Less From The Experts
Washington sat up and took notice when HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sacked everyone on an influential vaccine advisory panel. Turns out that was barely the tip of the iceberg.
Digging into the available data, Robert Iafolla, Andrew Wallender, and Austin Ramsey report that about 160 of the government’s expert advisory committees have been killed — and in about a third of the cases, that wasn’t what was recommended by the agencies that relied on those boards as a link between regulators and the regulated.
That count goes up if you add in boards that are required by law. Numerous expert panels still officially alive have either stopped meeting or no longer have any members.
See the full list, which includes about 15% of advisory boards, and read about how it all syncs up with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
Not ‘Far Enough’
In an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes, President Donald Trump said immigration raids “haven’t gone far enough” despite videos showing physical confrontations among federal agents, immigrants and protesters.
“I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama,” he said when asked if he approved of tactics shown in videos such as throwing people to the ground, smashing car windows and using tear gas in residential neighborhoods.
Trump also repeated his claim that many of those detained had criminal records, María Paula Mijares Torres reports.
Trump also said that he could use the Insurrection Act to use professional military, instead of the National Guard, to US cities “if I wanted to.” Read More
More from the interview:
How Well Do You Know Washington — Warthog Edition
The Pentagon has been in a tug-of-war with lawmakers for more than a decade over retiring the A-10, a flying tank-buster first put into service in 1976. Nicknamed the “Warthog,” it has so much support on Capitol Hill that phasing out the fleet has gone much more slowly than the Air Force would have preferred.
The Fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act required the Air Force to maintain at least 96 of the planes. Where does Congress want to set the minimum for FY 2026?
A) 75
B) 96
C) 103
D) 162
Scroll down for the answer.
If He Can Make It THere
Zohran Mamdani’s lead heading into the New York mayoral election tomorrow has withstood a furious push from Republicans, establishment Democrats, and a coalition of Wall Street dealmakers.
Polls have consistently shown Mamdani with a solid lead over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a three-way matchup, which includes Republican Curtis Sliwa.
That raises the question of whether the 34-year-old state assemblyman’s focus on economic concerns combined with an online charm offensive and occasional searing barb at his critics is a model for future Democratic candidates and races, Ted Mann reports. Read More
Also Read:
- Democrats Seek Winning Message for Midterms in Key 2025 Clashes
- Governors, Redistricting Elections Tuesday Offer Clues for 2026
- BGOV OnPoint: Off-Year Election Day Puts Trump Approval to Test
Eye on Tariffs
The White House has provided more details about the state of the trade war with China following last week’s presidential trip to Asia.
Under the deal, China will issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of U.S. end users and their suppliers around the world,” the White House said. That means the effective removal of controls China imposed in April 2025 and October 2022.
The framework also states that China will terminate its antitrust, anti-monopoly and anti-dumping investigations into US chip companies, including those into Nvidia and Qualcomm, Hadriana Lowenkron reports.
Washington will also pause some of Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs on China for an additional year and is halting plans to implement a 100% tariff on Chinese exports to the US that was threatened for November. Read More
See Also:
- Trump Plays Nice With Asian Allies Stung by Repeated Threats
- White House Says US to Pause Port Fees on China Ships Next Week
Not Going
After publicly flirting with the idea of attending this week’s Supreme Court hearing over the legality of his worldwide tariffs regime, Trump said Sunday he would not go. “I don’t want to call a lot of attention to me,” Trump told reporters. Read More
Meanwhile, in Ireland
With Trump’s 15% EU tariff coming into force, and recent changes to US tax law, some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies are reassessing their operations in Ireland, Saim Saeed reports.
The tariffs also are pushing the Irish government to consider ways to entice the companies to stay where they are. Read More
Shutdown Month Two
It’s the 34th day of the government shutdown, and they’re closing in on a record. In the past the US has had been both full and partial appropriations lapses. As Maeve Sheehey reported, this one will set the record for the longest shutdown of any kind if it lasts into Wednesday.
Speaker Mike Johnson is still keeping the House out of town, with this week — like last week and the four weeks before that — designated a district work period.
In this morning’s BGOV Budget, Ken Tran notes that though federal courts have ordered the administration to tap contingency funds to pay for food stamps, there are other pain points lawmakers will be paying attention to, including air traffic ground delays and Obamacare cost increases.
Our team was tracking signs of bipartisan movement among more moderate senators. Then President Donald Trump slightly changed the subject by re-uppping his longstanding beef with Senate rules. “It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” Trump said post on social media.
As Lillianna Byington reported, senators are resisting taking Trump up on that suggestion.
See Also:
- Billionaires Step In to Help Plug Food Aid Gaps During Shutdown
- Labor Department Brings Back 250 More Employees in Shutdown
- Shutdown Pain Spreads at One Month, Touching Tens of Millions
- Insight: Shutdown-Affected Workers Have Options to Protect Their Finances
Shutdown’s Vendor Impact
A big part of the federal government is operated with the expertise and staffing of private companies. Taking stock of the impact of a whole month’s shutdown, BGOV contracting analyst Paul Murphy put dollar figures on the inactivity.
He tracked a 74% decline in nondefense contract spending compared to the same time last year.
Money’s allowed to keep flowing on certain categories of contracts — mainly those supporting national defense, border security, veterans health, public safety, and critical infrastructure. Spending the most: the Veterans Affairs ($2.7 billion) and Energy departments. Read More
Did You Ace the Quiz?
Give yourself a star if you follow the NDAA so closely that you recognized Option C — 103 and Option D — 162 are both correct.
The 103-plane minimum for the A-10 is in the Senate version (S. 2296) while the House put its pre-conference chit down on 162 planes (H.R. 3838). Roxana Tiron reports that committee leaders are trying to produce a compromise measure by Thanksgiving.
The Warthog’s glory days were during the Gulf War, when it was credited with destroying hundreds of Iraqi tanks and military trucks.
Before You Go
FBI Ouster: Ben Penn reports that FBI Director Kash Patel was angered this week by social media posts and news stories calling attention to his use of an FBI jet that arrived in State College, Pennsylvania, where his girlfriend, country music artist Alexis Wilkins, sang the national anthem at a wrestling match. Now a 27-year bureau official overseeing aviation has been forced out. Read More
Separation of Powers: A federal judge has partially paused the enforcement of Trump’s anti-DEI and “gender ideology” executive orders, Chris Marr and Maia Spoto report. Judge Barbara J. Rothstein said Seattle is likely to prevail in its contention that the conditions placed on federal grants are contrary to the separation of powers, exceed the administration’s statutory authority, and must be set aside under the Administrative Procedures Act. Read More
Military Muscle: The deployment of warships, aircraft and troops to the southern Caribbean represents the biggest US naval mobilization in Latin America since the invasion of Panama in 1989. This QuickTake answers some of the key questions about the flex of power off Venezuela and Colombia.
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