Scott Bessent is a smart guy. But he only got the job as Treasury Secretary because Trump knows how to identify people who will roll over for him. Which is to say, he knows better. So let’s fact check his oped in today’s WaPo, shall we? washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/… 1. First, if you want to understand what the crypto legislation that passed the House will actually do to financial markets, here are the facts.

https://twitter.com/repcasten/status/1945522762384032092

Just learned that Mike Johnson, before coming to Congress claimed to be the Dean of a law school named after a pedophile. Which may explain a few things. Notably…
… he then voted to table a resolution I introduced to compel the release of the Matt Gaetz ethics report, which also included significant allegations of underage sexual abuse. clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024490

This is anti-scientific, immoral and economically irresponsible. I say this without hyperbole - when the history of this era is written, Donald Trump will have been responsible for more deaths than Stalin, Mao and Hitler combined. nytimes.com/2025/07/22/cli… Millions, if not billions will die if we don't address climate change; some will survive but if rivers keep moving, coasts keep eroding, fires keep burning we will be forced to become migratory. That is a choice.

I’m not wild about the cynicism here, partly because it blames all of Congress for things the Republican majority is jamming through, but more because it assumes that our founders actually created a Representative democracy. Some morning musings: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/… 1. To the first point, there are a host of issues that are squarely in the Democratic platform that regularly pass the House when Dems are in power but are blocked by Rs. Women’s rights, sensible gun control, campaign finance reform. All are supported by strong majorities.

If you've tuned into CSPAN anytime in the last 2 hours and found yourself slapping the side of the TV, wondering why the screen isn't changing, here's what's happening... 1. Lots of us including yours truly got in really late last night to vote on a bill that would slash taxes for billionaires, kick 17 million people off their health insurance, force lots of kids, seniors and veterans to go hungry AND is really unpopular. It's an easy "no" vote.

Because a number of folks keep asking, let’s talk about why the Democrats overwhelmingly voted to table Al Green’s motion to impeach Donald Trump. TL;DR: if you want Trump to be out of office ASAP, this was the right call, right now. Read on for the explanation… 1. Shortly after my wife and I got engaged we took a vacation to Wyoming. In the course of a horseback trip, our guide, upon learning of our upcoming nuptials, prior to offering me some advice said “I’ve been married 5 times, so I think I know a little something about women”.

This is not about the merits of Iran’s nuclear program. No president has the authority to bomb another country that does not pose an imminent threat to the US without the approval of Congress. This is an unambiguous impeachable offense. I’m not saying we have the votes to impeach. I’m saying that you DO NOT do this without Congressional approval and if Johnson doesn’t grow a spine and learn to be a real boy tomorrow we have a BFing problem that puts our very Republic at risk.

This is the reason why our Constitution has an emoluments clause. And every day that the House GOP refuses to do any oversight of the Trump family's grift is another day that our Republic gets a little more fragile. Thread: ft.com/content/13a6ce… 1. I've been raising a stink about Sun and Trump ever since he fronted $30M to World Liberty Financial, Trump's shady AF defi platform. thedefiant.io/news/tokens/ju…

Liz Truss lasted 49 days as Prime Minister. For context, that's less than 20% of the time that Kevin McCarthy lasted as speaker. And yet she - like him - thinks she has some wisdom to offer from that experience. (TL;DR: she's learned nothing.) washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/… As I said on the floor earlier this week, mediocre businesses hate competition for the same reason mediocre politicians hate DEI. Because they can't win in a meritocracy. But economic growth depends on competition - in labor and energy markets.

Watching the Senate cloture vote on the (highly misnamed) Genius Act and keep thinking back to a conversation I had with a Senior official in the Biden WH 4 years ago. I asked him what he thought about crypto and he said “how do you define money?” Thread: 1. It was a very Socratic process, but goes to the heart of the rot in the crypto space. The whole thesis is that it’s currency. But it isn’t, and never will be, for the same reason that gold, fine art and pork bellies aren’t money.

This is scary and highlights something that's painfully obvious in DC: smart people either don't want to work in this administration or are being turned away. But effective government - esp when crisis strikes - depends on having smart people around. washingtonpost.com/business/2025/… And that's huge own-goal. There is a deep pool of talent in DC that wants to work in the WH. Not the electeds (no disrespect intended) but the people they hire. Because while winning an election depends on a whole host of factors, hiring staff is an embarrassment of riches.

In a democracy, doing unpopular things is hard. The reason why CPAC goes to Hungary is because they still want to do unpopular things. Which puts us in a race: either democracy destroys today's @GOP or today's @GOP destroys our democracy. There can be only one. This is playing out in the reconciliation drama because (a) a party that cared about being popular would have already addressed the concerns raised by their left flank and wouldn't be in this fight today but also (b) @HouseGOP so-called moderates always fold.

This is sobering, but worth reading if you want to understand how badly Trump is destroying the economy. Just data. And entirely Trump-inflicted. apolloacademy.com/wp-content/upl… A few select slides: 1/ Trump did this.

A couple thoughts on this. First, it's good that they're pushing back on Medicaid cuts. Because it means that all the pressure they're getting at the townhalls they decided to stop holding is working. Keep the pressure up. BUT... ...they all voted for the budget bill that included those $880B of cuts and they KNEW this implied massive cuts to Medicaid. They hoped people wouldn't do that math at the time, and figured they could avoid pissing off Trump and kick the can down to the road for the next vote.

Something I've been thinking about, inarticulately for a while that I want to try and put to paper: why our judicial branch is - and should be - political. Thread: 1. Last week, some constituents were in town and we hooked them up with a White House tour, a Supreme Court tour and then I gave them a tour of the US Capitol. They joked that they did all three branches in one day.

Let's give some color here. Johnson is pretzelling himself to try to make him and his leadership team look less incompetent than they are. Here are the facts:

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1907138622228226095

1. First, for those not familiar with House procedure, before you can vote on a bill in normal order you have to vote on the rule that sets things like time for debate, amendment procedure, etc. It is normally a formality but necessary as a matter of parliamentary procedure.

Ok so here's where we are on a government shutdown. We have 3 options in front of us: (a) shutdown, (b) shutdown or (c) dont shutdown. Thread: 1. Option (a) shutdown is to pass the @HouseGOP CR. Because we are already in an illegal shutdown caused by the White House ignoring Congressional law and their text substantially weakens the ability of courts to enforce the law.

https://x.com/SeanCasten/status/1899474052831453228?s=19

Quick thread on ANOTHER bill the GOP is bringing to the floor this week. Specifically, to repeal the DeFi Broker Rule that the IRS issued under the last administration. The ONLY reason to support this bill is to facilitate tax evasion and money laundering. 1. A bit of jargon first. This is a bill under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). If it passes, it would not only repeal the rule but prevent this or future White House from offering substantially similar rules.

I don’t know whether the GOP will get the votes on their disaster of a bill this week. But I do know that majorities of Republicans voted against similar bills for all of the last 2 years. So what is making them strap on the ball gag and climb into Trump’s dungeon now? 1. As usual, don’t speculate on motive until you understand what they’re doing. Because this bill is really, really bad. A small selection of what they’re doing…

Some morning thoughts on where we are in this constitutional crisis and what we all have to do - and believe - to get out of this with our democracy intact: 1. First, the idea that you could have a democracy based on rule of law is a radical idea, no less so today than it was 250 years ago. Most of human history depended on might-makes-right, all powerful rulers.

This is what you do if you are mathematically illiterate and don’t give a damn about deficits. It is as stupid as it is irresponsible. Don’t let the words confuse you - it’s just a way to give money to billionaires. Quick explainer: 1. The Trump tax cuts passed in his last term blew a $2T hole in the budget. (I’ll explain this slowly for my slower colleagues: if you cut revenue, you have less money.). That was a 10 year tax cut, soon to return to the pre-Trump levels.