Welcome to this week’s newsletter!

Welcome to this week’s edition of the HYR newsletter! The Houston Cougars have danced their way to the national championship game against Florida, following an epic and improbable comeback win against Duke.

In Washington, President Trump went full McKinley. The Senate, despite Corey Booker [D-NJ] screaming into the abyss for 25 hours, delivered on their end of budget reconciliation. The House was thrown into chaos over a vote on a rules package.

In Texas, Democrats are brainstorming ways to legally target Governor Abbott over the vacant 18th Congressional district. A local Democrat judge is facing calls to resign from his own party over felony money laundering charges.

We break it down below.

In a move akin to President William McKinley’s [R-OH] 19th century protectionism agenda, President Trump announced a sweeping slew of tariffs (full list here)–the likes of which haven’t been seen in America in ~130 years.

Numerous White House officials and Congressional Republicans believe these aggressive trade measures will ultimately not be in place long-term, and that President Trump is simply using tariffs as a leverage measure to forcefully re-shape the landscape of international trade in line with US interests–particularly the White House’s agenda to re-shore and reinvigorate the American manufacturing industry. In an interview this week Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed this sentiment, urging everyone to “...sit back, take a deep breath, don’t retaliate, let’s see where this goes.”

President Trump’s political posturing, and his administration’s messaging efforts have been effective so far. At time of writing:

• Canadian leadership said they will remove tariffs if America reciprocates.

  
  

• India’s Prime Minister has indicated his government is assessing cutting $23B worth of tariffs on the US.

  
  

• Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has stated she will avoid pursuing “tit-for-tat” tariffs.

  
  

• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer publicly ruled out immediate retaliatory tariffs, and promised to “keep a cool head… in the coming days.” Additionally, British Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told Parliament that Britain is already in discussions with the Trump administration to secure a deal (it’s an art after all) to avoid or reduce UK tariffs.

It’s worth noting that numerous countries, particularly in Asia (with the glaring exception of China) aren’t even in a position to retaliate if they wanted to. So many nations depend on the US as a final destination for their goods that retaliating would be akin to shooting themselves in the foot simultaneously.

Lastly, allow me to clear up some confusion regarding the decision by the White House to issue tariffs on a few remote countries–even islands near Antarctica inhabited only by penguins.

There is a semi-common (widely common in China) and highly illegal practice in which malign foreign nations, in order to skirt tariffs, will make pit-stops in other countries and territories while shipping goods across the globe. While in port or in warehouse storage, the goods in question will have the labeling indicating the country of origin swapped for another. Magically, products made in China are suddenly “made in the Philippines,” and their effective tariff rate drops from 67% to 34%. Instituting tariffs in remote countries ensures that even if a nation successfully attempts an illegal bait and switch, they’re still getting tariffed–further, it disincentivizes the practice in the first place; it’s expensive getting to these remote spots in the first place.

Updates:

• President Trump has stated “every country” has called to negotiate tariff policy. Kevin Hassett, Director of the National Economic Council, has confirmed that ~50 nations have reached out to negotiate tariffs and trade relationships.

  
  

• Footage has resurfaced of Bernie Sanders [Champagne Socialist Party-VT] in 2008 and Nancy Pelosi [Insider Trading Party-CA-11] in 1996 making impassioned speeches from the floor of their respective chambers arguing in defense of tariffs as a tool to lower trade deficits. Wonder what changed their mind?

  
  

• The stock market reacted poorly to the tariff rollout–which is to be expected given President Trump campaigned on short term pain for long term gain with his vision for tariffs. A thought: the same kind of leftists saying “free Luigi Mangione,” are suddenly panicking about Wall Street, while simultaneously believing that President Trump is beholden to big business and corporate America. Olympic caliber mental gymnastics.

  
  

• China has decided to escalate, and issue an additional 34% tariff on goods from the US. The move may prove to be an opening salvo in a prolonged trade war with the CCP.  

  
  

• Vietnam’s government has offered to remove all tariffs on American imports.

  
  

• Zimbabwe is scrapping all tariffs on American imports.

  
  

HHS Purged  

RFK is making good on his pledge to whip Health and Human Services into shape. HHS announced its intent to cut 10,000 federal bureaucrats–predominantly from the FDA, CDC, and NIH. Notably, Anthony Fauci’s wife was amongst the laid off NIH staffers.

The job cuts, in combination with another ~10,000 voluntary resignations from the agency since the start of the Trump administration, constitute a ~25% reduction in workforce at HHS, a bloated agency which commands a ~$48B budget. So far, RFK is following through with his directive to literally and figuratively trim some fat.

Sen. Jim Banks [R-IN] went viral this week for an interaction with one of the recently fired HHS employees in question.

Budget Reconciliation on the Horizon?

The Senate passed a long-awaited budgetary resolution by a 51-48 vote margin. The budget package, as written, would slash taxes and overhaul the existing tax code. The resolution would also stimulate federal efforts to secure our borders, quickly proliferate energy production and infrastructure projects, and strengthen national security and military endeavors. Senate passage of this budget bill represents a significant pillar of the White House’s legislative agenda–but there’s still work to be done.

President Trump met with Congressional leadership on Wednesday to mediate the framework of a compromise resolution between the House and Senate. The House still has formally take up and pass their own rendition of the bill before the budget is enshrined into law–and that’s not an easy ask given House Speaker Mike Johnson [R-LA-4] is working with a slim 3 vote party margin, and several hardline fiscal conservatives in his caucus (more on that later).

In The House

Business as usual was upended by a rules vote, and the House went into recess during a pivotal week of session.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna [R-FL-13] filed a motion to allow new and expectant mothers in Congress to designate a member of their staff as proxy-representative for House votes while on paternity leave. Her procedural proposal failed to pass on a 222-206 vote margin; 9 Republicans (including staunchly conservative HYR fan favorite Tim Burchett [R-TN-2]) crossed party lines to support her measure. Upon defeat of her proposal, Luna announced her departure from the House Freedom Caucus.

Proxy voting has long been a contentious issue of debate within Congress, and this was no exception. Republican opposition to proxy voting can largely be attributed to two things: the fact it often goes off the rails (missed or incorrect votes on behalf of the member), and the recent track record of the practice being abused and manipulated during the pandemic under then Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The issue is so controversial, that Speaker Johnson tabled votes on other legislation, and suspended House session for the week to get the GOP Conference on the same wavelength.

Johnson and Luna have reportedly been in discussions as to a path forward, and are seemingly nearing an actionable consensus. President Trump tacitly and publicly indicated support for Luna’s proposal, but trusts Speaker Johnson to settle the matter in-house (pun intended)--telling Johnson “Mike, you have my proxy on proxy voting.”  

Johnson needs to get his house in order (pun intended again) quickly if he intends to take up the Senate-passed budget bill, and achieve the collective goal of Congressional Republicans and the White House of setting a new federal budget before Easter. Godspeed.

In Other News

• Special elections were held in Wisconsin and Florida on Tuesday. The GOP went 3 for 4. In Florida Randy Fine [R-FL-6] and Jimmy Patronis [R-FL-1] won and retained Republican control over seats formerly held by NSC Mike Waltz and Matt Gaetz. They’ve been sworn in, and will be sorely needed to pad voting margins in the House.

  
  

• In Wisconsin, there’s good news and bad news. An amendment to the state constitution was approved requiring voter ID; voter ID was required by current state statute, but could be revoked by a simple act of the state legislature if it veered blue down the road. A state constitutional amendment is not so easily repealed. Unfortunately, in the most expensive (~$100M) judicial race in American history, Democrats won a pivotal swing seat on the state Supreme Court. No other way to slice it–this was a painful loss. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has significant authority over the way Congressional districts are mapped out, and in a purple state, that’s not great for GOP prospects in the House.

  
  

• The Democrats are in a full scale panic over President Trump’s executive order requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. The 4 national political/campaign pillars of the party (DNC, DGA, DCCC, DSCC), in addition to Sen. Schumer [D-NY] and Minority Leader Jeffries [D-NY-8] have filed a lawsuit to stop the EO. Strange–why would the very people who assured me non-citizens don’t vote in federal elections take legal action to protect the “right” of non-citizens to vote in federal elections?    

  
  

• Judicial oriented lawfare is not a phenomenon limited to America. In France, a judge has decided to unilaterally ban Marine Le Pen, a leader of a growing grassroots conservative movement opposed to the EU political agenda, from running for President.  

  
  

• NYC Eric Adams [I?] is withdrawing from the Democratic primary race, and plans to run for reelection as an Independent.

  
  

• CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Elon Musk and ranking DOGE officials this week. If the meeting is indicative of DOGE efforts to audit and investigate the CIA, Elon better have a good security detail.

  
  

• Speaker Johnson is endorsing Rep. Byron Donalds [R-FL-19] in his bid for Governor. He’ll likely face off against Casey DeSantis, wife of Gov. Ron Desantis [R-FL].

  
  

• The White House is rolling out their own seating chart for reporters in the briefing room, and the White House Correspondents’ Association (“fake news” if you will) isn’t happy about it.

Gov. Abbott and a Vacant Congressional Seat

On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries [D-NY-8] publicly indicated House Democrats are considering legal action against Governor Greg Abbott [R-TX] regarding his timeframe for calling a special election for the 18th Congressional district of Texas.

The deep-blue Congressional seat for the 18th district of Texas, in Houston, has been vacant since former Houston Mayor and US Rep. Sylvester Turner lost his battle with cancer.

State law authorizes Gov. Abbott sole authority to call a special election to fill the seat, and does not specify a deadline in the event a Congressional seat must be unexpectedly filled. Additionally, Abbott has no political incentive to call an emergency special election given the tenuous voting margin Republicans hold in the House.

Judge George’s Legal Woes

Fort Bend County Judge KP George has been charged with two counts of money laundering–a third degree felony offense. The exact value of his financial crime is unclear, as it has yet to be publicly released, but George has been accused of committing wire fraud between $30-150k.

The Chair of the Fort Bend Democratic Party is calling for George’s resignation. In an official statement, George characterized the charges against him as an “example of the Fort Bend District Attorney’s office weaponizing the government with an obvious political witch hunt.” We’ll see.

Pakistani Gambling Operation Busted

Investigative law enforcement authorities have announced charges against Nizar Ali, a 61 year old Pakistani national, and suspected ringleader of an illegal gambling operation valued at ~$22M. The gambling ring had over 40 operational locations across the Houston area.

720 law enforcement officers executed the search warrants on the ring, which had been running for more than 5 years. Ali conscripted family members into his operation, which laundered money through real estate and other high-value asset investments.

Millions of dollars were seized from illicit accounts–in addition to $4.5M in cash, 2,000 slot machines, and 100 Rolex watches.