November promises to be a major month for tariffs, with a bunch of new ones scheduled to snap into effect in the days ahead. But we’ve got one piece of news this morning in the opposite direction: After months of seemingly stalled negotiations, South Korea announced it has reached a trade deal with the White House. Details aren’t yet public, but a top South Korean official said American tariffs on the country will come down a bit, from the 25 percent rate that went into effect this summer to 15 percent. (In our brave new tariff-strangled world, a 15 percent tariff is what passes for “free trade.”) Happy Wednesday.
Here Comes the Pain
by Andrew Egger
With Republicans and Democrats both dug in behind their shutdown battle lines, one thing seems to be increasingly clear: The possibility of shutdown-related pain isn’t dislodging anyone. That pain is arriving with a vengeance, and the biggest question now is how long it will last.
Two of those major pain points will truly kick in on November 1. That’s when open enrollment starts for Obamacare plans—plans that no longer benefit from expiring pandemic-era subsidies. The sticker shock will be major, and it’s already begun: Enrollment letters are hitting mailboxes across the country, bringing unwelcome news about how much more expensive people’s coverage will be in the new year.
But that’s not the most dire financial cliff the government is running off of. Also on November 1, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will effectively be out of cash, which means the 20 million American households that rely on food stamps won’t see benefits hit their accounts again until the shutdown is resolved. The Department of Agriculture has said it will not tap emergency funds to keep SNAP benefits flowing, although many states are suing to try to force the administration’s hand.
It now seems vanishingly unlikely that the shutdown will be resolved before we drive over these cliffs, since both sides seem to be counting on the pain generated by one or the other to bring their opponents back to the negotiating table.
“November 1 rolls around pretty quickly,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) told The Bulwark yesterday. “So [Trump’s] probably gonna see on Twitter all this is starting to come out about how much people are gonna have to pay [for health insurance], and how it’s gonna affect his approval. And he’s not going to be happy about it. And then all he needs to do is to tell [Senate Majority Leader] John Thune to negotiate something and come up with a fix for this.”
That’s a fairly confident posture. But over in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson seems equally sure that the abrupt halt to SNAP benefits will evaporate Democrats’ will to continue the shutdown. “The pain register is about to hit level 10,” he said on a call with House Republicans yesterday, as reported by Politico. “We deeply regret it on our side.”
That deep regret, however, does not seem to translate into a desire for action: Johnson has flatly rejected the possibility of standalone legislation to keep SNAP funded, calling such bills “a waste of our time.”
How public opinion will bounce next isn’t clear. Republicans’ show of sorrow over the abrupt halt of food stamp funding rings pretty hollow given the way the White House is openly flouting government-funding rules to keep money flowing to the places they really care about. While USDA says its hands are tied on SNAP benefits, the Pentagon has no problem going through the budgetary couch cushions to find cash to keep military paychecks going—even taking private donations from billionaires. Meanwhile, it’s hard to see how Johnson can place the blame for SNAP expiration at Democrats’ feet when he is the one pledging to block bills that would do nothing but restore its funding.
Democrats are undoubtedly going to feel the squeeze too, however. This was always the danger—as we’ve said around here repeatedly—of them making their shutdown stand over an issue of policy rather than an issue of power; of them grinding things to a halt over Obamacare subsidies rather than, say, blocking Trump’s ability to usurp congressional spending authorities. The Democratic party’s shutdown narrative is “we’re doing all this to spare the public pain,” a position that becomes more difficult to maintain the higher the pain spikes from the shutdown itself.
What’s obvious for now is that the pain is coming. It’s a sad commentary on the sorry state of Congress that things have gotten this far—and who knows how much farther they’ll have to go before we see a breakthrough. Many of the problems we face today spring from an authoritarian wannabe president who is happy to trample all over the legislature and help himself to its powers. We’d all like to see a world where Congress starts standing up to him and defending its constitutional lawmaking prerogatives. But it’s also not clear these jokers would know what to do with their own power if they ever got it back.
A Party of Cowards
by William Kristol
Yesterday, five Republican senators joined all the chamber’s Democrats to reject the 50 percent tariffs Donald Trump imposed on Brazil three months ago. The July 30 White House statement announcing the tariffs had claimed justification for Trump’s action under the 1977 International Economic Emergency Powers Act, laughably asserting that Brazil’s policies posed “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”
But the “threat” was in fact that the democratically elected government of Brazil was holding accountable the country’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, who had plotted to overturn a presidential election he lost.
It’s not surprising that Trump was offended by an elected government seeking to uphold the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power. It’s not surprising that Trump usurped powers granted to the executive branch only for use in an emergency.
What was surprising is that five Senate Republicans voted against their dear leader.
Of course, the fact that this was a surprise shows how far we’ve fallen. Five Republicans out of 53 standing up to Trump! Almost ten percent of the GOP conference voting to uphold the rule of law! Amazing! An age of miracles!
But it’s a miracle whose effect will be limited. The Senate resolution is unlikely to become law. The New York Times reports that it “faces long odds in the House, where Republicans have taken extraordinary steps to make it more difficult to bring up such measures.” One step occurred last month, when the House quietly added a provision to a routine rule on another legislative matter preventing its members from forcing votes on lifting the tariffs until March 31, 2026.
Only three Republicans joined Democratic House members in opposing the measure, which passed 213–211.
All of this is a stark reminder that the whole Republican party wouldn’t have had to turn against Trump to check him. At any moment over the past nine months, all it would have required was a few members to meaningfully limit Trump’s authoritarian usurpations, or at least to make his path of usurpation harder. Yesterday’s exception illustrates the rule: They haven’t stepped up.
Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who is the lead sponsor of the tariff measure, asked yesterday:
Are we just going to allow the trade power which is handed to Congress, or the war power which is handed to Congress, or the appropriations power which is handed to Congress, or the nominations advice and consent power which is handed to the Senate — are we just going to allow those powers to be taken over by this president or any president?
The answer is yes, because so few Republicans have been willing to show even a modicum of courage.
The story of Trump’s authoritarian takeover is, of course, primarily a story of what Donald Trump and his executive branch apparatchiks have done. But it wouldn’t be happening without an extraordinary degree of complicity, collaboration, and cowardice of congressional Republicans.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Jack Smith Wants a Spectacle. Will Republicans Play Ball? The former special counsel says he wants any testimony he gives to be public. In a Press Pass interview with JOE PERTICONE, REP. JAMIE RASKIN outlines why it matters.
The Republican Health Care Trap, Episode 78… As the shutdown drags on, the GOP croons its old tune: replacing Obamacare, writes JONATHAN COHN in The Breakdown. Spoiler alert: don’t expect them to produce an actual plan.
Demolition Donald… JVL and Mona talk of Mar-a-White House, bad morals, and, sniff, the end of Just Between Us.
Why Commanders Don’t Sign NDAs… Existing rules and laws applying to military secrecy are sufficient—and asking officers to sign NDAs is deeply inappropriate, writes GEN. MARK HERTLING.
Trump Isn’t Easing the Shutdown Pain—He’s Inflicting It. Mike Johnson says the president is protecting Americans from the shutdown. That’s completely wrong, writes WILL SALETAN.
Toxic Femininity… MONA CHAREN on Helen Andrews’s simplistic and reductionist views of gender.
Quick Hits
KASH HONEY: This past Saturday, FBI Director Kash Patel traveled to Penn State, not to announce new findings from the agency’s sports gambling investigations, or as part of the search for Jimmy Hoffa’s remains, but as a boyfriend supporting his girlfriend’s work.
Country singer Alexis Wilkins sang at the university as part of “Real American Freestyle,” a new unscripted wrestling league founded by Hulk Hogan. Patel appeared alongside her in a picture she posted on X.
That’s a perfectly non-scandalous act—endearing, even. But what caught the eye of former FBI agent and Patel nemesis Kyle Seraphin was how Patel ended up at Penn State.
Seraphin noted that a government jet that took off from a northern Virginia airport, then landed at State College, Pennsylvania’s regional airport near the campus, right around the time Patel was headed there. The FBI didn’t respond to a request for comment. But the jet is registered with the FAA as government-owned, with its owner’s address as the FBI’s Washington headquarters. Earlier that week, the jet traveled from Washington to Philadelphia, an itinerary that matches Patel’s appearance at a press conference in that city.
As FBI director, Patel is required to fly on government jets to handle his communications and security. Directors are supposed to pay the government at a commercial-flight rate for their personal travel, meaning each personal trip costs the government vastly more than it receives as reimbursement.
Before Patel became FBI director, he was critical of how often previous directors used their government jets, once urging the FBI to “ground” Chris Wray’s plane. And Wray wasn’t travelling during a government shutdown when agencies are under strain (FBI agents, unlike other federal workers, are being paid). It should be noted that after the wrestling match ended, the jet that Seraphin flagged took off again—this time headed from the State College airport to Nashville, where Wilkins lives.
—Will Sommer
SO MUCH FOR ALL THAT: A remarkable thing occurred yesterday: Someone apparently prevailed upon the president to admit out loud that there’s something he’s not allowed by law to do. After years of nonchalantly flirting with running for president again—keeping a “TRUMP 2028” hat in the Oval Office, saying repeatedly, and as recently as this weekend, that he’d “like to” stage another campaign—Trump surprisingly backed off the claim yesterday. “I would say that, if you read it, it’s pretty clear I’m not allowed to run,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One during his Asia trip. “It’s too bad.”
Trump’s comments came hours after House Speaker Mike Johnson made his own pretty unequivocal statement on the matter. “It’s been a great run,” Johnson said of Trump’s two terms. “But I think the president knows, and he and I have talked about, the constrictions of the Constitution, as much as so many of the American people lament that.”
That damn dirty Constitution! If only the American people had imagined, when they whipped up the 22nd Amendment all those years ago, that eventually someone would come along so unbeatable in statesmanship, so unsurpassable in majesty, that patriots would cry out for his perpetual rule—but alas! The logistics, unfortunately, just aren’t going to work out.
What sparked the shift? Who knows! Maybe Trump’s pollster Tony Fabrizio ran the numbers and discovered that openly flirting with straight-up ignoring the plain text of the Constitution wasn’t quite as popular with the American public as one might have believed. Or maybe they just wanted to slap down Steve Bannon. Regardless, it seems the president will have to come up with other ways to own the libs in the future.
THE PEACE THREATENED AGAIN: The U.S.-brokered stage-one deal between Israel and Hamas, which many hoped would be the beginning of a lasting peace, is looking more fragile than ever, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing yesterday that Israel was beginning a new round of “powerful strikes in the Gaza Strip,” ostensibly in retaliation for what Israel described as Hamas attacks on IDF soldiers in the region. Here’s Axios:
The Israel Defense Forces claimed Hamas militants fired anti-tank missiles and conducted sniper fire on Tuesday against Israeli forces in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.
Hamas claimed it had no involvement in the incident and remains committed to the ceasefire, which it accused Israel of violating with its new strikes.
Most of Rafah [is] controlled by the IDF, but some Hamas militants still operate in tunnels in the area. The attack led to significant exchanges of fire between Hamas militants and the IDF. The Israeli air force also conducted air strikes in Rafah in response.
Last month’s deal was extremely preliminary, with many thorny points left to negotiate. The hope was that early goodwill exchanges—the return of the remaining living hostages and a partial drawback from Gaza by IDF forces—would make further diplomatic breakthroughs easier down the road. Instead, the two sides appear to be backsliding into open hostilities. Can you still call it a ceasefire when everybody is firing again?
YOU CAN’T SAY THAT ON TV!: It’s an interesting challenge that confronts us more and more these days: How to describe the things Trump says and does without sounding like a lunatic yourself? You write a sentence like “Donald Trump says it should be illegal to talk about how unpopular he is,” and you’re already imagining a hypothetical reader rolling his eyes. Well, we don’t know! Here was Trump on Truth Social yesterday:
After winning THREE Elections, BY A LOT, I am now getting the best Polling Numbers that I have ever received. People see how strong the Economy is, the Trillions of Dollars of Investment pouring into our Country, the Record Setting Strong Border (After years of millions of criminals pouring through it, totally unvetted and unchecked!), ending 8 wars in eight months, no men playing in women’s sports, no transgender for everyone, rapidly falling Energy prices, and much more! Despite all of this, the Radical Left Losers are taking fake ads, not showing REAL Polls, but rather saying that I’m Polling at low levels. These are the people that I’ve been beating for years, and am continuing to do so, but by even bigger margins. These ads should not be allowed to run because they are FAKE!
In reality, as poll after poll after poll shows, Trump’s numbers are locked pretty much where they’ve been since mid-May: 40-ish percent of the public approves of him, 50-ish percent don’t. A person might accurately describe such numbers as “low.” The president of the United States, however, seems to think it should be illegal to say this on the air. If you read this fact about another country’s leader, what conclusions about that country might you make?
Cheap Shots
"...pain generated by one or the other to bring their opponents back to the negotiating table."
Seriously?? BACK to the negotiating table? Really Andrew? Only one side has been refusing to negotiate Andrew, and I would hope you know which side that is. The house isn't even in session - because, you know, the Epstein Files. They sure are getting paid though.
>>> "The Democratic party’s shutdown narrative is “we’re doing all this to spare the public pain,” a position that becomes more difficult to maintain the higher the pain spikes from the shutdown itself."
I don't think this will prove true, but we'll see. The Republicans aren't being very effective at hiding the fact that they've caused this pain, and the Democrats have been pretty effective at keeping the public focused on the Republicans. My admonition to congress is not, as Andrew writes, to come together to end the shutdown. It's to the Democrats to deliver the lashing the Republicans have earned, and to lash with gusto. Dems won't have many other opportunities to actually do something in the minority.
For one: USDA has money it is legally obligated to spend to continue SNAP and WIC. That they aren't is a Republican play to hurt voters thinking this will get Dems to respond. Dems shouldn't. They should continue insisting that the Administration is illegally impounding these funds. I've been pleasantly surprised how well they're doing this so far. Doesn't hurt that the Trumpists are simultaneously giving $40B to Argentina, and Trump is talking about grifting $230M from his own justice department at this same time. "There's no money for food stamps," is rich coming from the party that decided the demolition crew razing the East Wing of the White House was essential and the destruction continued apace during the shutdown.
For two: Republicans seem to earnestly, mistakenly believe that their own voters aren't receiving SNAP and WIC. This is not true. There are plenty of SNAP recipients in Trump country who are about to blow up Congressional phone lines and email addresses. Kentucky is my go-to example of counties where more than 1 in 3 people are on SNAP and those places also voted overwhelming for Trump and Republican representation in the House and Senate. Consider McCreary County, where 42% of residents are on SNAP and voted for Trump 89-11%: (https://kypolicy.org/tracking-snap-in-kentucky/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_Kentucky). The smartest play I've seen are all the Democrats starting to promote food drives and raising support for local food banks. That is well done, both simultaneously an actual win for effective policy/administration by trying to actually solve the problem and also a win on messaging. No notes from me!
For three: I think that while the debate over what to demand for a shutdown was a reasonable one where multiple people could disagree, the Dems did what they needed to do: just pick one thing, one concrete actionable demand. And hold the line on it. There's plenty of Monday Morning Quarter Backing on if there was a better demand, but pragmatically speaking, Healthcare is like the one thing the whole Dem caucus can agree on usually and it's the one thing the Public is most willing to roll with them on. As it is, that's the play. And so far, Shumer and Jefferies are actually playing, for once, which is a pleasant surprise for cynics like me.
For four: Thune has already been poking holes in the filibuster for other things. They cared enough about overruling states' rights and going after EVs that they ignored the filibuster for that (https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/21/politics/senate-filibuster-california-electric-vehicle-emissions, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-blocks-californias-rule-banning-new-gas-powered-car-sales-by-2035, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-republicans-poke-holes-filibuster-vowing-protect-rcna231423). So, what this means is that Thune and Senate Republicans are not willing to punt the filibuster to prevent people from going hungry or losing their health insurance, but they are willing to punt the filibuster to interfere in California's ability to regulate gas powered cars and electric vehicles. And again, the Dem's have been surprisingly on their toes successfully making this case.