Morning Report is The Hill’s a.m. newsletter. Subscribe here.
In today’s issue:
▪ Supreme Court fast-tracks tariffs case
▪ Poland says Russian drones entered airspace
▪ White House runs defense on Epstein
▪ New York City’s Mamdani surges
President Trump’s economic sway over tariffs, interest rates and job creation will be tested before the year ends. Conditions in the U.S. economy may turn on what happens next.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to examine the legal underpinnings of the president’s use of emergency authority to impose steep tariffs on goods from dozens of trading partners.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve will meet within days and is expected to cut its benchmark interest rates, according to analysts’ predictions, in large measure because the central bank’s focus on inflation has shifted to caution about the U.S. labor market.
And the White House is leveraging the government’s downward revision in jobs created, announced on Tuesday, to argue in favor of Trump’s view that the central bank, and particularly Fed Chair Jerome Powell, have been late in lowering borrowing costs and too reliant on what the White House describes as flawed employment data gathered by the Labor Department.
The upshot of Trump’s executive say-so to wield tariffs, his offensive to shift monetary policy and arm-twisting to get domestic and global CEOs to put plants and jobs in the U.S. are all likely to coalesce as voters head to the polls in next year’s midterm elections. More Americans disapprove than approve of Trump’s performance on the economy, according to recent polls, including a Reuters/Ipsos survey released Tuesday.
▪ The Hill: Federal Reserve board of governors member Lisa Cook can temporarily remain in her job while contesting Trump’s unprecedented efforts to fire her, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Republicans in Congress fear the economic picture could worsen over the next six months, reports The Hill’s Alexander Bolton.
“My take is that we’re in a rough spot. The jobs numbers are low,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). “If you look at industrial jobs, if you look at the farm economy right now — the farm economy is looking pretty bleak.”
“I don’t see where tariffs have helped us yet; I don’t see a lot of corn and soybeans being bought,” Bacon added.
Supreme Court justices, who begin their new term in October, agreed to hear oral arguments about Trump’s tariffs in early November, agreeing to speedily review a test of the president’s authority to impose sweeping tariffs. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in August that Trump unlawfully invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to levy steep taxes on major U.S. trading partners.
Presidents have used the 1977 law before to issue sanctions targeting other countries, but Trump was the first to use it to impose sanctions.
The president has used tariffs — a touchstone since his early days in New York City politics — of between 10 and 50 percent to make his case that other nations should pay the United States to be able to sell goods in the lucrative American marketplace.
Trump this year threatened higher levies, shifted his own tariff deadlines and vowed to cut major international trade deals over 90 days. Progress has been slower than advertised by the president, as is evident from websites that track the details and think tank experts who argue the uncertainty created by Trump’s tariffs slowed economic output.
“TO THE MANY INVESTORS COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES AND INVESTING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” the president wrote on social media on April 4 when tariffs he announced in the Rose Garden shocked allies and sent financial markets into freefall.
▪ The Hill: The president said Tuesday the U.S. and India will continue negotiating a potential trade agreement.
The president’s lawyers and attorneys for the parties challenging Trump’s tariffs each argued to the justices that the harm of uncertainty is cause for swift judgment.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has granted numerous of Trump’s emergency requests this year, but the tariffs case will be the first time in which justices will weigh the arguments and legal underpinnings of a key administration priority — one that affects hundreds of millions of people globally.
▪ The Hill: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily allowed the Trump administration to freeze billions of dollars in foreign aid as the court considers the president’s emergency appeal.
The White House does not expect the Supreme Court to rule against the president’s use of IEEPA to impose tariffs, Kevin Hassett, Trump’s National Economic Council director, said Sunday.
“I think that we’re on pretty high ground and so it’s a very unlikely scenario,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
But, he added, “there are other things that could happen, should it go that way,” including reliance on statutory trade provisions that bolster Trump’s power to set tariffs. Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 is one.
“This is the president’s signature policy. First, he solved the border, now he’s solving trade, and I think courts are very reluctant to overrule a president’s signature policy,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business on Tuesday.
Smart Take with Blake Burman
If you’re the type of person who looks to the skies to wonder if we’re alone in this universe, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) has just released something you will want to see.
On Tuesday at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, Burlison played a new video purportedly showing a UFO being struck down by a U.S.-operated Hellfire missile.
Burlison told me he received the video anonymously, in what’s called a “dead drop,” and explained his decision to play the video at the hearing despite not knowing the source.
The push for transparency around UFOs is one of the bipartisan issues with intrigue from inside the Beltway, and well beyond. This is now a mainstream topic, and the hearings likely won’t slow down anytime soon, no matter who controls this town in the years to come.
Burman hosts “The Hill” weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation.
3 Things to Know Today
1. Inflation clobbered Americans’ wage gains last year. Average households haven’t gained ground economically since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, according to census data released Tuesday.
2. New Mexico will provide universal child care beginning Nov. 1, the first state to provide such a benefit, valued at about $12,000 per family per year.
3. Grades are in, and they’re not looking great. The National Assessment of Educational Progress offered a grim outlook for eighth and 12th grade students in their first results since before the pandemic.
Leading the Day
‘DEAD ISSUE’: The White House is running defense as controversy grows around Trump’s past friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The release of the “birthday letter” to Epstein bearing Trump’s name is giving fresh impetus to a story the president wants to leave behind.
But as The Hill’s Niall Stanage writes in The Memo, it is also calling into question the president’s strategy and that of his White House aides.
Trump launched a defamation suit against The Wall Street Journal after it first reported the existence of the letter in July. Vice President Vance responded to the Journal’s initial story with a social media post beginning, “Forgive my language but this story is complete and utter bulls‑‑‑.”
But the challenge appears to be on shaky ground after the reported document was released by the disgraced financier’s estate this week. Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee quickly shared the letter on social media platform X.
Meanwhile, administration figures including White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt continue to echo Trump’s insistence that the letter is fake. At a Tuesday press briefing, Leavitt contended it was not Trump’s “authentic signature,” adding “the president did not write this letter; he did not sign this letter.”
Trump on Tuesday told NBC News the letter is a “dead issue.”
“I don’t comment on something that’s a dead issue,” Trump told the outlet in a phone interview. “I gave all comments to the staff. It’s a dead issue.”
▪ The Wall Street Journal: More pages from Epstein’s 50th birthday book. Letters released by Congress show pages signed by former President Clinton, Leon Black and Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
▪ The Hill: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday doubted the authenticity of the birthday note attributed to Trump.
HARRIS’S VIEW: Former President Biden “got tired” but was not incapacitated at 81 while leading the nation, former Vice President Kamala Harris writes in her book “107 Hours,” according to an excerpt published by The Atlantic this morning.
Harris, who has embarked on a book tour and will be pressed to elaborate along the way, writes that Biden’s decision to seek reelection “wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.”
According to the excerpt, she accuses Biden’s West Wing team and advisers of working against her: “Their thinking was zero-sum: If she’s shining, he’s dimmed. None of them grasped that if I did well, he did well.”
MAHA HEALTH REPORT: The Trump administration on Tuesday released a new strategy report for how it plans to implement its efforts to “Make America Healthy Again,” seeking to make changes to vaccines but sidestepping calls to regulate pesticides and toxic chemicals.
The strategy report builds upon a previous report outlining what the administration sees as threats to public health, talking about how it will implement a vision largely driven by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In particular, the report seeks policy action on vaccines, setting up a “vaccine framework” to be developed by the White House Domestic Policy Council and HHS. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic who recently restricted authorization for COVID-19 vaccines, has found support in the White House for his stances.
The Hill’s Joseph Choi and Rachel Frazin break down the most important parts of the wide-ranging report.
In response to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine guidance overhauls, Florida announced it will end vaccine mandates for school children. The move is raising concerns among congressional Republicans as they worry about the spread of numerous diseases that have been largely dormant and what it means for their respective states.
“Vaccinations have proven to be — the basic ones — helpful in preventing the spread of measles, polio and other things,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “My children are vaccinated, my grandchildren are vaccinated. I don’t agree with that.”
▪ The Hill: Fired CDC Director Susan Monarez will testify before lawmakers next week about her experience at the CDC, including her clash with Kennedy over vaccines.
SHUTDOWN PUNT: The White House on Tuesday sent congressional leaders a list of demands for the government funding stopgap, including asking that the government shutdown deadline be moved to Jan. 31.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the House’s top Democratic appropriator, said in a statement Trump and White House budget director Russell Vought are trying to back Congress “into a corner.”
Meanwhile, Johnson is pushing for an “old-school conference” to approve up to three regular government funding bills, with the House’s top GOP appropriator signaling they are close to a deal to do just that in conjunction with a stopgap.
Such a move, if Democrats agree, could avert a government shutdown at the end of the month — but would conflict with hard-liners in the House GOP who are advocating for a long-term continuing resolution as long as a year.
When & Where
The president will receive an intelligence briefing at 11:30 a.m. and host a dinner at 7 p.m. in the Rose Garden.
The House and Senate will meet at 10 a.m.
Zoom In
RUSSIAN DRONES: Poland said early Wednesday it shot down multiple Russian drones that entered its territory. Warsaw described the incident as an “act of aggression” carried out during a wave of Russian strikes on Ukraine.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he has activated NATO’s Article 4, under which alliance members can demand consultations with their allies. Several European leaders said they believe Moscow is intentionally escalating the war.
“We are dealing with a large-scale provocation,” Tusk said. “We are ready to repel such provocations. The situation is serious, and no one doubts that we must prepare for various scenarios.”
Trump did not comment Tuesday evening when asked by NewsNation’s Kellie Meyer about the drones while leaving a restaurant in Washington.
The Russian strikes came three days after Moscow’s largest aerial attack on Ukraine since the war began, which struck a key government building in Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pointed to a pattern of escalation as Moscow slow-walks peace talks despite increased pressure from the United States and other Western powers.
“Increasing evidence indicates that this movement, this direction of strike, was no accident,” Zelensky said, without offering details. “There have been previous incidents of individual Russian drones crossing the border and traveling a short distance into neighboring countries. But this time, we are recording a much larger scale and deliberate targeting.”
▪ CBS News: A Russian strike killed more than 20 people in east Ukraine as pensions were handed out.
▪ Al Jazeera: Charting the past year of Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine.
QATAR STRIKES: Israeli military and security services on Tuesday conducted a “precise” strike against senior Hamas leadership in the Qatari capital Doha.
The attack targeted residential headquarters housing a “number of members of Hamas’ political bureau” in Doha, according to a spokesperson for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry.
Hamas said the strike killed five members but did not kill the negotiating delegation. Qatar, alongside Egypt, has acted as one of the most important ceasefire mediators since Israel’s war in Gaza began.
Trump on Tuesday criticized Israel’s strike, with the White House saying he directed Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to warn Doha the attack was coming. The president spoke to both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the emir of Qatar after the strikes, Leavitt told reporters.
“Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday condemned Israel’s strikes as a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar.” He said Qatar has been playing a positive role in trying to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.
▪ Axios: Israel’s attack in Qatar infuriated Trump advisers, officials said.
Opinion
Netanyahu’s attack in Qatar just narrowed Israel’s options, by David Ignatius, columnist, The Washington Post.
Job revisions and the Trump economy, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.
Elsewhere
NEW YORK CITY: Trump’s decision to wade into the Big Apple’s mayoral primary highlights a complicated situation for the Queens native turned most powerful politician in the country.
Politically, allies argue it would be to Trump’s benefit to see democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani prevail in November and lead the nation’s largest city. While New York’s politics are not representative of the entire country, Trump could easily elevate Mamdani on the midterm trail and portray him as a leading voice of a Democratic Party out of step with the nation.
But Trump does not appear entirely sold on the idea of a Mamdani victory. He has in recent days called for other candidates to drop out of the race to create a one-on-one showdown between Mamdani and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who is running as an independent.
It’s a move sources said is driven by Trump’s fondness and concern for the city, despite his bitter recent history with his hometown.
“I think we have to be careful what we wish for,” one Republican strategist told The Hill’s Brett Samuels. “Is it good for the president to have a foil? Yes, of course. He is at his best when he has an opponent. But it’s still the largest city in the country, and having a mayor that is this far out of step with our worldview is troubling and a problem.”
A new New York Times/Siena University poll shows Mamdani with a commanding lead in the race for mayor, buoyed by support for his affordability platform. Mamdani has the support of 46 percent of surveyed likely voters, while 24 percent of respondents said they would support Cuomo. A separate 15 percent would back Curtis Silwa, the Republican candidate. Current Mayor Eric Adams, whose administration has been riddled with scandals and is running as an independent, holds 9 percent support.
REDISTRICTING: Efforts to redraw congressional maps in Texas and beyond are setting off a flurry of litigation as Republicans and Democrats look to add pickup opportunities in the House ahead of 2026.
Several groups have filed lawsuits against the Lone Star State’s congressional maps, which seek to net the GOP five seats in the midterms.
Pending litigation in several states, including Louisiana and North Dakota, could have major ramifications for the Voting Rights Act and who’s allowed to bring those lawsuits in the first place — decisions that could have consequences for future maps down the line.
The Hill’s Caroline Vakil breaks down five court battles over redistricting to watch.
▪ The Hill: The Missouri state House on Tuesday approved a new district map that would likely give Republicans another House seat. Trump lauded the move on Truth Social, urging the state Senate to pass it quickly.
ON OUR RADAR:
▪ The Hill: The Trump administration loosens corporate taxes after pulling out of global deal.
▪ The Hill: A judge on Tuesday dismissed charges against 15 defendants in Michigan after determining they did not act unlawfully by signing papers falsifying their status as electors in 2020.
▪ The Hill: Meta is facing Congress’s ire once again over its approach to children’s safety, after several current and former employees came forward with allegations that the tech giant attempted to bury findings about safety concerns across its platforms, including newer virtual and augmented reality products.
The Closer
And finally … 🧠 Technology can disappoint even the most creative human thinkers, at least at the outset of innovation and problem-solving.
Here are a few examples to ponder: Suggestions to refreeze melting Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are well intentioned but flawed, according to a new science report. CEOs are not seeing major revenue bonanzas following hefty corporate investments in AI. At least not yet. And the dramatic workforce pruning by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency has not netted big taxpayer savings or landmark efficiencies.
