February 11, 2025

Let’s dive in.

1. Interview: Montana’s Tim Sheehy Tells it Like it is: GOP is Going to “Get Shit Done”

2. Interview: Rep. Mike Simpson on reconciliation, a government shutdown, and Doug Burgum

3. Heard on the Hill

4. K-STREET, 10,000 FEET: Big Tech Booker: How a New Jersey Senator Got his Start-up Funded by Google

5. Rep. Andy Barr bashes the Biden administration’s FTC for “engaging with a CCP-backed company” against Amazon

6. Op-Eds: Rep. Ron Estes on why President Donald Trump is right to rein in reckless spending and Major General John King on how President Trump is making America safe and secure again

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In this edition, GOP Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy tells it like it is; Democrat New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s cozy relationship with Big Tech; Republican Rep. Ron Estes of Kansas elaborates on President Trump’s reining in of reckless spending in his latest op-ed; and more.

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Interview: Montana’s Tim Sheehy Tells it Like it is: GOP is Going to “Get Shit Done”

by the Washington Reporter

The Lowdown:

• Sen. Tim Sheehy says the “entire” GOP is aligned and looking to “get shit done” on budget reconciliation and on securing the border.

• Sheehy blasted the Democrats as being in “full flail” after being “routed” in November, even after they played the “personal character assassination” and “actual assassination” playbooks.

• The Montana Republican said that “Americans who have voted Democrat their whole lives” are moving to the GOP over the recent revelations of USAID funding.

• Sheehy noted that “instead of coalescing around a message of policy that will resonate with Americans,” the Democrats are “doing this frantic, flailing resistance defending billions of dollars going to,” in some cases, literal terrorists.

Deep in the grasslands of Montana, a valiant battle was fought for the soul of our nation. Emerging victorious over a long-time Democrat senator was Sen. Tim Sheehy (R., Mont.) in his “first time ever in government.”

Sheehy, a Navy lieutenant and Purple Heart veteran, enters the Senate as a tour de force, telling the Washington Reporter in an interview that “we’ve got to bring common sense back to our government” as well as return “lethality and combat readiness to our military.” He also said kitchen table issues like wildfire management are on the docket for him.

“We really let down the American people for far too long. We’ve wasted their money, we’ve misaligned priorities, we sent too many young Americans to die in places we never intended to win,” Sheehy said. “As we’re seeing in the past couple weeks, we’ve had a bureaucracy that’s completely run amok, and that’s a bipartisan issue.”

Sheehy also blasted the Democrats’ “feigned outrage,” noting they have “spent plenty of time in the past two decades also saying that our government has been acting unconstitutionally.”

“We’ve got to bring the common sense back to this government. I think that’s the most important thing,” Sheehy said. “And that means putting America first. That means we should be making decisions and doing things that are good for our people. It’s that simple.”

When it comes to budget reconciliation and border security, Sheehy told the Reporter that everyone in the GOP “is aligned” and that the GOP wants “to get shit done.” The Montana Republican said his “entire party” wants to make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent, “get spending under control,” and “pass comprehensive border security and immigration reform.”

“It’s really a question, not of mission, but of procedure and how it’s going to get done,” Sheehy said. “And all I can tell you is pretty much every day it sounds like there’s a different plan in place, so we’ll just have to see. And I’m sure by lunchtime tomorrow, we’ll hear a new plan that outlines the new approach to it.”

“But it seems to be coalescing between one and two bills,” he added.

Sheehy said that he is a “free enterprise guy and that, while he disagrees with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in the private workforce, that decision is up to a company.” But he does not believe that the American people should be paying for government DEI policies.

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Interview: Rep. Mike Simpson on reconciliation, a government shutdown, and Doug Burgum

by Matthew Foldi

The Lowdown:

• Rep. Mike Simpson is agnostic on a “big, beautiful” budget bill “as long as it gets the job done.”

• Simpson will meet with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to discuss their priorities — while they’ve never met, he’s a big fan.

• Despite much of the incoming partisan politics around American energy, Simpson is optimistic that at least one of his priorities — the problem with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women — can be “bipartisan and bicameral and an administrative and legislative priority.”

Rep. Mike Simpson (R., Idaho) has seen budget fights come and go; in this year’s debate over one “big, beautiful bill” versus two, he is agnostic — “as long as it gets the job done.”

Amidst reports that the Senate may send its package to the House this week, Simpson told the Washington Reporter in an interview that the House will “put [it] on the back burner as we continue to work on a reconciliation bill, and hopefully they'll be ready to go with that as soon as we get back next week.”

However, Simpson, one of the most senior Republicans on the House’s Appropriations Committee, cautioned that “nobody's really focused on trying to finish the 2025 appropriation bills. We're still waiting for numbers.” That said, Simpson doesn’t believe there will be a government shutdown at the end of next month, despite the saber-rattling of some Senate Democrats, because “I refuse to believe we're stupid enough to do that again.” One solution that he doesn’t want is a one-year continuing resolution, which he said “would be terrible.”

Another priority of Simpson’s is his work as chairman of the Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on the Interior and Environment; he is eager to craft his bill, once they “come up with a joint number between the House and Senate, because right now, the Senate’s interior bill is around $3.3 billion higher than ours. Well, it’s kind of hard to conference when they're spending $3.5 billion more than we are.”

To that end, Simpson will meet with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to discuss their priorities. While the two have never met — and Simpson conceded that a few years ago, he would have had no idea who the Governor of North Dakota is — Simpson became a Burgum fan from the moment he saw the North Dakotan’s presidential announcement speech.

“He knows the energy issues, plus he knows the public land issues, and from what I understand, he was endorsed by the tribes in North Dakota, which is impressive to me,” Simpson said. “This tells me he knows about Indian issues, because the areas of our bill that are probably the biggest challenge are Indian Health Services, Indian law enforcement, Indian education on the one hand, and the EPA on the other hand, the wildfire fighting and what we have to put into that. He knows all about them.”

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A message from our sponsor.

Both sides agree: NOW is the time to pass real PBM reform.

Rein in the middlemen pharmacy benefit managers and require them to increase transparency, share discounts with seniors, and delink PBM profits from the cost of medicines in Medicare.

Pass S. 2973 and S. 3430 today. Help America's seniors.

Heard on the Hill

• SETTING SIGHTS: House, Senate, and White House leadership are narrowing the scope of CRA targets. Expect 6-8 to be announced in the coming weeks, and the House and Senate to vote at the same time to get them quickly to Trump's desk.

• ROLLING IN THE DEI: McKinsey & Company, the consulting giant with millions of dollars in federal contracts, sent a note to its employees today doubling down on its commitment to DEI. This raised eyebrows among Hill Republicans who are asking why the federal government should continue to pay McKinsey as McKinsey embraces treating people differently based on race.

• BALLIN’ WITH A BUDGET: Jodey Arrington, the Chair of the House Budget Committee, told Republicans he plans on moving forward with the budget later this week, ideally Thursday, according to sources in the room.

• NO BANKING, NO BUSINESS: Senator Kennedy's team gave a presentation at a GOP Conference meeting on Kennedy's work fighting on debanking, making the case that this issue is a political and policy winner for Republicans. One Senate Staffer flagged to the Reporter that "opposing woke banks is exactly what our voters want, just like when Intuit had a policy banning firearms manufacturers from using Quickbooks."

• SENATORIAL ASPIRATIONS: The Washington Reporter has learned that former Sen. Scott Brown (R., N.H.) has met with New Hampshire Republicans to discuss a Senate run in 2026.

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K-STREET, 10,000 FEET

Big Tech Booker: How a New Jersey Senator Got his Start-up Funded by Google

by Matthew Foldi

The Lowdown:

• New Jersey Democrat Senator Cory Booker has a history of close relationships with Silicon Valley going back to at least his time as Newark mayor, including with former Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt.

• Schmidt was a wealthy investor who threw money at Booker’s startup Waywire, which failed to take off.

• Since joining the Senate, Booker has sided with the tech industry on key votes, including his last-minute move to block a bipartisan anti-revenge porn bill introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.).

• New Jersey has shifted remarkably to the right, meaning Booker may be in for a fight in his next re-election — even with Big Tech cash in his pocket.

Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) doesn’t represent Silicon Valley in Congress, but his history with the industry dates back at least to his time as Mayor of Newark, when he relied on his connections to Facebook, Google, and Twitter to fund a since-defunct video sharing website called Waywire.

Booker, who has fiercely criticized Elon Musk, one of the internet’s most successful entrepreneurs, failed in his attempt to make it big with a well-funded start up — but he made connections that can last a lifetime.

As Waywire was starting, Booker “personally obtained money…from influential investors, including Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman,” the New York Times reported at the time. “A year after its debut, Waywire has already endured a round of layoffs and had just 2,207 visitors in [a single month].” While Waywire failed to take off, Booker recorded major financial benefits from it.

In 2013, Booker “revealed that his stake in the company was worth $1 million to $5 million. Taken together, his other assets were worth no more than $730,000.” The Times noted then that the disclosures show how wealthy tech moguls “not only made a financial bet on the mayor’s political future but also provided the brainpower and financing to help create a company that could make him very rich.”

Now ensconced in the Senate, Booker has sided with the tech industry on key votes, including his last-minute move to block a bipartisan anti-revenge porn bill introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.).

“It cleared 99 senators,” Cruz noted of Booker’s last-second objection to his bill, which was heading for unanimous passage. “He had a week and a half to object. Yesterday, this legislation was about to pass, and an hour before it was going to pass, the senator from New Jersey raised his objection.”

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Rep. Andy Barr bashes the Biden administration’s FTC for “engaging with a CCP-backed company” against Amazon

by Matthew Foldi

Rep. Andy Barr (R., Ky.), one of the leading China hawks in Congress, is concerned by reports that President Joe Biden’s chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was “engaging with a CCP-backed company” against Amazon.

Following reports that Lina Khan, the now-former FTC chair, had “spoken with representatives from China-founded e-commerce site Temu about Amazon’s pricing policies,” Barr, who sits on the Financial Services Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee, and Committee on the CCP, told the Washington Reporter that Khan’s actions are “deeply concerning but unsurprising.”

“The Democrat-led FTC prioritized Chinese firms over American companies and negatively impacted economic growth by violating the bedrock of our economy: free market principles,” Barr said. “The good news is that under President Trump things will change. President Trump has been our toughest leader on China and will re-privatize our economy to prioritize American economic growth.”

Op-Ed: Rep. Ron Estes: Why President Donald Trump is right to rein in reckless spending

by Rep. Ron Estes

When President Donald Trump, my colleagues, and myself have said that we need to rein in reckless spending, we meant it. For years, politicians and D.C. elites have pretended to care about runaway spending, but frankly, nothing has changed.

I introduced legislation to cut spending, cosponsored legislation to balance the budget, supported common sense budgets that would balance in 10 years, and helped start a bipartisan group of lawmakers to tackle our debt crisis. However, there simply haven’t been enough of my colleagues to join me in these efforts.

With President Trump now in office, he’s making good on his promises to curb D.C.’s reckless spending. If we want to make sure that we can afford the programs and services that are important to our country, we must remove the waste, fraud, and abuse that is prevalent in agencies throughout our government. While that’s exactly why many Americans voted for him, the media has pushed hysterical narratives that are misleading at best and downright false at worst.

But here are the inconvenient facts. Our nation is $36.2 trillion in debt, and we are borrowing around $70,000 per second (although that number was around $100,000 per second a year ago). That’s nearly $6,000,000,000 borrowed each day.

It’s hard to even fathom that we are borrowing $6 billion per day. Carefully reviewing our spending is reasonable and what taxpayers should expect.

Let’s put all of this in perspective by moving the decimal on these massive numbers. Imagine a Kansas family made $49,000 last year but spent $68,000, and today has a credit card balance of $362,000 after years of spending more than they make. Despite the massive debt, the family is still spending $149 a day, borrowing $57 each day to cover those expenses. While this example seems absurd, that’s what our federal government is doing, except the numbers are 100 million times larger. It would be prudent for the family to temporarily pause all unnecessary spending and assess everything, making sure resources are going to the most important priorities.

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Op-Ed: Major General John King: President Trump is making America safe and secure again

by Major General John King

President Donald J. Trump ran for the White House on the promise of securing our border, crushing the cartels, and getting criminal illegal aliens out of our country. Now that he’s back in office, that is exactly what he’s doing.

More troops and resources to the southern border? Check. Designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations? Check. Reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy? Check. Canceling the CBP One app created by the Biden administration? Check. If you look past the media spin and celebrities crying for clicks on social media, you’ll see the real result of President Trump’s actions: a safer America.

Attempted border crossings cratered to dramatic lows in President Trump’s first week. As one person at the Department of Homeland Security said, “welcome to the Trump effect.” I’m not surprised in the slightest, because I know from personal experience.

I’m a retired two-star Major General in the Army National Guard. In the early days of President Trump’s first term, I was deployed to the southern border and helped implement the president’s initial border security policy. We made real progress in securing the border and stopping illegal border crossings.

That progress continued over President Trump’s first four years in office, but as we all know, the Biden-Harris administration undid all of it. Their only guiding principle was to do the opposite of everything President Trump did. The result was handing control of the border to the Narco Cartels and allowing unfettered illegal immigration — which included violent criminals and gang members.

Those consequences stretch far beyond our southern border.

Just as President Trump’s actions have led to a sharp downturn in border crossings, his actions empowering law enforcement are leading to fewer criminal illegal aliens on our streets.

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