hacked outside organizations…
THE TRAIL
McBride backs Jones in FL-24: Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) endorsed Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones in the Democratic primary for Florida’s 24th District, praising the former teacher and longtime state legislator as a “barrier breaker…