Remember Congress? It’s this branch of the federal government that writes and passes the laws. There’s an entire article, the very first one, in the U.S. Constitution (happy birthday, by the way!) dedicated to it. Two chambers, a big domed building, plus speeches and committees and votes. Sound familiar?
You can be forgiven if you’ve forgotten about the legislative branch lately. More so than in Donald Trump’s first term, the hottest spot in Washington these days is the Oval Office. Even those institutions that get a little attention now and then—the Supreme Court or the news media, say—are bit players in the ongoing drama. Congress, as pliant and disinterested in its own power as ever, seems like a tertiary character.
But this week, Congress is having a few moments, mainly on the committee front, with some high-profile hearings involving both FBI Director Kash Patel and recently fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez.
Patel was in the hot seat in front of both the House and Senate Judiciary committees, facing questions (chiefly from Democrats) not only about his handling of the manhunt for the alleged shooter of Charlie Kirk but also the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Patel’s curt and combative responses to those tough queries seem to boil down to this: Everything the FBI is doing is fine, better than before, and all is well. Democrats seemed unimpressed, but what matters more for Patel’s future is how he’s doing with Trump himself—or whether Patel’s rivals within the administration can exploit this moment to lower his stock in the White House.
Meanwhile, Monarez’s appearance (alongside other former public health officials) in front of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in the Senate allowed the ousted head of the CDC a chance to tell her side of the story. It did not reflect well on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, with Monarez saying that Kennedy insisted that she “needed to be on board” with a major change to the childhood vaccine schedule planned to be announced this month. Kennedy, she said, wanted “blanket approval” and would not accept that the evidence did not support the new recommendations.
That’s the oversight part of Congress’s remit, but what about the legislating? It may not surprise you to learn that the only other reason anyone is paying attention to Capitol Hill this week is another looming funding deadline. The government will run out of money on October 1 unless Congress can act by then. House Republicans have a plan for a two-month stopgap. Democrats have an alternative. Time is running out for both houses to get something passed, and you can probably bet it all on a solution being cobbled together at the last minute and onto President Trump’s desk to avoid a shutdown.
Is it any wonder Congress has a 70 percent disapproval rating?
Top Stories From the Dispatch Politics Team
The incursion of Russian military drones into Polish airspace during an assault on neighboring Ukraine last week has all the signs of another escalation of Vladimir Putin’s expansionist activity. Poland, with the assistance of multiple allied nations, shot down the drones and invoked Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty in order to prompt consultation with allies. The North Atlantic Council met to discuss the situation last week, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has said the allies “will closely monitor the situation along our eastern flank, our air defences continually at the ready.” Yet President Donald Trump, leader of the most powerful NATO country, seems to be watching developments unfold much like the rest of the public.
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