Remember back in July when Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) abruptly adjourned the House of Representatives for summer recess? The quick exit gave Republicans an escape from headlines about the Trump administration’s refusal to release files on Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased sex offender.
Now, Congress is about to return. And the Epstein drama is just one fire burning among many. As September begins, Republicans remain on the defensive, and this time they won’t be able to call a time-out.
The bottom line for congressional Republicans this fall is not governance but survival.
The hottest flame coming at them is the burning threat of an Oct. 1 government shutdown, unless there is a budget deal. Despite Republican majorities in both houses, the GOP has failed to pass next year’s appropriations, despite allowing government debt to reach record highs. To get a deal done, Republicans will likely need some Democratic votes. In exchange for their votes, the Democrats have demands in hand.
First, they want Republicans to restore cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). Both health care plans were decimated by President Trump’s recently passed tax and budget reconciliation bill.
Democrats risk paying a price with voters if they force a government shutdown. But 20 million Americans are about to be hit with higher health insurance premiums due to the Trump cuts. A big bloc of voters across party lines has already told pollsters that they agree with Democrats on this.
And with Trump’s approval numbers now in negative territory — especially on his handling of rising health care costs as well as overall inflation — Republicans on the Hill lack his shield from political heat.
Congressional Republicans also know that Trump’s name will not be on the 2026 ballot. In the past, his support within the MAGA base shielded them. There is no Trump shield next year, and Republicans are getting dire forecasts for their prospects in the midterms. As Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster, said in July, “midterms election are always a slog” for the majority party and “you are always running against history.”
The most relevant history is that Republicans lost 40 seats in the midterms during Trump’s first term.
Democrats, meanwhile, want to show they can put up a fight over the budget. That was not the case in March, when Democrats gave the GOP the votes to keep the government open. Democrats said they avoided a fight to prevent Trump from having a free hand to cut programs during a government shutdown.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was blasted by his party for not putting up a fight.
Now it is a different game. Before the August break, Trump and Schumer failed to agree on a deal to get more of the presidents’ nominees quickly approved. Schumer asked Trump to end a hold on spending previously approved by Congress in exchange for speeding up approval of nominees.
When Trump rejected the offer, he put up a post full of rage, telling Schumer to “GO TO HELL!”
Trump’s anger at Schumer has since shifted to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). Trump dismissed the veteran Republican as merely a disloyal acolyte, posting “I got [him] re-elected to the U.S. Senate when he was down by a lot.”
Trump insisted that Grassley lacks the “courage” to “solve the ‘Blue Slip’ problem” — referring to the Senate tradition of requiring both senators from a given state to sign off on certain judicial nominees. Grassley replied that he was “offended by what the president said, and I’m disappointed that it would result in personal insults.”
Look for that internal feud to slow the GOP. At best, congressional Republicans will try to nudge, if not elbow, the president to make a deal on the budget and on nominations. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said before the break that Schumer and Trump need to negotiate.
“At some point, obviously,” Thune told Politico, “there are certain things they are just going to have to figure out, because on some of these things where we need 60 [votes], there are going to have to be conversations.”
Schumer said Trump is “going to have to learn that he has to work with Democrats if he wants to get deals … going at it alone will be a failed strategy.”
While Republicans try to dig out of their hole, Democrats are poised to gain political momentum. Victories in gubernatorial races and legislatures in Virginia and New Jersey in November would boost morale.
And the president’s deployment of troops to occupy Washington D.C. is alienating independent swing voters the Republican Party needs for the midterms.
Meanwhile, the Epstein saga keeps boiling. The president’s team is trying to lower the heat, dispatching the deputy attorney general to interview Epstein’s imprisoned partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, who said Trump did no wrong.
Now, House Republicans are calling former Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to testify. As the U.S. Attorney in Miami at the time of his first prosecution, Acosta had engineered the slap-on-the-wrist deal that allowed Epstein to shield his co-conspirators.
I still believe Acosta should testify. His testimony is crucial — particularly given investigative journalist Vicky Ward’s reporting that Acosta told Trump transition vetting officials that he had been instructed to “back off” of Epstein because of his ties to U.S. intelligence.
Is that true? Every news outlet should lead with his answer.
Epstein remains a problem for Republicans as Congress returns. But there are fires everywhere. And should Democrats take control in 2026, a third Trump impeachment will be on the table.
Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book “New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement.”
