Bessent’s back
After a contentious hearing in the House on Wednesday, the Treasury Secretary will face a grilling in the Senate on President Trump’s economic policies and regulatory priorities.
Today in Congress
👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is slated to return to Capitol Hill this morning for a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s annual report, giving lawmakers another opportunity to press him on economic policy and regulatory priorities. This session comes a day after a fiery House Financial Services Committee hearing in which Bessent faced sharp questioning from Democrats over inflation, tariffs, and market oversight, and admitted he was mistaken in earlier comments that tariffs were inflationary. At the Banking panel, expect senators to probe his views on financial stability risks identified in the FSOC report, the administration’s deregulatory agenda, and broader issues like monetary policy oversight, as congressional Republicans also wrestle with tensions over Federal Reserve politics and high-profile investigations. The hearing will follow Wednesday’s contentious exchanges and could further clarify Bessent’s position on market risks and the Trump administration’s economic agenda.
Happenings
The House is out.
The Senate is at 10 a.m. and will vote at 11:30 a.m. to confirm Brian Lea to be U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Tennessee and end debate on the nomination of Justin Olsen to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Indiana. The Senate will vote at 1:45 p.m. to confirm Olsen if his nomination is advanced during the first round of voting.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing at 10 a.m. to examine secure retirement.
The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing at 10 a.m. to examine the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s Annual Report to Congress.
The National Prayer Breakfast is at 8 a.m.
President Trump will attend the National Prayer Breakfast at 8:30 a.m. in the U.S. Capitol. He will receive his intelligence briefing at 11 a.m. in the Oval Office and make an announcement at 7 p.m. in the South Court Auditorium.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will hold a press briefing at 1 p.m.
In the Know
— The Congressional Tri-Caucus—the allied blocs of Black, Hispanic and Asian Pacific American lawmakers—delivered a forceful letter to President Trump, co-signed by 105 House Democrats, demanding the immediate firing of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and an overhaul of federal immigration enforcement. The letter condemns what its authors describe as “terrorizing” conduct by ICE and CBP, particularly amid protests and the controversial Minneapolis deployment that has drawn national attention following the killing of two U.S. citizens. Alongside calling for Noem’s removal, the Tri-Caucus laid out six specific demands.
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced he will travel to California later this month to meet directly with artificial intelligence leaders, framing the visit as an effort to wrest control of the AI debate away from Silicon Valley billionaires and put workers and democracy at the center of the conversation. In announcing the trip, Sanders warned that a small group of tech executives is making world-shaping decisions behind closed doors while working people are largely shut out, and said he plans to press AI leaders on job displacement, income security, democratic accountability, and whether advanced AI poses an existential threat to humanity.
— House and Senate Democrats rolled out the Rebuild America’s Schools Act, a $130-billion-plus proposal to overhaul the nation’s crumbling K–12 infrastructure. The bill would steer grants and bond financing to high-poverty districts, address health and safety hazards such as lead and inadequate ventilation, expand broadband access, and require states to publicly track school facility conditions—while also touting the creation of more than 2 million jobs. The measure has broad backing from education, labor, and infrastructure groups but faces long odds in a divided Congress and serves for now as a marker for Democrats’ education and jobs agenda heading into 2026.
— Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) escalated their pressure campaign against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., releasing a sweeping update to their case that he should resign or be fired as HHS secretary. The latest rundown builds on a 54-page report documenting what they describe as months of chaos, anti-vaccine policymaking, and governance failures—spanning vaccine rollbacks, data suppression, grant freezes, regulatory delays, and Medicaid and ACA disruptions—that Democrats argue have directly undermined public health, driven up costs, and weakened the nation’s preparedness for future health crises.
— Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) pressed Tesla and Waymo at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing to make autonomous vehicles both safer and genuinely accessible for people with disabilities. Duckworth called out Tesla for offering no wheelchair-accessible models or a standardized conversion platform and urged Waymo to move faster on fully independent, automated wheelchair securement, warning that self-driving tech can’t claim to be the future of transportation if it leaves disabled riders behind.
— Duckworth demanded the Trump administration immediately remove ICE Homeland Security Investigations agents from the federal probe into the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, arguing their involvement would fatally undermine the investigation’s credibility. In a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel, Duckworth said HSI agents—who were initially tasked with investigating Pretti and bystanders rather than the Border Patrol agents who shot him—lack the independence and expertise to conduct a credible use-of-force investigation.
Read All About It
“Donald Trump’s plan to be king of the world” by David Corn: “His Board of Peace is essentially a global slush fund, run by him and him alone.”
“The hidden double standards driving our housing crisis” by Marina Bolotnikova: “Apartments are safer and more affordable than single-family homes. Why do we treat them like a hazard?”
“The murder at The Washington Post” by Ashley Parker: “Today’s layoffs are the latest attempt to kill what makes the paper special.”