Epstein Is a Detour Capitol Hill Can’t Escape: Starting Line

Sept. 3, 2025, 10:53 AM UTC

Epstein, Again

Today we find out the degree to which the initial release of information on Jeffrey Epstein is calming Republican lawmakers’ demands to see everything from the investigation of his sex-trafficking operation.

Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) released more than 30,000 pages of documents last night, while his same-delegation nemesis on this topic, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), was rounding up signatures on a discharge petition to try to force a vote on releasing more files.

Massie only needs a handful of Republicans to join him — at the risk of irritating both Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and the White House.

Maeve Sheehey reports that victims of Epstein’s alleged crimes are scheduled to join Massie and other discharge petition backers at a press conference this morning. Read More in today’s Congress Tracker.

Eye on Tariffs

The next move in President Donald Trump’s tariff war may be in the form of legal briefs.

“We’re going to be going to the Supreme Court, we think tomorrow, because we need an early decision,” the president said yesterday. “We’re going to ask for an expedited ruling.”

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that Trump wrongfully invoked an emergency law for what he’s calling reciprocal tariffs on imports from dozens of trading partners. The judges let the tariffs stay in place while the case proceeds so the administration has the option to move at a more deliberative pace if it chooses. Read More

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Missouri’s Next

A special legislative session begins today in Missouri, which like Texas has a Republican governor who said yes when Trump urged the state to erase a Democratic-leaning district from its congressional map.

Under the redistricting plan, the biggest shift would hit the Kansas City-based seat now held by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D). Its electorate would be split into three different districts.

KCUR.org points out that one of the proposed new districts covers part of Kansas City and also farmland more than 250 miles away. “The communities of interest are not the same, the populations are not the same,” said Rod Chapel, president of the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP.

If it’s getting hard to keep track of which states are at what stage of redrawing their congressional districts for 2026, we have a map to help with that:

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Spending Cuts

The CDC would take a $1.7 billion hit under the fiscal 2026 bill that’s now in position for consideration by the full House Appropriations Committee. Erin Durkin and Olivia Gyapong report that the proposed reduction would be part of a 6% cut in overall health department spending. Read More

The legislation would make deeper cuts at the Labor Department — paring back spending by about 28%, in part by zeroing out money for the Bureau of International Labor Affairs and the Women’s Bureau. Rebecca Rainey reports that the measure also would change the name of Workforce Pell Grants to “Trump Grants.”

But first, the committee will consider the financial services spending bill today. Working through the legislation is a slow process. In today’s BGOV Budget, Jack Fitzpatrick reports that Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) plans to meet with the speaker as soon as today to discuss options for creative bill management, including possibly combining a few of the fiscal 2026 funding bills into the inevitable stopgap measure to avert an Oct. 1 shutdown.


Watching China


Once a decade, China holds a giant military parade. Today’s event was noteworthy in part because of the guest list. Standing beside Chinese President Xi Jinping were Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

It’s the first public appearance together for the three leaders, and it’s a demonstration that they’re coordinating openly. Trump reacted with a social media post accusing the three leaders of conspiring against the US. Read More

Still Employed

FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter says she’ll be back on the job today after a federal appeals court thwarted Trump’s effort to fire her.

She successfully argued that the Federal Trade Commission Act only lets a president remove a member of the FTC for cause, such as inefficiency or neglect of duty. “I’m eager to get back first thing tomorrow to the work I was entrusted to do on behalf of the American people,” Slaughter said in a post on X.

A White House spokesperson, on the other hand, said the administration looked forward “to being vindicated” when they appeal the case. Read More

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Before You Go

White House Visit: The 10,000 US troops in Poland may be part of the discussion when Polish President Karol Nawrocki meets with Trump today at the White House. Nawrocki may seek a commitment to keep them there. Read More

Not the Same Page: Democratic leaders in Congress have a press conference planned this morning to call for an end of the National Guard patrols in DC. If the event goes on as scheduled, expect them to be asked about the differences between their outrage and the conciliatory stance of Mayor Muriel Bowser.

Dot Connecting: Colorado’s use of mail-in voting “played a big factor” in the decision to relocate the US Space Command headquarters to Alabama, Trump said: “They went to all mail-in voting so they have automatically crooked elections.” Read More

Spyware: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on track to gain access to phone-hacking capability after the Trump administration jettisoned a Biden-era order. Read More

Understaffed Snipers: After a Secret Service sniper killed a gunman who opened fire at a 2024 Trump rally, the DHS inspector general’s office opened a probe that concluded the agency’s counter sniper unit operated at nearly three-quarters below its required staffing level for four years. Read More

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— With assistance from Maeve Sheehey, Ellen M. Gilmer, Erin Durkin, Jack Fitzpatrick, Olivia Gyapong, and Rebecca Rainey.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katherine Rizzo in Washington at krizzo@bgov.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rachel Leven at rleven@bloombergindustry.com; Herb Jackson at hjackson@bloombergindustry.com

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