Kimmel is back. Humphrey’s Executor is gone.
And more news to start your morning.
Good morning! I have a quick newsletter for you this morning, because I’m reporting to you from my childhood bedroom in St. Louis — the original Wake Up To Politics headquarters! — where I’m home for Rosh Hashanah. I hope everyone celebrating has a sweet start to the new year.
Let’s take a look at today’s top headlines…
Kimmel is back. “Jimmy Kimmel Live” will return to ABC tonight after a six-day suspension sparked by conservative criticism of Kimmel’s reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Disney, ABC’s parent company, said in a statement that they suspended production of the show “to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country” after comments by Kimmel they called “ill-timed and thus insensitive,” but said that the show would be returning after having spent several days of “thoughtful conversations with Jimmy.”
One question now is how Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Brendan Carr will respond, after threatening before the suspension to pull the broadcast licenses of ABC affiliates that carry Kimmel’s show. In the days since, Carr has faced blowback of his own, from Republican senators ranging from Ted Cruz to Mitch McConnell, which might limit his ability to take action even now that Kimmel is back on the air.
With or without action from the FCC, at least one owner of local ABC affiliates — Sinclair Broadcast Group, known to have a conservative bent — announced Monday that it will preempt Kimmel and air other programming in his time slot. “Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return,” Sinclair said.
Humphrey’s Executor is gone. Normally when the Supreme Court overturns a 90-year precedent, the justices read amicus briefs, and hold oral arguments, and release long opinions explaining why they made the decision to overturn a ruling handed down by their predecessors. Yesterday, the court effectively did away with its precedent from the 1935 case, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States — which limited the president’s ability to fire the leaders of independent agencies — without any hearing or words of explanation.
The court’s conservative majority has been chipping away at Humphrey’s Executor for years, including during the first eight months of the Trump administration, allowing the president to temporarily fire members of the National Labor Relations Board, Merit Systems Protection Board, and Consumer Product Safety Commission (similarly without much explanation).
But Monday’s ruling was still especially notable, since it allowed Trump to temporarily fire the last remaining Democrat on the Federal Trade Commission, the exact agency that Humphrey’s Executor addressed in the first place. By letting Trump dismiss an FTC member at least while litigation continues, in direct violation of an almost century-old precedent, the court gave a pretty clear signal of how that litigation will end up. The justices also said Monday that they will hear oral arguments in the case in December, after which Humphrey’s Executor is likely to be overruled for good.
Next case to watch: The court is likely to issue an emergency ruling soon in Trump v. Global Health Council, the case where Trump is attempting to unilaterally cancel almost $5 billion in foreign aid funds using a tool known as “pocket rescissions.” The justices are expected to rule on the case — the highest-profile example of Trump attempting to subvert the congressional power of the purse — before September 30, when the funds are set to expire at the end of the fiscal year.
Shutdown update. Speaking of the end of the fiscal year… Congress has exactly one week to approve a continuing resolution (CR) extending government funding and avert a shutdown.
The House voted along party lines last week to approve a Republican-backed CR that would keep the government open through November 21 at current funding levels, with an added $58 million in security funds for federal officials. Democrats, joined by Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Rand Paul (R-KY), blocked the proposal from reaching the 60-vote threshold in the Senate last week; a Democratic alternative, keeping the government open through October 31, while also permanently extending the enhanced Obamacare premium tax credit, undoing cuts to Medicaid and public broadcasting, and limiting the president’s rescissions powers, was blocked by Republicans in turn.
With that, both chambers left Washington until September 29 — one day before the shutdown deadline — as House Republicans are attempting to box Senate Democrats in to accepting their CR.
At this point, if a shutdown is averted, the escape hatch will likely have to materialize on Thursday, when President Trump is set to sit down with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), for their first meeting of his second term. There are two ways I could see the meeting going: Trump might refuse to negotiate, telling Schumer and Jeffries to either accept the House-passed CR or march the country into a shutdown. Or Trump, who has at times flirted with the role of bipartisan dealmaker (though not for many years), could be attracted to a grand bargain on Obamacare subsidies, even if it means cutting out the Republican congressional leaders. (Several times in his first term, he cut deals with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi — or came close to doing so — even when GOP leaders didn’t want him to.)
If a deal isn’t struck on Thursday, it will likely be the last chance for the two sides to climb out of a funding stalemate before it’s too late.
More headlines: Trump told pregnant women not to take Tylenol on Monday, suggesting that it could be linked to autism in children, despite a lack of evidence.
A special election in Arizona is poised to provide Democrats with enough signatures to force a vote on the Epstein files.
The bipartisan commission overseeing the nation’s 250th birthday fired its Trump-appointed executive director, a former Fox News producer.
The Secret Service announced that it “dismantled a massive network of electronic devices in the New York City area that investigators believe was used to threaten U.S. officials and was capable of cyberattacks that could knock out large sections of cellular communications” ahead of the UN General Assembly, the Washington Post reports.
Trump is set to address the UN at 9:50 a.m. Eastern Time.
55+ year ago, while pregnant with my first child, I called my OB to ask what I could take for a bad cold. He told me to drink OJ and water and rest. I don’t think this advice was based on scientific evidence.
Hmmmm, wondering if our current Supreme Court has had contact with the Heritage Foundation, as it seems the authors of the very conservative project 25must be very happy