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October 29th, 2025
HAPPENING TONIGHT @ 5:30PM — Washington Reporter’s next premiere event.
We are excited to host a fireside chat with our Editor-in-Chief Matthew Foldi at Microsoft’s D.C. office. This is the second event in our premiere event series, following our book party for Sen. Eric Schmitt (R., Mo.) hosted by PhRMA.
If you’re a public affairs professional and you want to better understand how conservative media works, this is the event to attend.
If you have already RSVP’d, we will see you there; if you have not, we have all but sold out the event, but if you reach out to one of our staffers we can try and add you.
We are very grateful for our partnership with Microsoft and their continued support for the Washington Reporter.
Let’s dive in.
INTERVIEW: Majority Leader John Thune on the Democrats’ Shutdown and the Senate GOP’s agenda for 2026
INTERVIEW: Secretary Doug Burgum on the “irrecoverable” damage the Schumer Shutdown is doing to America’s National Parks, economy, and national security
Heard on the Hill
EXCLUSIVE: GOP super PAC makes first 2026 candidate endorsements
EXCLUSIVE: Senate Democrats bring anti-Trump witnesses with ties to controversial Arnold Ventures
SCOOP: Speaker Johnson to Washington Reporter on government unions pressuring Senate Democrats
SCOOP: Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise talk shutdown and more on RSC’s latest podcast
SCOOP: House GOP leadership and RSC jointly counterprogram the Schumer Shutdown
OPINIONATED: Rep. Roger Williams on how Democrats fail a small business every five minutes, Andrew Langer on a deadly Biden policy that President Trump should reverse, and Bonnie Glick on what should come next for Gaza
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INTERVIEW: Majority Leader John Thune on the Democrats’ Shutdown and the Senate GOP’s agenda for 2026
by Matthew Foldi
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told the Washington Reporter that he doesn’t expect Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) to vote to end Schumer’s namesake shutdown.
“I would be very surprised in the end, when the government opens up, if he’s one of the votes to open it,” Thune told the Reporter in his latest interview. “I think it’s going to come from rank and file Democrats.”
As Thune presses for a few more Senate Democrats to work with him and his GOP colleagues to reopen the government, he had a message for Americans who are frustrated with the Schumer Shutdown.
“Call Chuck Schumer,” Thune said. “If you live in a red state, and if you have two Republican senators, then they’re already in the right spot. But if you’re in a blue or purple state and you’re frustrated, call your two senators and tell them, ‘vote to open the government.’ It’s that simple. Schumer and Jeffries and others keep putting forward that Republicans are being unreasonable. I don’t think so at all. This is the way that we’ve done this.”
INTERVIEW: Secretary Doug Burgum on the “irrecoverable” damage the Schumer Shutdown is doing to America’s National Parks, economy, and national security
by Matthew Foldi
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum spent decades as a successful businessman in the private sector before continuing North Dakota’s upward trajectory as its governor. Now, he is at the forefront of the Trump administration’s “AI arms race” and push for American energy independence.
As Secretary of the Interior, Burgum also oversees hundreds of National Parks — which he told the Washington Reporter in an interview are being decimated by the Schumer Shutdown.
Right now, parks across America are shuttered, and Burgum explained how his department is “scraping everywhere we can to find the dimes and the nickels which add up to millions of dollars a day and tens of millions a week to try to keep the parks operating.”
“When the government is shut down, we cannot use appropriated funds, so then we have to try to find dollars in other accounts, like recreation fee funds, which could include the gate people you see at a park; they make you pay an entrance fee,” Burgum said, explaining that those dollars don’t come from the same buckets of money that Schumer and Senate Democrats are withholding. “That’s not an appropriated dollar, but those are the dollars that go towards things like deferred maintenance within the parks, which are obviously essential, because we’re always underfunded on deferred maintenance.”
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Heard on the Hill
TEARS AT ENR? Sen. Martin Heinrich (D., N.M.) raised eyebrows at an Energy and Natural Resources hearing on October 29th when he started crying while talking about President Donald Trump renovating the East Wing of the White House. A Senate source told us that this was “truly bizarre behavior. Senator Heinrich should be embarrassed.”
INSTANT BEST SELLER: Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) released a new book called Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America’s Elite Universities. The move comes as Stefanik is virtually tied with controversial Gov. Kathy Hochul (D., N.Y.) in polls of a potential 2026 matchup. Stefanik tied her findings to how New York City is poised to elect an open anti-Semite as its next mayor. “If you look at the rise of an anti-Semite socialist, Zohran Mamdani, you cannot have that without a direct line from these poisoned Ivy League schools, leading directly to this moral rot that is currently manifesting in what’s playing out in the mayor’s race in New York City.”
IRS WASTE CONTROVERSY: Vance Ginn, the senior economist for Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), published a piece at the Washington Examiner arguing the IRS’s deeply controversial Direct File program should be terminated [ [link removed] ]. A Senate source told us that “when it comes to tax issues, ATR is trusted on the Hill. So it’s no surprise Ginn’s piece has made the rounds. Republicans want the Biden IRS Direct File scam gone.”
PRESSURE IS ON: The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), along with 30 state manufacturing associations, wrote to House and Senate leadership urging them to reopen the government. “With each passing day, the American people suffer new losses, and businesses remain stuck in neutral. It is time to move forward and allow the federal government to get back to work for Americans and their communities.”
SUPER COMPUTER: Eli Lilly and Company announced this week that it is building the most powerful AI supercomputer in the pharmaceutical industry.
SWOON FOR THUNE CAUCUS: The Washington Reporter can now exclusively confirm that Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) now knows about the legendary “Swoon for Thune” Caucus. That, and more, is in our latest interview [ [link removed] ] with him.
IN MEMORIAM: The Embassy of Israel hosted a Memorial Service for the people murdered by Palestinian terrorists on October 7th, 2023, hostages killed in Gaza, and IDF forces killed in combat. The service featured remarks from Ambassador Yechiel Leiter who spoke of his personal loss in the form of his son, Moshe, who was killed in action. Highlighting the memorial was a fireside chat between Reverend Johnnie Moore and Terry Kassel in which Moore described the commitment of the Evangelical community to partnering with Israel and Jewish communities around the world. When Kassel asked about the state of young evangelicals’ support for Israel, Moore suggested that the support is there, and it’s solid, but that more regular interactions between young Christians and young Jews will go a long way to strengthen those bonds into the future.
EXCLUSIVE: GOP super PAC makes first 2026 candidate endorsements
by Matthew Foldi
One of the GOP’s top outside groups is weighing in on two hotly-contested open House seats in Texas, backing Republican women that it calls “serious, electable conservatives we need representing Texas in Congress.”
In plans obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter, Winning For Women Action Fund (WFW AF) will endorse Alexandra del Moral Mealer and Jessica Hart Steinmann for Congress in Texas’s 9th and 8th Districts, respectively.
In announcing the endorsements, Winning For Women’s leadership stressed that the two women “embody the values of principled, solutions-oriented conservatism and represent the kind of leadership our party needs to build a strong House majority.”
“When Republicans have the opportunity to elect strong conservative candidates in safe seats, we need to seize it,” Meredith Allen, Executive Director of WFW AF, explained. “Alex and Jessica will fight tirelessly for the people of Texas — working with President Trump to promote prosperity at home and peace through strength abroad. They are ideal candidates to join the ranks of conservatives in Congress, and WFW AF is fully committed to ensuring their success.”
EXCLUSIVE: Senate Democrats bring anti-Trump witnesses with ties to controversial Arnold Ventures
by the Washington Reporter
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.), the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chair, is holding a hearing titled “The Future of Biotech: Maintaining U.S. Competitiveness and Delivering Lifesaving Cures to Patients.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), fresh off campaigning [ [link removed] ] with New York City mayoral candidate and Zohran Mamdani at a high-stakes rally, is bringing two witnesses with vocal anti-Trump records and funding from the controversial [ [link removed] ] billionaire-backed Arnold Ventures to testify.
The witnesses are Doctor Aaron Seth Kesselheim, a Harvard Medical School professor, and Doctor Reshma Ramachandran, a Yale assistant professor of internal medicine. Both have ties to Arnold Ventures, the corporation funded by Enron billionaire John Arnold, which uses dark money to push liberal policies like getting violent criminals out of prison and back on the streets, and ranked-choice voting.
Kesselheim received [ [link removed] ] funding from Arnold Ventures for drug pricing and regulatory research. His bio notes his ties to AV. “Dr. Kesselheim’s work is also currently funded by Arnold Ventures, the Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science, and the Engelberg Foundation,” it notes.
SCOOP: Speaker Johnson to Washington Reporter on government unions pressuring Senate Democrats
by Matthew Foldi
Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) explained to the Washington Reporter that he’s not surprised that government unions started publicly pressuring Senate Democrats to reopen the government. Multiple government unions started openly requesting that Democrats vote for the continuing resolution that almost all have voted for on multiple occasions.
In fact, Johnson described the very public hemorrhaging between Democrats and public sector unions as the outgrowth of the “historic” demographic shifts President Donald Trump and the GOP saw in 2024.
“It is not a surprise to me that union workers would come enthusiastically supporting common sense,” Johnson told the Reporter during a House GOP leadership press conference. “What we’re asking for here is common sense. They’re supporting the president, because they know who’s working for the American people and who is not, and who is causing and inflicting pain on the American people.”
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SCOOP: Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise talk shutdown and more on RSC’s latest podcast
by Matthew Foldi
Rep. August Pfluger (R., Texas) took the Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) podcast to new heights in its latest episode, obtained by the Washington Reporter; in the episode, Pfluger — the Chairman of the RSC — brought in big guns as his guests: Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R., La.).
Both Johnson and Scalise are former RSC chairs, and the conservative trio spoke about how they got to Congress and how they want to navigate the ongoing Schumer Shutdown.
Johnson explained that he and Scalise are “a lot less jovial right now” because they are both “really so frustrated, and we’re just angry, about the fact that Democrats are playing games right now.”
“We must have Democrats to reopen the government,” Johnson explained. “And they keep saying breathlessly that ‘it’s the Republicans. They’re in control of the government.’ Everybody knows from civics, and if you follow government, you have to have 60 votes in the Senate. We only have 53 Republicans. And so it is the Democrats who now voted 13 times to close the government.”
SCOOP: House GOP leadership and RSC jointly counterprogram the Schumer Shutdown
by Matthew Foldi
House Republican leadership partnered with the Republican Study Committee (RSC) in the latest display of GOP unity amidst unprecedented obstruction from Senate Democrats, as the Schumer Shutdown careens into its second month.
The Republicans’ leadership — Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R., La.), Whip Tom Emmer (R., Minn.), and Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R., Mich.) — joined with Reps. August Pfluger (R., Texas), Stephanie Bice (R., Okla.), Burgess Owens (R., Utah), Harriet Hageman (R., Wyo.), and Craig Goldman (R., Texas) to push back on what Johnson categorized as the “really crazy things” that Democrats want Republicans to fork over in order to reopen the government.
In contrast with Democrats, Republicans are not demanding anything, literally nothing, to reopen the government,” Johnson explained — he repeatedly gestured to a poster with the Democrats’ radical demands, which include “$200 billion in health benefits to illegal aliens,” “billions in wasteful programs to foreign countries,” “half a billion to left-leaning news organizations,” and “cut $50 billion from rural hospitals.”
OPINIONATED
Op-Ed: Rep. Roger Williams: Every five minutes, Democrats fail Main Street
by Rep. Roger Williams
Somewhere in America, a small business owner is checking their email, waiting for an approval for their loan that is not coming. Another is checking their payroll, trying to decide if they can make it another day without Small Business Administration (SBA) assistance or whether they will be forced to close their doors. Plans are stalled, paychecks are delayed, and confidence has slipped.
This scene will repeat itself again in five minutes. Then five minutes after that. And again, after that.
This is what the Democrat Shutdown looks like from Main Street. As Chairman of the House Committee on Small Business, I hear these firsthand experiences from small business owners across the country daily. For every day it drags on, an estimated 320 small businesses cannot access SBA guaranteed loans — roughly one every five minutes. The shutdown has become a ticking clock over Main Street, marking lost opportunities minute by minute.
Op-Ed: Andrew Langer: President Trump should reject the dangerous Biden policy that threatens access to life-saving wound care
by Andrew Langer
Every year, millions of Americans receive life-saving wound care from their trusted physicians. This care is especially important for American seniors, veterans, and people living with diabetes, among other chronic conditions. Unfortunately, the resurrection of a Biden-era policy by the Trump administration is threatening the ability of physicians to effectively treat these patients. This critical moment calls for policymakers to stand with doctors, nurses, and patients — not the Washington bureaucrats trying to limit access to life-saving wound care.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a policy that would recategorize skin substitutes — advanced wound care treatments that help the body heal — under the Medicare fee schedule and reduce access to care. A study in the Journal of Wound Care found that this change, rammed through only 9 days after President Joe Biden lost the election, would result in 431,429 unnecessary amputations. In a separate study, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimated loss of life from preventing access to skin substitutes could exceed 180,000.
President Donald Trump affirmed [ [link removed] ] his commitment to rolling back this Biden-era policy proposal and aiding suffering patients in accessing essential wound care. By resurrecting the policy, the Trump administration is, as President Trump put it, “playing Russian Roulette with people’s lives [ [link removed] ].” The policy is dangerous and reckless, and could have vast impacts on the more than 1.2 million Americans who receive care for diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers every year. Further, it undermines President Trump and RFK’s stated mission of fighting chronic disease and ending diabetes.
Op-Ed: Bonnie Glick: President Trump’s 20 Step program for the Middle East doesn’t start with enabling terrorists
by Bonnie Glick
President Donald Trump made history by ending the war in Gaza that was, lest anyone forget, brought on by the Gazans themselves through their murderous bloodlust of Israelis on October 7th, 2023. The president’s multi-step plan was designed to force behavior on both the Palestinians and on the Israelis.
On the Gazan side, the Palestinians, along with assurances from Qatar, Turkey, and other Arab countries, promised to release the 48 Israelis and other nationals held hostage for over 2 years. Among those hostages held are the dead bodies of two American citizens, Omer Neutra and Itay Chen, who were murdered by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza and whose bodies are cruelly being held as bargaining chips. Additionally, there are 11 more corpses, all murdered by Palestinians, being held by Hamas and their partners.
The international community, including Israel, lined up behind President Trump in support of his historic efforts to end a brutal war. However, some of America’s allies, predictably the progressives in Europe and Canada, are calling for Israel to speed up the timeline and resume operations that allow food aid to enter Gaza, despite Hamas not even successfully completing step one of the peace agreement.

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