Vacation’s over.
For the last month, Congress has been out on its annual August recess, with members going back home, though many have avoided town halls to dodge criticism of President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” The ones who did hold events faced the wrath of their constituents.
But just like students returning to school after Labor Day week, the House and Senate will return to the Capitol, where they will have a full plate of the routine work of governing, as Republicans also try to run interference to protect Trump from self-inflicted wounds.
First comes the main event. For those who may have forgotten, House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the House of Representatives early as Democrats essentially jammed the House Rules Committee by trying to force amendments on files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted sex offender. Bills cannot come to the floor of the House without going through the Rules Committee with rare exceptions.
But as the future Mrs. Travis Kelce might say, August slipped away for a moment in time.
Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) had introduced a discharge petition to force a vote on the disclosure of the files related to Epstein without Johnson’s permission. Every Democrat planned to sign onto it, as did enough Republicans. But the petition needed enough days to ripen, which Johnson's sending Congress home delayed.
And Khanna and Massie are planning a big fireworks show when they get back to work. Khanna told Meet the Press over the weekend that on Wednesday, he’ll hold a press conference with 10 survivors of Epstein’s. This will inevitably make it harder for Republicans to avoid the issue.
Trump, for his part, has been plagued by Epstein going back to the last election, when many podcasters and “manosphere” media personalities pushed for him to release the files. He’s called the affair “bulls**t” and said his followers fell for a scam perpetrated by Democrats.
Polling has shown Johnson’s gambit to send Congress home somewhat paid off as Epstein disappeared from the headlines in August. But the inevitable revelations from the House Oversight Committee’s investigation will cause the story to make its way back into the headlines.
Epstein is only one of the Republicans’ big worries. At the end of the month, the government runs out of money.
The Senate and House typically work on the 12 spending bills that fund the government for a full year as the fiscal year comes to an end. If they don’t, they typically pass a stopgap spending bill to keep negotiating and usually pass spending bills by Christmastime.
But after Republicans jammed through a continuing resolution on a party-line vote without Democratic input in the House and Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted to pass it through, and Democratic voters revolted. Now, Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Democrats in both chambers have every incentive to sink the bill.
Republicans further crossed the Rubicon in July before the recess when they passed a rescissions bill on a party-line vote to defund PBS, NPR and foreign aid programs. Then last week, Trump announced another “pocket rescission” that canceled $5 billion in foreign aid.
That will likely make Democrats less likely to negotiate with Republicans on the appropriations process. What is the point of bipartisan negotiations if Republicans will just do spending cuts right after?
Curiously, this also puts Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, in a tough spot as she fights a tough re-election back in Maine. Her top calling card has been that she can bring back money for projects. But Democrats blocking negotiations takes away that chit.
Finally, there comes another big problem: Trump’s old nemesis, the Affordable Care Act. As The Independent’s Inside Washington reported, subsidies for the program otherwise known as Obamacare that Joe Biden extended will expire at the end of the year, which could cause healthcare prices to spike.
Trump is already facing criticism for the way tariffs have caused prices to surge. Utility bills have also increased precipitously in recent months. A jump in health care prices would only hurt him even more.
Lastly, there will be the matter of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last week, Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired Susan Monarez as director, even though Trump nominated her. Expect Democrats and even Republicans like Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy to raise this when they return.
Trump got most of what he wanted in the first three quarters of this year in Congress. It passed his spending cuts, his Big Beautiful Bill and a continuing resolution without negotiating with the Democrats. But this fourth quarter of the year might prove to be much more difficult.
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